Paper Easter Eggs

My Paper Easter Eggs are all finished and the pattern is available on http://www.patternsonline.com/.

It has been a fun journey. It started out with the idea of painting perforated paper.

All I did was take basic "school supply" watercolors. You know what I'm talking about - 8 colors. I skipped the brown and black so that left 6 colors. I just painted narrow stripes along the perforated paper sometimes close enough to allow them to blend. I didn't get the paper too wet because I didn't want it to warp. I did warp slightly, but not enough to affect the stitching.

Next, I had to come up with some egg outlines so I traced plastic eggs (thats slightly less hazardous than tracing real eggs). Then I got to make up some bizzare patterns to fill the eggs.

Once stitched, the designs don't look too exciting. The magic appears when they are cut out and the backing is applied.

I tried not to stress too much about cutting them out. I just did it free-handed with my good paper scissors. The margin isn't always even but it doesn't seem to matter, as long as the cut is smooth. (Look at the egg at the bottom right - I'm way too close to the stitching). At this point, they look more like Easter Eggs, but whatever background tends to show through the holes in the perforated paper.

Once they are glued to a matching background paper, the eggs appear to be more of a solid because the holes are no longer visible. Once you cut the eggs from the background you have one more chance to "fix" any problems with the edges.

I'm really careful glueing because I don't want gobs of glue oozing through the holes so I use the glue sparingly. I'm also very careful when I use the painted perforated paper. The paint is NOT colorfast and will run if it gets wet (or even damp).

It seems like months of work went into creating these little eggs. But, the actual time spent working was much less than the elapsed time.

I'll be making more next year. Different patterns, different colors. I also have more painted perforated paper that I'll need to stitch upon - something besides eggs.

Comments

More Wildflowers of America

Since I have framed the stitched Bleeding Heart from Curtis Boehringer's Wildflowers of America I decided to track down the other 3 wildflowers that had I stiched earlier. I chose these flowers because they reminded me of the forests of Ohio where I grew up - Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Wake Robin and Bloodroot. The Jack-in-the-Pulpit and Wake Robin where both finished with fabric frames. This was a favorite finishing technique of mine for a long time. On the back they are dated 1999 - that was a while ago. I remember the quilt store where I purchased the fabric, but not its name. It's gone now but it was in an old Victorian house in Old Colorado City. The turrets where lined with bolts of fabric and hey had a great selection of plaids. I had never heard name Wake Robin before and it means nothing to me, but the flower is definitely a Trillium. Back then, I dutifully followed the pattern. Now I would have used the name Trillium ...

Diverted by Dorset Buttons

I learned how to make Dorset Buttons yesterday at our monthly EGA meeting . These little buttons are so much fun to make! We only got three rings so that's how many I made. If I would have gotten more I'd probably be still making them. One nice thing is that they are very forgiving. I made countless mistakes on my first one and you can't tell. A quick google revealed lots of websites with historical information and tutorials on how to make them so I'm not even going to try to describe the process. Some people made their buttons with yarn, others used perle cotton. One of the examples had beads on it, so once I got home I had to find some beads to sew on. That's it for now. I'm going to be keeping my eye's open rings to use. I'm also going to have to go through my yarn stash. Using yarn gives a totally different result and I want to try some yarn ones too.

It's about time - the big reveal

My bright quilt was finished in June but I wanted to wait until both were done before sharing the pictures. Quilting the blue quilt didn't take long but finishing the binding sure did. I did procrastinate a bit as it was too warm to have a huge quilt on my lap for most of the summer. After this, I'll probably do all the binding on my sewing machine (and stick to smaller quilts). Notice the cut-out corners? That was a challenge. I found instructions here and it looked easy enough but I wished I had practiced some. After a lot of finessing I finally got good miters but I could have done much better. The cut-out corners allow the quilt to hang nicely over the edges of the mattress and it's a perfect match for a full sized mattress. But, the top edge isn't even close to the pillows. I wonder how the quilt fit on the bed it was made for. Here, at last, is the original quilt that I was copying. I just...

Erica's Stitches

Search This Blog