Thursday, January 20, 2011

Just fussin' around

A couple of posts ago, I wrote about a throw pillow I had made from felt circles.  The background for that pillow was a scrappy combination of neutral diamonds.  It turned out that the neutrals that I chose were *really* close in value and after I put them all together, you just couldn't see any difference at all!  What showed up was the stitch-in-the-ditch quilting.  Attractive, but not quite what I had in mind.

So, I pulled out the next bin in my stash and cut more diamonds from gold-toned fabrics.  Still neutral but with more color.  Since I was just messing around, I didn't want to commit any *real* yardage, so I just cut as many diamonds from the appropriately colored scraps as I could.  Some colors had more diamonds than others.

I must admit I have a real problem doing "random".  My mind (as chaotic as Mr. Pirate claims that it is) doesn't DO random.  So, I fell back to an orderly, columnar arrangement, which is where I ran into problems.  Because I didn't have a LOT of a variety of colors, what I ended up with was a long, skinny rectangle ... good for a wall-hanging, but not what I wanted.

Then it occurred to me .. what DID I want?  And ya know?  I didn't know.   LOL!  :-)  More messin' around ensued and I decided that I would make throw pillows out of what I had. 

Here are the works-in-progress ... 2 mostly square pillow tops and one rectangular pillow top (just for variety).    Gosh, one of these days, I just might get *really* wild and do a circular pillow!






I still need to put "something in the middle" ... applique, embroidery .. something .. but I haven't decided yet.  I'm thinking this would be an excellent opportunity to play around with my Sizzix die cuts.

I own the original Sizzix, which has a limit to the size of the dies it will accept. 

BUT, I fortunately have a neighbor who is into scrapbooking and making greeting cards BIG TIME.  She has the Sizzix Big Shot Express, which is the *electric* version.  Wowsers, it's awesome having the die cut machine move the dies for you!  :-)  She lets me use her Big Shot Express when I need it, as well as any of her dies that I find interesting.  In return, I have purchased some dies for use with the Big Shot that I *hope* will be suitable for applique and she will certainly be able to use my dies.

And I'll wait until Joann's has a sale on pillow inserts before I get them, since I don't "need" these pillows for any particular occasion or any specific person.

2 comments:

  1. I've got a standard Big Shot - what kind of dies can cut through the fabric? I've read it's just the Bigz dies but wondered if you know differently?

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  2. Hiya, Wendy!

    It is my understanding that ANY of the Sizzix machine die can cut through fabric .. you just need to stabilize the material properly.

    I use iron-on fusible (the paper-backed stuff)on the wrong side of the fabric then send the fabric (paper backing and all) right through the Sizzix machine as though it was a piece of paper. I've only been brave enough to cut through one piece of fabric at a time this way (since it's not my machine) but I suppose it could handle a couple of layers of paper-backed fused fabric.

    With my original Sizzix (the really small one), sometimes I would get a thread or two that wouldn't get cut, but it is easy enough to simply snip the offending thread.

    With my friend's electric Big Shot machine, I never had that problem .. it apparently puts enough evenly applied pressure that the dies cut properly.

    Now some of the *dies* might not be appropriate for machine applique ... the ones that have really, really skinny areas or very small dots, for example. Because you are fusing these cut-outs to a base fabric, there is no seam allowance to turn under. Some of the dies produce a lovely, lacey sort of design that I just don't think would applique properly .. but I could be wrong on that thought.

    I think the key to using die of any sort is to *leave the paper backing on* as you send the fabric through the cutter. The paper provides just enough stiffness so the fabric (alone) doesn't get pushed down into the die.

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