Applique My Way to the Finish Line

Recently I attended a weekend workshop with Chris-Roberts Antieau.

Chris makes great applique folk art like this one:

The quality and detail of the sewing in her pieces is sooo gooood.

Chris taught us some of her sewing secrets (which I'm not sharing). But I'll let you know some tricks I discovered as I finished my piece at home in Minnesota. Here's how far I had gotten:

 I still had pieces to add and needed to figure out how make that happen. I didn't have a solid pattern to start with and my design was changing as I worked.  So--piece of glass I used in college to mix paints on--to the rescue!

If I didn't like the design, a wet paper towel wiped it clean.

To cut out the pieces, I was able to compare size to the sketch, without making a pattern.

Next step was the sewing. Chris had given us a brief lession. She had a nice acrylic extension table attached to her machine to make it level when you sew. 

Since I didn't have one, I just set my tabletop ironing board next to my machine.

My machine just didn't have the mojo to do a tight zigzag, like Chris's machine does. So sometimes I would sew over an area twice to make it thicker.

I made test pieces along the way to work out color and stitch width. 

I cheated a bit by using a brush pen Sharpie® marker to fill in where the sewing maching didn't.

For the eyes, I used this tape measure fabric I had seen on the internet a few years ago.

Being a graphic designer, an X-ACTO™ blade became my chief cutting tool. Great for cutting threads, but EVEN BETTER FOR GETTING THE PAPER OFF THE BACKING. Just slide the blade between the layers and voila! Easy to tear it away!

Did I mention that sewing long straight stiches was easy, but tight curves were difficult? I tried free-motion quilting on my machine by dropping the feed dog to do the type. I wasn't very good at that and then this happened: the foot snapped in two.

So I limped to the finish line so I could call it FINISHED. I used a marker to sign the piece. 

I don't think Chris has to worry about me putting her out of business.

Time to clean the basement.