Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Kitties and a bunny

I've finished the Garden  Bunny Buttoned & Beaded piece stitched by my friend, Phyllis.

Once the piece is stitched, you have cut it out from the perforated paper square.  I always dread this part.  I am one of those people who tends to hold my breath when I'm cutting something.  If there is a lot of cutting involved, this can lead to some serious light-headedness.  I just have this feeling that I can really damage something when I cut it.  It's not like stitching with the wrong floss where I can just frog my stitches.  Cutting the paper - and even worse, a thread - is way more permanent than making a few stitches.  You should see me working on a hardanger piece.  At least I don't turn blue-ish any more once I learned that you can weave in threads if you make a mistake.  But, it is still nerve wracking.  Using a serger is likely to kill me.  Sewing and cutting the fabric at the same time!

So, all that being said, I find that it is easier to cut while looking at the back of the piece.  The distraction of beads and buttons is not on the back of the piece.  I have also tried cutting the paper on my own pieces after the stitching is done but before the beading.  It worked well on the pieces I have done, but I can see how it might make the beading tougher on some pieces where it would be nice to have a little extra material to hold on to.
Garden Bunny after going through the Xyron

The new cartridge for my Xyron finally arrived and I was able to get the back of the stitching good and sticky and apply the light blue felt.  I stitched right through the felt to attach the little bowtie.  Then I added a magnet to the back rather than the pin backing that comes with the kit.  I think a lot of people are more likely to use these little pieces as magnets than as pins.  Isn't he cute?
Garden Bunny all done

It's been a busy week so I've made only a little progress on Moonlit Kitties.  Now there's a moon to go with my spectral kitties.
Moonlit Kitties

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