In my excitement to rush into the next steps I made a couple mistakes. Ok, more than a couple. But the best part about making someone a gift is that it doesn't stay in your home for you to obsess over.
I printed the stencil the size I wanted it. Which was large since I had no idea what I was doing and I was definitely concerned about making it look like the picture. I then layered the fabric and the stencil and committed my first mistake. Here is a visual of the stencil and fabric sandwich I made:
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| Yes, my needle is a lightning bolt, because that's how fast I sew! Boom! |
Mistake numbero uno:
I figured that with enough soaking and patience I would be able to remove the paper from the fabric since I was planning on just sewing over it. Nope! The paper was sewn to the fabric. Because, dur, you sewed the paper to the fabric. I'm not sure what I was expecting but do this like I did. I would suggest the following sandwich if you are looking to replicate this project:
Mistake numero dos:
The purple fabric I had chosen has a very light pattern of flowers on it. I had hoped for this pattern to be visible. Well, that's all well and good but since I had now sewn paper to the stencil I had to flip the stencil and cut out the purple fabric, leaving the light colored fabric as the background color. Well, that's easy enough adjust to, but once again my OCD flared up and I thought about starting over. Happily, my friend would not care one bit since she wouldn't know about the mistake. Oh well, until now that is. Sorry, hun, I made a boo-boo.
Mistake numero tres:
Did you know that sewing machines really just want to sew in straight lines? They do. That's sort of "their thing". So when I wanted to outline a picture with my machine it was not the easiest task. In fact, it was pretty ugly. But, once again, she wouldn't care all that much since if need be I could just scrap it and send her a card. Happily, I didn't have to. But if I could do it again I would purchase a "darning" or "free motion" foot for my machine so I wouldn't have to fight the machine into curves when all it wants to do is make straight lines.
Once the stencil had been totally sewn and I had made all the mistakes I could on these steps I got to cut out the stencil and yank the paper off. I think this was the most rewarding part of the process. I cut pretty close to the edge of the seams, probably about an 1/8 of an inch. Once I finished it up I received the most praise that could be expected from such a debacle-ish beginning. The Boyfriend said "Wow, that turned out way better than I thought it would". Nice, on it's way to being an ok quilt, which is all I was looking for, since it's not staying at my house!
Finished result:
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| Dawww, aren't we cute! |
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