A V-wonderful Friday Evening..

What a great evening/night. I hung out with BumbleBeans and I actually PLAYED...It has been so long since I just sat at a machine, dug in a bin of scraps and sewed them together without a thought.  Oh soo relaxing after a long work week.  (Remember Thanksgiving week was a short work week, smiles).


I used the wonderful make fabric concept that is the essence of this site.  So for those that need a quick refresher, a picture is indeed worth a thousand words.

This is how it begins...

Then you start to see this.

Time to cut it up even more....this is about cut number three...oh soooo much fun just slashing away.

Then I left and went home.  Allegedely to go to bed to get up early.  But it called me back.

And I was not tired till I was able to see these....

And that is a lovely 15 minutes of Play....I wonder what these will become...Thanks V...a great time.

My 15 Minute Sew-Along

First I want to say thanks to Victoria for setting this challenge up. I haven't quilted in a few years (since my kids were born) and this is just the thing to get me back on the wagon.

My prerequisites with this project:

1. I don't want to buy anything (all the supplies must come out of my stash)
2. We are in the process of relocating (painful backstory is here) and so I can't find my rotary cutter, mat or even ruler (at least I have my machine!), so everything needs to be eye-balled and cut with a scissors. YIKES! (I am not going to buy temporary ones per Rule #1)
3. I want to use this as a chance to practice my machine applique (since I currently suck at it) so I am not going to make square blocks (which is good since I don't have a ruler *giggle* )

So there it is. Here is what I have done so far:

The first thing I did was pull out my fabric stash (which I keep in a cardboard 4-drawer organizer sorted by color.) How does everyone else store their scrap stash? I think it is a pretty good system but really I do need a few more categories (like purple, whites, and novelty prints) I just don't have enough room to let my scraps take over another set of bins.

I tend to work in the blues and reds a lot so that is what I had the largest scrap selection of and those are the colors I started with. I am going to try to stay in the same color family and get a less scrappy look.
I started assembling the scraps completely randomly. I don't think it is the best way of doing it, but since I didn't have a rotary cutter I couldn't really square the pieces up. Instead I used the scissors to make semi straight edges on which I attached additional pieces of fabric.

Because I am going to cut down the pieces for applique, I ended up with wonky shaped pieces. (I think wonky is going to be a word I use a lot in this project!) :D


I must admit, I didn't really make a big dent in my stash, but it feels so good to be quilting again! Stay tuned for the big project I decided to tackle now that I have my scrappy fabric.

A start

To get my photo the right size, I used a projector.
I traced the lines I wanted from the photo, onto a transparency sheet and blew it up to the size I wanted.

Now I am cutting pieces and placing them on the paper drawing, to see how it looks.
I used a dark and light brown wool for the hat and for my eyes. Seemed easier to do the eyes with wool, but I might change my mind. I was thinking of doing black stitching around it, to emphasize the look. I am using tea stained fabric for the main skin, and a darker tea stained to get depth.



I used primitive shirting, which works great with this. I may redo it with wash away, so I can turn my edges and do better placement. The vest is a dark red wool. This wool is from thrift stores. It is from lady's jackets, that has 20 percent nylon. It really felts up nice for applique. I am still debating on the hair. I have some really nice wool yarn, that I would love to couch, but it means, I have to figure it all out for placement, so we shall see;)



This is the background fabric, I will be using. I thought it had the look of the old photo background curtains. I am thinking about bordering the picture with black around the edge, to give it a photo look.

My many moods

I wanted to do something fun with this one and not get too complicated.
I took an old photo that we had done up, years ago and put it through a filter to simplify it.
Now I will take this photo along with the original and sketch it out on paper, then blow it up to size on my projector.
As I sketch, I will add or take away in areas, and think about fabrics or embellishments I can use for certain parts.
It will probably end up as naive folk art;)

Debbie