I have been making progress on the Felt Santas project. I stitch these little fellows while I sit in the Piano teacher's studio, listening to my children learn and repeat their latest piano pieces. I've mentioned before how much I love this little piece of time in my week, to just sit still, stitch and listen to my children's music. My son is doing Grade 4 Piano this year and so he needs a longer lesson to prepare for the AMEB exam later in the year. I now have slightly longer than an hour a week to put into a little stitching project. Bonus.
It has been ticking over, week by week. The berries on the little blue coat went in easily and then I stumbled on the satin stitched belt. People sometimes complain that these little kits don't come with very good instructions and there's a lot of assumed knowledge. I'm not sure how it could be different and you do have to learn somewhere, so why not on a little project like this? Anyway, it wasn't clear to me whether I should satin stitch the belt over the printed lines on the felt or just up to the lines. Then when I cut out my first go at it, I realised I really should have satin stitched over the lines - so that they didn't show. In trying to cut really close to the lines, I cut through the stitching and it unravelled. So, I started again with a new piece of white felt but in drawing the pattern onto felt, with a pen, I ended up leaving marks behind. I'm not perfectionist enough to do it again. Its ok by me. Lessons learnt.
I've also learnt to do the applique part of the sewing process just a little bit better than in this photo above. I was trying to do it too much like a scoopy, scoopy stitch. That's a technical term by the way. When really, the applique stitch is with a single strand (not two strands) - the instructions do tell you this. And furthermore, the sitch is more a straight, up and down, stab stitch. Now that I'm practicing that, I find the applique part looks a bit more even.
Pretty soon, he'll have his smiling beard on and we'll all be happy.
I feel like I'm closing in on these guys. Two done and the third and final one in a pretty advanced state. Now Christmas, you just take your time in coming. No need to rush up on me all sudden like. I've still got Winter, the Tour de France, the olympics, Spring, a birthday, Father's day, two sets of school holidays.....heaps of time before Christmas.
Previous posts
Felt Folky Santas join the Fat Red Santas (Jan 2012)
Fat Red Santas - done and done (Nov 2011)
Red felt Santas - October 2011 (October 2011)
Santas - embroidery update (June 2011)
Felt ornaments - Christmas santas (April 2011)