Tuesday, April 2, 2013

TTC: made-fabric border - part 1

{posted by Stephanie}
I've begun turning several slabs of orange, right-angle-seamed "made fabric" (process pics and notes in my previous post, here) into a pieced border for my Tea Towel Challenge WIP.

First, using the 45-degree angle line on my 6x24" ruler, I cut 4" diagonal strips from the MF slabs. This turns all those right-angle seam lines on-point, which is the desired effect:

Then I used my "Easy Dresden" ruler to cut fat wedges, like so:

You could free-hand cut tumbler shapes and it would work equally well and be slightly more wonky. I decided to start with some element of regularity as this is going to get wonkier as we move along. I cut a bunch of these, but did not use all my made-fabric. Some remains in larger pieces for a later step.

At this point I gave in to a nagging impulse to add a little of my favorite "neutral" to balance out all this orange and liven up what will be the outside edges:
(Yes, I just called chartreuse a neutral. Let's not quibble about that, shall we?)
The fat ends of the tumblers got sewn to a nice long strip, spaced about an inch apart for trimming:
You might wonder why not do this earlier, before cutting the tumblers, but a moment's reflection will confirm that would put the contrasting strip on the fat end of half the tumblers and on the narrow end of the others. Fine for some other purpose, but not what was wanted here.

Finish the tumbler pieces with a flip and press:

... then trim the addition to continue the tumbler side angle:

I'm using the Easy Dresden to trim because it was already at hand; any straight-edge ruler will do just as well for this step.

Here's a teaser of what's coming up next:
 
This is where the wonky will happen. Stay tuned for part 2...








6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree chartreuse is a neutral! Love the color. Your blogs are so clear and easy to follow. Can't wait to see where your playing leads.

Elaine M said...

Love where you are going with this! Thanks for all the pictures.

Paulette said...

Quibble about chartreuse being a neutral? Never. :) Your process is so fun to watch!

Char said...

Can't wait for part 2!

Chris said...

Are you kidding? lime green goes with everything!!! Love your play, keep having fun, can't wait to see more!

Ellie Q said...

Very neat! Thanks for showing us the process. Love the idea of turning the made fabric on point too!