fiberhart

More TIF- and the Daughter SEWING!!!!

It has been a crazy week here, until today I've had no time in the studio at all. Shannon is back from Switzerland, so we have been regrouping, reorganizing, and just catching up. But I have made some progress on the January TIF challenge.

I played in my sketchbook last night, with the colored pencils Sidney gave our entire WAQ group for Christmas. Came up with a couple different designs, but decided one was too derivative of the designs in a book I recently acquired. I'd thought a lot about using a four-patch as the base for my design, and decided this morning that I would run with this. I've got the DMC floss, and used that to go through my stash for fabric. I had every color except the cream in my hand-dyes, and found a piece of commercial cream fabric that was perfect if I used the backside.

I didn't want a straight seamed four-patch, so I used my French curve to make a wonky block. First, I tried to piece it Caveman style (Ricky Tims), but that didn't work- the centers didn't meet, and I couldn't get rid of some tucks on one piece. So then I decided to fuse it, using Liquifuse as Terry Grant showed us on her blog some time ago. That worked perfectly! So here's the two blocks, with the fused one at the top of the picture. The tucks in the bottom block just don't show in the picture.



However, the bigger news in the studio was Shannon actually sewing! She is the only female in our family who hasn't had a needle in hand since childhood, just hasn't had a lot of interest. But she wanted some pillows and a message board for her room, so we found most of the makings in my studio, and got some home dec fabric she liked at JoAnn's, half off. She wrapped and glued batting and fabric around two pieces of styrofoam I'd saved--



then glued ribbon around the board so she can use it to display her postcards and photos from Europe. That done, she then made a pillow for her bed, the first of several. They look good!!



We are having a welcome home / birthday big family dinner today. Maybe later tonight I can play in the studio and make some real progress on the TIF challenge!