Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Anti-Procrastination day

I don't usually sew for a commission.  When I first retired I thought I would make my spending money by going to craft sales and doing Etsy.  It didn't take me long to realize that route was not for me.  I still have some of the items I made for that endeavor.  My friend Debbie does those things and loves it and she is making a nice little business out of her skills.  However, I am 10 years older and I want to spend the time I have remaining making quilts that take time and no one could afford them if I were to put a price on them. That all to say I did accept a job 3 months ago and because it is difficult, have put it off.  Yesterday I jumped in.

There are 2 parts to the assignment: a tshirt quilt made from very small college tshirt that have already been cut up so that will be difficult and a large tree with leaves that people signed with a greeting and a name at my friend's daughter's wedding.  The tree had been sewn on with white thread and the edges were ragged.  The leaves were rather in a mess so ironed the leaves with Best Press, then ironed them onto a fusible stabilizer so I can trim off the frayed edges.  I then satin stitched around the whole tree and made note of the time spent and materials used.  I sent pictures to the owner and told her what I wanted to do from there which is to change the original birds, add a colorful border, and embroider their wedding date on it as well as adding a double sided fusible to the leaves and then blanket stitching them down.  The tree is a very cute idea.

Original Tree with leaves


Ironing leaves onto a thin fusible web for stability

Satin Stitching tree edge-covered the white thread and made edge look finished

Sending pictures to Alison about some stylistic options-the binding needs to be a different color but it shows how adding a print to the binding would really show off the quilt

Original birds look rather dingy to me-asked if I could change them for a brighter blue-either the blue with hearts or . . .

The Kaffee Fasset with blue circles and green dots-also, i think the bride and groom's names and wedding date should go right under the fork of the tree
I worked almost 4 hours on all of that so I didn't get anything else done yesterday.  But felt really good that I got this started and have a direction to go.
4 hours, 1/2 spool of Embroidery thread, 3 bobbins of thread, 2 yards of Pellon fusible web

2 comments:

Quiltedtime said...

You are definitely making some good construction and style decisions on this. You are right about the colorful striped border. It really adds life and interest.

magnoliasntea said...

What a project! I do love the tree idea with the signed leaves. The new border is way better than the first one. Hope the rest goes smoothly for you.