Making Some Headway!

All of the Willow branches are finished and the water reflections are on, although I still have some free motion stitching to do on it. I had to wait until I could temporarily place the leaves so I’d have a better idea about the rest of the reflective colors.

I did have to return to the dyeing process to get some more colors that will bring it all to life and I’m happy with how those turned out. There’s not much left of it!

So, I auditioned placement of the leaves by pinning them up and as you can see they hang there nicely, I was planning on appliqueing each of them onto the quilt but I really like how they look, hanging loosely! Problem is they tend to curl up more than I like after a short while, so did some experimenting. I applied some matte gel to the backs but not with great results because as much as I tried to keep them flat while i was brushing it on, they would keep lifting up a bit and the medium would lift and then some would get onto the front and leave unpleasant looking residue marks. I over painted the fronts after that but it didn’t do anything to do away with the residue and they also hung too flat taking away the attractive loose quality. I thought about using fabric stiffener which I use on some of my fabric earrings but that makes it stiffer than I want it to be. I tried misty fusing another piece of fabric (more tedious cutting out) but it still looked flat. Finally, I took more fabric and pressed some Heat&Bond Lite on it, then fused the leaves that already had a Heat&Bond backing. Some had Misty Fuse on back and some had Steam & Seam backing. I fused those also to Heat&Bond because it’s the most flexible. I still had/have to re-cut them all but It’s easier to cut and perhaps the best part is that all the edges are effectively sealed so I don’t have to satin stitch the edges! Still have a lot to do.

Ann Baldwin May reminded me to vacuum out my machine and when I did I realized it had been quite awhile since I had last done so – YIKES! There was so much dust in there and it did help some on the slipping problem I was having. But it didn’t stop the thread from breaking. I changed the needle which helped some but it’s still breaking, even with new thread. So, I was reminded when a blog post from Leah Day arrived in my inbox that there is a thread that can help with this; I ordered some Isacord which is due to arrive Monday! I’ll have to work fast when it gets here!

As I wait for the Isacord, I’ll be cutting out the rest of the leaves, working on a Pecca Kucha presentation for the exhibit and doing some badly needed cleaning up around here!