Winterberry Finishing - Fused Fabric Frame

Finishing - it is always a challenge!

Sure, putting something in a frame is easy, but it can get expensive. So, I'm always looking for new ideas. Winterberry is small, about 3 x 3 inches and for something that size I usually make a box top. But, I don't have any suitable boxes right now. I've been playing with fusibles and interfacings so I thought I'd try to make a fabric frame.

I started out with a simple cardboard frame that fits around the design. I made another piece the same size for the back and one 1/4 of an inch smaller for the inside.

The next step was to find the perfect fabric and fuse it to the front of the cardboard. Then I had to carefully miter, cut and fuse it to the back.

The result is a fused frame that fits over the design perfectly.

The mentally hard part was to cut out the design and fuse it to the inside cardboard. Once it's cut I can't go back and frame it traditionally. I cut a square of fusible web and cut out the indside so that just the outside 1/2 inch of the stitching is fused down - the fused area is completely under the frame. I have a piece of quilt batting under the stitching itself and fused the whole thing to the middle cardboard.

Finally, all that was left was to make a sandwich of the frame back, stitched piece and frame top. I whip stitched the front and back together with matching thread.

The resulting frame is very stiff and the finished piece can lean on a shelf.

Comments

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 noticed - all of the baskets are

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 or omitted the letters altogether. I do miss

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.

Erica's Stitches

Search This Blog