Sunday, January 10, 2010

Mistakes are Simply Opportunities for Learning

This week I tried a few new things. I folded squares of freezer paper in half, in half again, then into thirds. I slowly cut a pattern from the edges and opened out the paper to reveal a 6-sided snowflake. This was ironed, shiny side down to the background of the tree quilt. I created 4 more and ironed them down.

So what did I learn after sewing around each cutout:

. . . quilting does not show up on patterned fabric even if it's a very light coloured background,

. . . even if you change colour to a darker thread, quilting does not show up!

I think I may have to quilt heavily within the open spaces to highlight the design. But I don't think I will.


So what's underfoot now:

I'm creating free-motion swirls around the rest of the background to mimic snowflakes falling in a wind. That's my hope anyway.

So what did I learn from this process:
. . . I really appreciate my walking foot. I used it for the first time around the Christmas tree and managed to sew a quarter inch around the blocks as well as in the ditch very smoothly. I like that foot!!!!
. . . I'm not sure what to do when I get to the border, so I tried to echo the border when I came to it with straight stitching. I think in the future it might be a good idea to echo the border first to create the stitching space.

Oh well, it's all a learning process . . . and it's the process that I love. The product is the gravy.:-)

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