Sew Karen-ly Created...

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Sunday 5 June 2011

Does It Come In Red?

I've been stitching out sample motifs for the N.S. Fibre Arts free motion workshop in a variety of colours. Green, white and cream all came out very pretty so I decided it was time to try it in red. I found a lovely bright red Kona solid in my stash which was perfect. For the pastel shades, I was able to simply place the fabric on the design and trace the lines with a water soluble marker. It did not show through the red however, so I had to transfer the markings in an alternate way. As with everything else, there are a myriad of ways I could have done this, but I chose to make a stencil of the design as I will be stitching this several more times. To make the stencil, I traced my design onto plain white bond paper using a Sharpie marker.
I fitted an old, dull 100/16 needle in the unthreaded machine and stitched through the lines.

I pinned the stencil in the centre of my fabric and rubbed a "pounce" filled with white powder across the stencil. The powder goes through the holes and marks the fabric.
It's fast and easy and the stencil may be used over and over. The powder is an iron-off type so it is easy to remove, and yet stays in place during quilting.
With the fabric now layered and basted, it was time to choose a thread colour. These are some of the Wonderfil Konfetti 50 wt. cotton threads which I received last week. I am tempted to use the off-white as I like a lot of contrast in my work, but decided that the red shade was different enough from the fabric that it would show nicely.
I like it.
Just a bit more filler quilting in the background and this will be finished.

4 comments:

  1. This looks so nice. Very rich with the smooth areas and those quilted flat.

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  2. So nice. I love the checkerboard look of the center design. I had not seen that before...I really like the Konfetti thread. I get it locally at Country Crafts.

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  3. Thanks for this! I've read about this technique before, but never really considered it. The pounce is so easy to use. And I'm always at such a loss for how to transfer designs!

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