It was a beautiful morning here so went for a long beach walk......
...interesting clouds....
...a starfish washed up...
...lots of shells today and froth from the waves....
...brought this heart shaped pebble home...
...Jack went for a paddle!
Yesterday I had a great 'brainstorming session' with my friend Jo from Thoughtful Threads. It was really good to bounce ideas around and so today I made a start on my quilted play-mat.
I began with a small square....
..I backed the yellow fabric with Bondaweb, traced the sun design and cut out...
...ironed on the blue cotton....
...and stitched, I love this puffy sun!
I had lots of problems stitching around the edge, tried free motion and small zigzag but the thread kept breaking and some of the stitches didn't 'catch' so changed the thread, slightly better, changed the needle, but still very frustrating-swore a bit- then tried with the feed dogs up and it was great!!
I can just see little fingers poking the puffy sun!!
Then decided to make a start on the caterpillar panel for the reverse side....
I cut double wadding in the shape of the caterpillar, pinned and stitched the segments to secure....
I then placed and stitched a square of wadding behind the panel and stitched around the body with a close zigzag, then restitched the segments with a very thin satin stitch which gave a really puffy effect-just what I wanted.....
...finally I free machined the feet, antenna and eyes resulting in a segmented quilted caterpillar, this time the free machining worked perfectly!!!
Only 23 small squares to be appliqued and stitched and the butterfly panel on the reverse side. I think/know this project is going to take me quite a while!!!
They look fab Irene. Cute and cuddly.
ReplyDeleteI LOVE this play mat - so clever!
ReplyDeleteThank you
ReplyDelete