Hello again Internet People! Mother is still alive and kickin, I have just been obsessing on my newest adventure again. The last time I posted I talked about a 3-dimensional butterfly applique I was working on creating. She is not quite finished yet, but she has inspired a whole new adventure that has been consuming all of my available time and energies.
I'll start at the beginning. Here is the butterfly:
I haven't attached her body yet because I am planning to use that to attach her to the quilt. She will also have some further embellishments before she is complete, but I enjoyed making her so much that she inspired me to start on a monumental undertaking, all done by hand.
I had really forgotten just how much I love to sew by hand. I was twenty years old before I touched my first sewing machine, and I had been sewing for ten years by then.
The machines do make it faster, and I do enjoy sewing on all of my machines, but there is just something so soothing, so blissful about sewing by hand. I mentioned a few months back that I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, because no one had ever allowed me the opportunity to pursue my own interests. Suddenly there was no one standing in my way any more and I was completely lost for direction. Well, I think I have found my direction. I cannot remember the last time I have felt so damn good, mentally and emotionally anyway. My fingers are sore, and I am a little stiff from spending too much time sitting here on my bed, but I am so freaking happy its almost scary!
So, I figured, if I am having this much fun I might as well just go all in. I am still working out an overall design plan, but I have started creating some of the pieces for my new "monumental" project. As near as I have determined so far, it will be a very large, very detailed, flower garden scene. I started by tracing out circles onto fabric to create "yo-yo's". Now, I should mention that I have avoided making Yo-yo's all of my life, I never liked the damn things very much. Yeah, they are kinda cute, but they are usually rather large and often rather pointless, so I avoided them. Until now.
The finished yo-yo's will be used as centers for the larger flowers and as tiny flowers themselves, like for forget-me-nots.
And here are some of the finished yo-yo's. I put the dime in the picture to show you the scale of the madness I have immersed myself in.
Yes, the little tiny purple ones are kind of a challenge, but I am still having a grand time.
Last night I cut out patterns for leaves to go with my flowers. Rather than trying to fight against my own nature and try to draw the damn things, I just took a piece of sticker paper and started cutting. When I came up with a basic scale that I felt I could work with I cut out a bunch of different leaf shapes and then peeled the paper off the back and stuck them to the sides of a cardboard cereal box. And then cut them out again. Then I traced around them on some pieces of my hand dyed fabric and rough cut them all out. I think there is about a hundred of them all together. It is my intention to sew some of them flat to the quilt, and have others that will be able to stand out from it. So, I will turn under the edges on some of these, and some of them I will line with another piece of fabric, sew around the edges and then turn it right side out. That way they will be finished on the backside too. I am still working out this process, but I am having fun considering all of the possibilities.
I fully expect this project to take months, or even years to complete. I am even accepting of the fact that I will probably start and stop this project many time before it even gets to the stage where you all can start to see what I am envisioning. That is all okay. It is also okay if I completely and totally obsess over it and finish it in a few weeks. Where ever it takes me will be fine. As I said from the beginning, this is going to be a grand new adventure, and I hope you all enjoy the journey because I know I will!
No comments:
Post a Comment