Last Minute Gifts

I hope that everyone has had a wonderful holiday- Christams , Hannukah, Eid!! I spent yesterday picking up and planning my next projects . I am thinking about things that I want to do as opposed to projects to work on for sale. i really love this time of year as it is my true play time! the garden is not calling as everything is asleep, the kids are well occupied with friends and their own projects and once I get my art space straightened out , I can dive in to some new ideas and projects!!

I did want to share some projects that i POWER CREATED just before Christams. These gifts were so press off the sewing machine that they were still smoking as I wrapped them!!

I have just stuck my toe into the fabric creating waters using a wonderful new fusible web called Misty Fuse. This stuff is awesome- I love it!! It has been advertised in my two favorite magazines CPS and Quilting Arts for a long time and many of my Art group friends use it often. Now was my turn.!!!

This padfolio is designed to hold an Office tablet of lined paper and has an inside slash pocket for storing loose papers. Below I have provided the steps that I used for putting this project together.

My materials were:

background fabric from my stash, dismembered silk flowers, painted drier sheets, stamped fusible web, dyed cheesecloth, rayon thread for decorative stitching, fusible Timtex(Ultra heavy stabilizer) sewing machine with zig-zag stitch, parchment paper , tuille, iron and ironing board..

Here is my starting pile. I painted the drier sheets with Lumiere paints. Sometimes I used several colors on one sheet and I did not saturate the sheets with colors- I left open white areas. i also ripped the sheets into smaller pieces.

I stamped some images- again using Lumiere paints - onto some fusible web that had a paper backing and let the images dry thoroughly.

You can see here-hopefully- how gossamer fine this Misty Fuse wb is! The first thing that I did was fuse the web to my background fabric.

Then I went about placing my blossoms and painted drier sheet bits werever I wanted them to be. I simply collaged them . When I found an arrangement that was pleasing, I put down the parchment paper over the top and fused everything down with the iron. Then I move on to the next section. I started in one corner and the collage grew from there. For the stamped images, I peeled off the paper backing and placed the web with image down on top of the collage and heated the whole thing again. In this photo you can see the fern image just to the right of the two orange flowers.

This was the sheet once all had been fused to the background fabric.

Next I covered the piece with fine white tuille. You can see the pile of tuille on the left. I pinned everything down really well and went to the sewing machine.

I used various colors of threads and stitched centers in all of the flowers to resemble stamens. i stitched along many of the fern images in green threads and I did lots of Free Motion Embroidery (FME) all over the place to secure everything together. It is difficult to see lots of the stitching at once so I took several photos.

Here you can see the stitched flower stamens and the painted cheesecloth that I added to the left of the purple flowers.

It is easiest to see all of the stitching from the backside of the piece! The stitching adds a wonderful additional layer of texture to the whole project.

Once the stitching was complete. I cut the fabric up and fused it to the Timtex(heavy stabiliser). I then fused identical size pieces of interior fabric to the other side of the timtex and satin stitched the perimeter of each piece. Here you cn see the final padfolio with the interior fabric that I used. I made some cording out of coordinating ribons and yarn to use to tie the padfolio closed and tacked it to one seam. I created a button out of a scrap of the fabric/Timtex?lining sandwich and sewed it to the front with a green bead.

Here you can see the cording and the Button Closure. As an extr little giftee I amde a book mark out of another scrap of fabric, sme beads and a giant paper clip. (available at Staples). I made a poccket of the fabric sraps, stitched around it on three sides and glued the clip into the pocket with Fabri-tac. Then I added the beads and extra cording tails as embellishments.

I am really pleased with this project and I know that I wil be making many more as gifts!! I have also asked several friends to save their used drier sheets for me! They just look at me, role their eyes and give me a hug!! They are beginning to understand and my art friends want me to teach a class for this project!!!!

It is going to be a great Arting year!!!!