Journal Notes

I’m finally trying my hand at wool appliqué after a couple months of collecting wool. I bought 2 bags of scrap hand dyed wool at the AQS show in Grand Rapids in August and have thrifted some wool clothing which I “felted” in my washer and dryer. 1: turtle for Miles 2: mouse for Austyn 3: panther for Jaxon 4: penguin for Everleigh 5: mallard for Bo 6: wolf for Liam 7. Kitten for Violet 8. Cheetah for Donnie 9. Bear for Jonah 10. House for Mandy & Michael 11. Mandala in red & green for Ashley 12. Snowflake for Amanda 13. Shepherd for Noah & Jessica 14. Hugging Friends for Lee 15: Hen and chicks for Jan 16: snowman for Lori 17: drummer boy for Russell 18: Kubota for John What I learned on this project: I had the best luck finding designs for appliqué by searching on Shutterstock for silhouettes of the animals. For more detailed or smaller pieces it’s better to use a single strand of embroidery floss and do a whipstitch rather than a blanket stitch. Nonwoven fusible interfacing on the back of my background piece was much easier to stitch through than pellon sf101 cotton woven interfacing. I cut a circle about a 1/4” smaller than the front and backs out of card stock and used a glue stick around the edges to stick one to both the front and back pieces to give the ornaments some structure. I put a dab of glue on the inside of the front and back where I wanted to insert the ends of the hanging ribbon. I then used clips to hold all the layers together before stitching around them with a beaded blanket stitch. Doing the edge with tiny seed beads is a waste of time. The bicone beads I used on the penguin made a beautiful edge! For an overlay to get the stitches in the right place (such as embroidering words), “Tear Easy” stabilizer is easier to stitch through but tracing paper is much easier to tear away. I think the Tear Easy would be better for bigger pieces with less detail. On ornament #12 I used Glad Press n Seal to stitch details through. Pros- easy to stitch through, no pins needed, stays in place really well, cheap. Cons— permanent marker lines seem to gradually rub away. Had to redo my lines. Wasn’t that easy to pull off. Red ink pen works best. Doesn’t smear like permanent marker. I think I need to cut my circles a little bigger than needed and then cut a bit smaller after the stitching is done. They are getting a little distorted and turning into a lopsided circle from all the stitching. That also means I should not cut the backing until then.