A heart to hang in Mom's window... |
Over a year later, the heart that I made out of ribbon is still hanging in my
upstairs window.
The outward facing side is made out of strips of ribbon like my original. I arranged the strips on top of the fusible side of a piece of Decor Bond, so there was ultimately no sewing involved. (For those who have never done this, please use a pressing cloth on ribbon. It may not fuse that readily to the interfacing and require repeated passes. The last thing you want to have happen is for the ribbon to scorch or shrink under the steam/heat.)
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It's always easier to secure the smallest pieces of fabric first. I ended up with this large strip at the end, which I turned under on both sides to sit on top of everything.
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The last part of the project was to (bias) bind the two halves into one.
From conversations with Mom over the past year, I'd gotten the impression
that she likes the idea as well. Since I've been cutting down on the number
of things that I make for her (she can only use so many), a gift of a heart
that she can display in her own window seemed perfect.
Armed with a bunch of primarily Robert Kaufman red themed fabrics and
the remainder of my red and white ribbon, I set out to make a double-sided
heart. (The picture you see above is an edited version showing half of each
side.)
The outward facing side is made out of strips of ribbon like my original. I arranged the strips on top of the fusible side of a piece of Decor Bond, so there was ultimately no sewing involved. (For those who have never done this, please use a pressing cloth on ribbon. It may not fuse that readily to the interfacing and require repeated passes. The last thing you want to have happen is for the ribbon to scorch or shrink under the steam/heat.)
Vertical lengths of ribbon pinned against some Decor Bond interfacing... |
I've now used up all of the red and white ribbon that I purchased from a
Michaels discount bin back in 2017. I haven't stepped into that store
in well over a year due to the pandemic. (◕︵◕)
The heart in my window doesn't have a "reverse" side (it just shows the back
of the Decor Bond), but I thought for Mom's gift, I'd give her
something nice to look at from the inside as well. I dug through my scraps
box and fabric remnants for anything in red that I could patchwork together.
Fabric scraps pinned to some fusible fleece... |
Some of it is from my original
Robert Kaufman box; all are RK fabrics except for a Tim Holtz (Eclectic Elements Dictionary) print.
Patchwork piece the fabrics onto the fusible fleece backing... |
The pieces were laid down and pinned with a small amount of fabric turned
under (and overlapping the adjacent piece) on at least one side. I then
sewed along the turned edge. (The technique is similar to what I did for
my first quilting project.)
Turn under as much or as little fabric as you need... |
I stitched with a very small seam allowance, as I tried to minimize the
amount of fabric turned underneath.
It's always easier to secure the smallest pieces of fabric first. I ended up with this large strip at the end, which I turned under on both sides to sit on top of everything.
The last piece! |
Here it is all done.
I showed you parts of what I did when I posted about my
free motion quilting progress
a couple of weeks ago. There's a mixture of my practice FMQ here, as
well as standard straight line quilting.
Fabric side all quilted... |
Every time I do any significant amount of straight line quilting, it occurs
to me that it is so time consuming! The quilting on the largest piece
of fabric involved only sixteen diagonal lines (plus the small lines along
the edges to advance from one to the next), but it seemed to take forever.
The last part of the project was to (bias) bind the two halves into one.
I was actually able to fuse the two hearts together because I had the
fusible side of the fleece exposed on the back of the fabric heart. (Not
that I would do that again, because moving the piece around during quilting
with the little nubbies on the underside was problematic.)
A show of appreciation for our health care workers... |
For hanging, I did the same as with the
kite
that's in my window, a little clip looped through with some elastic string.
Oh, and if there happens to be anyone reading who is in the health care
field: thank you; you have been amazing beyond measure. You may have signed up for
that career, but nobody signed up for a never-ending pandemic.
You may recall my past ruminations about running out of things to write
about and that this blog is nearer to its natural end than its humble
beginnings. Back in June, I celebrated my 400th post with the idea that I
would give myself permission to skip the odd Saturday. Haven't yet done that
and for anyone curious, I actually have weekly posts lined up into November,
so no immediate "danger".
That said, it's still an ongoing challenge and if you're one of the handful
who would miss me if I ever disappeared, perhaps you can take a turn in the
spotlight and help me at the same time.
I'm going to try a new thing here and ask readers to send me sewing stories
that I can feature every now and then. For my first attempt at cultivating
some additional blog content,
I ask you to submit to me (via email; click through to my
Blogger profile on the sidebar at left to get the address) a
description of
the best thing that you've ever sewn and why it deserves that title —
along with a photo, of course.
Be sure to let me know how you want to be identified; feel free to use an
alias if you want. (I will respond to every submission that I receive, so
please check your SPAM if you don't hear back!)
If this works, it will give me material for at least one blog post and the
motivation to try again. Oh, and there's no time frame/limit for this; no need
to get it to me by next week or anything like that. I will add this notice to
my blog posts intermittently to see if the idea gains any traction.
'Til next...
'Til next...
Hi Rochelle! I couldn't let this sweet post go without submitting a comment. Hearts of any color are always on my radar and ones that are made with love for a mama is especially thoughtful! You are a patient one sewing binding on those curves. I'm not one for the spotlight, so I won't be putting myself out there for an upcoming post, but I sure hope someone steps up with some awesome projects!
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