Wednesday 28 October 2015

Here we go!

I have shelved the car plushie for various reasons including lack of grey felt. I also was dying to start on the nursery rhyme book.

I showed you the designs a little while back for a book based on a German nursery rhyme that my Omi (grandmother) taught me as a child. It is a gift for my niece (good grief that was December last year).

Recently I started choosing background colours and then today I bought the interfacing to put the designs onto on the back which I use as a guide.

Me posing in the act of tracing my design of page 3 of the book

Some completed traced pages
I have to trace it two ways, one the right way and one on the reverse as that is the side that will remain visible once it's attached to the base fabric for the page.

I'd previously spent some time choosing the fabric colours for each page and the fabrics I was going to use. This was a joint decision based on what was going on the page (e.g I wanted green for the snail to be in the garden) and what fabrics I had in the right size pieces. I wouldn't entirely be guided by the size of the pieces if I really wanted something I'd sew some bits together but it's a lot easier not to. I was also guided by making sure the same colour didn't repeat too much and if possible I'd have preferred no repeating colours but I have repeated yellow (two shades, one more orange) and green (one more yellow one more blue).

Once I'd traced the designs I then ironed the base fabric and ironed on the interfacing...except for page one where I'd accidentally traced the design on the wrong side - whoops. That one is just pinned in place.

Ironing on the interfacing to the final page

This my friends is the only ironing I enjoy because it's quick and actually interesting...

Pile of pages with interfacing ironed on.
And there's the pile of completed.

I love the reuse aspect of what this involves or any of my projects really. I love that the sky is made up of the same fabric as a Khaleesi costume, or that the butterfly's background is made up of an old duvet or sheet cover from home, or that the purple is left overs from making a picture cover for my Dad. I look forward to more reuse of fabric as I work on each page.