Tag Archives: glue

Window Panels

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The Chinese New Year fabric is too thin to be glued to the styrene in the usual way, so this time I’m going to be sewing the panels into cases, rather than just sewing the velcro. Luckily, I’ve already done the velcro part, so it won’t be as last-minute time-consuming as it might have been.

We started out trying to avoid this, because it always looks better glued than sewn. I made a sample of it sewn and the gluer tried every possible technique to keep glue spots from seeping through and leaving marks.

I marked one side of the fabric to stitch on the lines, as they have to be very tight and very exact:

Stitch it, turn the fabric, press the edges and corners flat, insert the styrene with the seam allowances behind the sheet, secure the velcro straight with double-sided tape, fold the top over, pull it tight, and sew along the edge:

This part is really awkward because the machine can’t grip something this big and stiff in the same way it grips regular fabric. When discussing this project in advance, I swore up and down that stitching through styrene would break the needle. It doesn’t, for no apparent reason that I can figure, as styrene is plastic and relatively thick. So for the rest of these panels, I’ll be able to stitch intentionally on the styrene itself, which will secure the fabric a little more easily. I’ll also be working in a larger studio space so I can keep them flatter.

An added difficulty is this: you have to iron it perfectly and not wrinkle it before inserting the styrene. It cannot be ironed afterward without adding steam-related wrinkles and warps. The first sample I made wound up with these, and I had to start over.

 

Christopher Robin’s Got Game

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Today I hosted Craft Day, as I do once a month, through www.meetup.com/weirdery so I finished up all the machine sewing the night before and saved all the non-machine-related finishing stuff for today. I’ve used my sewing machines during Craft Days before, but it’s always a lot of work to haul them out of my studio, it takes up a lot of space on the table, and it’s too loud to easily join in the chatting, which is the whole point of hosting a public Craft Day.

Here are all the faces drying on the catch-all table I keep swearing I’m going to straighten up:

So today was about sewing the snaps onto Eyore’s chin, rubbing glue into everyone’s eyes and smiles, and styling the angel’s and Christopher Robin’s hair. For that part, I used FrayCheck, since it had worked so well on Eyore’s mane.

I put Angel’s face over the back of a chair and a pillow to get it to stand up while I was working on it. For Chris Robin, I found a cooler option:

Now I want to make another one that I can keep!

Yet More Topiary Animal Process

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I went to Joann’s for some brown burlap, only to discover that there IS an online coupon for a single item, as well as a current total-order coupon in my wallet (those usually expire and I finally throw them away a couple months out of date), AND apparently the one fabric Joann’s carries for cheaper than Hancock’s is burlap. On top of all that, the girl who wound up cutting my fabric and ringing me up and making sure I got the maximum coupon benefit was knowledgeable and exactly the kind of clerk you hope for in a fabric store.

So I’m driving out to the location starting to feel pretty good about having to start over on Owl, or at least as good as can be felt. I look over at the animals as I pull up, hoping to see a glimpse of a white bag . . . and there is Owl, fully dressed. I never pulled his wrapping off when I packed up the last time I was there. To be fair, I had 7 large trash bags, it was dark, and so was owl. So here’s me, the biggest, but happiest spaz in the world.

On the plus side of this whole extra trip, Angel and Pooh got second fittings, which they might not have done, given the tight deadline. I haven’t finished the angel’s head yet, but I tested what I’ve got and had a chance to see the burlap art I decorated her dress with. Here is a burlap interpretation of a Sacred Heart.

Up the side of her dress:

I need to move the heart at the top; while working on the pieces separately, it wasn’t readily apparent where the overlap was.

These appliques are winding up getting made out of the loosest weave burlap, so they crumble as I put them on, and I noticed on Tigger, they were already starting to shred their way off. Stitching them on more securely would take forever as well as warp the fabric. So now all the appliques will be covered with ground-in school glue: