Ever the rebel, I decided to make a fabric picture apropos of nothing but a bunch of scraps and a hankering to try out the fancy automatic stitches on mum's sewing machine. I didn't bind it (because I hadn't left enough space for a border), instead finished the edges with a pinking shears in the hope of making it look a little more respectable.
I wanted to draw a picture of a fairy-tale tower on a cliff high above the sea. I started out by laying shapes of fabric on a white cotton background, finding which composition worked well before machine sewing them in place.
The fun was really in the finishing; the little buttons and beads used for the details, and using the beautiful automatic stitches on mum's machine, like the climbing vine stitch on the front of the building, and the twirly twin leaves for the "iron bedstead".
Sometimes I think it's very easy to get too tied up in large, overbearing projects that have a tendency to grow beyond their original means. I like to deal with small, manageable projects, that I can play around with and have fun with without it becoming a chore or something I have to come back to.
Of course, there is a time and a place for projects such as these; I would love to turn this fabric picture into a large scale quilt, maybe as inspiration for a picture top or even as a block that I somehow attach.
What I really wanted to do was use up some fabric scraps I had lying around that I really liked, but didn't really go with anything else. Why don't you try having some fun, trying out some new ideas and ignoring the bigger picture for a while?
No comments:
Post a Comment