BLOG 437

Blog 437

 

This past week I have continued to explore other ways of producing a background for applique, other than by patchwork. The starting point of this voyage of discovery was a panel I made a couple of weeks ago using an iron-on Vilene base. This method was accurate but it added more bulk to the seams and I didn’t like the chunkiness of it.

 

 

             Patchwork with Vilene

 

Last week I created a background using diagonally placed silk off-cuts to make a cushion. This is method produced a very colourful and rich background.

            Silk strips

 

I made a panel in a method I devised many years ago using bonded strips and squares. This lies very flat but always requires a lot of stitching over the surface to hold down the fabric strips.

           Bonded surface

 

 

This time I am going to cut larger squares of ready bonded fabric to see where this takes me. I chose a small collection of colourful fabrics from my stash and ironed them onto Bondaweb. I made sure that they over-lapped ever so slightly to protect the iron.

 

 

            Fabrics

 

 

 

          Ironing onto Bondaweb

 

 

 

          Overlapped fabrics

 

 

 

             Completed process

 

After extensive ironing, I removed the paper in one piece to give me a base to work on. On removal from the fusible, the fabrics were stuck to one another and all it required was a gentle tug to separate them. The edges that over-lapped were without fusible and these were trimmed off.

 

 

           Removing the paper backing

 

 

 

 

           Release paper and bonded fabric

 

 

            Overlapped edges

 

 

            Trimming

 

 

            Untidy edges

 

 

I realised after a few cuts that my pinked rotary blade wasn’t cutting cleanly so, in the absence of a new similar blade, I transferred to a fluted blade.

 

 

           Pinked and fluted blades

 

I decided on this occasion to cut 2” squares and to do this I used an old cutting mat which I keep specifically for these cutters and also for cutting wadding. I laid the fabric on the mat, lining it up with the marked lines. I used a ruler, not as an edge to cut along (these blades would chip the ruler), but as a guide line (these speciality cutters are wider than a straight cutter so they are easier to control when following a line). I cut lines first and then across the lines into squares. All the off-cuts were collected to be used on other projects.

 

         Cutting into squares

 

 

              Colour palette

 

 

              Off-cuts

 

Before starting to play, I sorted the squares in to similar colours and hues. Now I have to decide how to work with them!

 

          Sorted squares