Don't Screw This Up

I think we all reach an important stage when we're working on any project; everything is going well, you're liking what you see, you can visualize the end result...and this nagging little voice in the back of your head is quietly chanting "don't screw this up, don't screw this up..."

I've started referring to this as the
D-Stu stage.   In my case, it usually presents itself the strongest about a month before the quilt show deadline, when there is no way you can just start over.

I don't know why that nagging little voice causes so much fear.  I always screw something up; it's one of the hazards (and benefits) of being self-taught.   And if I didn't screw up, I'd never come up with "oh that's clever!" solutions.

So, of course I didn't listen to my nagging voice, plunged ahead.... and I think I screwed up "Cat Noir."

Couldn't leave well enough alone, I guess.   I thought Clawdette needed more dramatic shading, and she definitely needed some supportive quilting on her face, so I thought I could accomplish both by quilting in light shades of gray.  The result?  I gave my femme fatale 5 o'clock shadow and a dirty paw.

Oops.

Well, now it gets interesting.  I drop this quilt off for judging in three weeks, and I work outside the home full time.  Whatever I come up with needs to be fast.

Of course I'm a little annoyed with myself that I did this, but I'm trying to stay positive.   This is my chance to rethink the original look of Clawdette, see what I can add that might balance the overall look or give her something to increase that noir mystique.

A Touch of Embroidery

Nearly finished with my black and white challenge quilt, "Cat Noir."  One of the requirements of the challenge is to incorporate embroidery.

I had always planned for my femme fatale to be holding a handkerchief, so a monogram was only natural.   The challenge said the embroidery could be either hand or machine, so I chose both.

I needed a very sheer fabric for her handkerchief to make it stand out, so I used a doll apron I found in my stash, took off the ruffle and moved the lace to the new edge.   This is a very loose weave fabric, so I traced my monogram which I'd printed off my laptop onto Sulky tear away stabilizer and machine basted it for embroidery.

I free-motion stitched the entire letter in white 100 silk and carefully cut away the stabilizer (Sulky makes a great tear-away, but the fabric would have distorted if I'd pulled instead of cut).  Then I hand stitched around the white with a single stand of dark gray DMC embroidery floss to make it pop.

I had already quilted the areas under Clawdette's paw so the handkerchief could just be hand stitched on top.
It gave it just the floaty 3D effect I'd wanted.

Printing on Fabric, the Sequel

As if I needed another reason to only use 100% silk thread to appliqué and quilt; I discovered when I was making last year's challenge quilt (Quilt Like an Egyptian), that if it turns out that the thread doesn't match as well as you thought it would, you can fix it.

Among its many attributes, silk is very dyeable.   You can touch up sections of stitched silk thread with gel pens or inks and heat set to make them blend beautifully.

For example, here is the back of "Cat Noir."  Both sides feature written 'dialogue, and I knew the quilting would probably cut right through it on the back.

I used light gray in the bobbin to match the background of the text, and when I was finished, I went back over the text on the back with a black Micron pigment pen and heat set it. 

Later I'll camouflage the other light stitching with Tsukineko black and gray inks, and voilà; both sides of my quilt will tell their story.

Printing on fabric

Three important tools to have for handwriting on fabric:  permanent ink, pigment if possible, a very hot iron to heat set, and protein, to keep your hand steady.  Never trust your hand if it hasn't been fed properly.

Quiltcation Day One

Couldn't have a film noir inspired quilt without the monologue.  This will appear in the swirling smoke around my main characters.

There are lots of ways to add words to fabric, but I favor printing out my prose in the chosen font, slapping it on my light box and tracing it onto the fabric.  In this case, I used plain old roller ball with black gel ink.  I've had good results with these pens before, but I always try writing on a small section of the fabric to make sure it's not going to bleed, and test it again after heat setting it.

The New Sewing Room (Part Two)

Our house has this huge family room upstairs, which I was originally going to turn into my bedroom, but the skylights make the room very loud in the rain, so this room turned into a catch all for projects and leftover furniture for many years. 

Those skylights, which can be a detriment in bad weather, also give this room the best natural light you can get; very important when trying to match thread to fabric or check true colors.   Perfect choice to turn into my new and improved studio.

The room had shelving in the corner when we moved in, and as I keep a lot of scrap collections in plastic bins, it should hold them perfectly.

I'm leaving the cutting table downstairs, so I knew I was going to need a layout table for my studio.  My mother and son came across this great walnut drop leaf table at the Betty Griffin Thrift Shop for just $75.

One of the leaves had a split along the grain line, so I patched it with a few mending plates and then bolstered it from underneath with a big wood cube shelf to keep it steady.  As luck would have it, the table is the exact same height as my sewing table (which is an altered oak desk we also got at the thrift shop ).  I finally have room to sew!

Take Two

Sometimes it really pays to start over.  I'm much happier with my b&w challenge quilt's main character, Nick Hunter.

Instead of relying on appliqué to shade his face and give color to his eye, the entire face is a single appliqué, hand colored with pigment pens and Tsukineko inks.