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.
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| Original Tree with leaves |
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| Ironing leaves onto a thin fusible web for stability |
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| Satin Stitching tree edge-covered the white thread and made edge look finished |
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| 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 |
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| Original birds look rather dingy to me-asked if I could change them for a brighter blue-either the blue with hearts or . . . |
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| 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
