I’m happy to say after a day of trying to fix this dang laptop, it’s working again. Not sure what happened but the short version is that I ended up having to refresh the whole laptop which means lose all your programs which means spend the day reinstalling programs…ack, ugh, no fun. However…in between reinstalling and pressing buttons here and there, I ran back and forth between sewing room and ironing board and worked on a new art quilt.
After watching Wendy Butler Burn’s Craftsy class (Pictoral Quilts), I had the itch to make my own art quilt using human form but not use all of her techniques. She is a wonderful teacher and spends so much time perfecting every step…me, not so much. If there’s a way I can do something with fusible and not turn edges down, I’m there. I’m your girl. So I traced this picture I had of Amanda from 2 summers ago.
I scanned it and copied it into Photoshop. From there I printed it as a poster size PDF file and taped all the pages together. This is where Wendy would send you to Kinko’s for an enlargement…no time for that!
I printed it twice so that I could cut one up into template pieces. This should have been done on freezer paper but regular printer paper works just fine if you are going to use fusible web and reverse the image anyway.
I hung the master copy on the design wall and started choosing fabrics and pinning the pieces to the master.
I continued to do this all afternoon and here is where I’m leaving off for the day…
In my excitement, I neglected to piece or choose a background fabric so that will need to come next…a girl needs a place to fuse these pieces to after all!
I am windowing my fusing so that I can stitch over it more easily. I forgot to do that with the hair and face so I might need a redo or to stitch those pieces before I fuse them to the background so there’s less bulk for the needle to go through.
Any suggestions for background piecing? I’m thinking lots of different colored green squares. I don’t think I have anything big enough to use as one piece in my meager stash. I think pieced will be more interesting anyway.
I’m off to make dinner as we have a few kids here for dinner and AP History project homework.
Hope your day was really much better than mine!!!
3 responses to “Woes & Artsy Progress”
I think lots of green squares is a good idea. You could shade them a bit too so they act like the shadows around her on the grass. It’s looking really great so far!
I need to add more to my tweet about classes. Seriously – if you want to teach, just go for it. If you pitch your classes as beginner level you will always know more than your students so will never get surprised by a student who knows it all. Then you can gauge after your first class where your teaching level is at.
Try your local quilt shop – check out their class list first so you know what they already teach then pitch them a proposal about teaching fusible appliqué as you have some serious skills and knowledge there. How about the shop that sells your patterns?
Or do you have a local community facility that you can hire? That’s what I did and then I advertised on our local Facebook community grapevine page, on the library noticeboard, through the local guild and all of a sudden I had people signing up and I HAD to run classes whether I got scared or not! I kept class numbers small so I wouldn’t get overwhelmed.
I learnt so much about how I should run it and organise it and how much we can fit into lessons etc that I feel heaps better prepared for my next round. And they are asking for more so I think it was a success.
I hope you try running some classes. You sound like such a nice person on your podcast that I doubt your students could do anything but love you!
I love the way it’s coming together Sandi! My favorite part is where you divided the sunglasses to have a reflection of the sky. I can’t wait to see how this one will turn out!
Thanks Kati! I’m excited to work on it some more. I like the sunglasses too 🙂