Easter Eggs of Yo-Yo's

Egg-cellent yo-yos for Easter

What comes in oval shapes?  Well, one I thought of was eggs.  So with the help of the new Clover Oval Quick Yo-Yo maker I made up a few yo-yo eggs and decorated them with ribbons. This is the card I sent to my mom for Easter.  I think the fabric worked really well for the eggs.  Unlike the round yo-yo's where most fabrics look really good, I'm finding the oval yo-yo is more particular, and I'm having to test make yo-yo's to find which fabric patterns and weight work the best. The results are mostly (sometimes I get a dud) a pleasant surprise!

"Puff" the Bubbled Fabric Breasted Bird

"Puff"

I'm so excited that my experiment worked! It wasn't as hard as I thought it might be in fact it was pretty easy to work with the bubbled fabric.  First, I drew the pattern piece onto the back of the bubbled fabric. Next I straight stitched around the drawn line with my sewing machine and then I cut the piece out.  The bubbles on the outside of the stitched line went flat once I cut them which was great for sewing and the inside bubbles retained their shape.  It was a little tricky turning and stuffing the beak but with the help of a stuffing tool and a bamboo chopstick I was able to get the shape of the beak the way I wanted.  The pattern was very easy to follow.  I can't wait to make another bird but next time I want to use a heavier gauge of wire.  I wasn't able to locate the 19 gauge wire the pattern called for at any of the craft stores in my area so I used a 22 gauge which is just a little too thin to completely hold the birds weight without resting on the elbows of the legs. I found a size 12 gauge copper wire yesterday at a local craft store and I am going to experiment with it and then the next time I go to the hardware store I'll be checking their aisles for wire.

Bubbles and Birds

Bubbling Fabric for the Birds

What do bubbles, birds and a dishwasher silverware sorter have in common?  They are all a part of a design I hope will come together.

Last night I played with the bubbling fabric technique in the book Fabric Embellishing the basics and beyond by Ruth Chandler, Liz Kettle, Heahter Thomas and Lauren Vlcek (I'm still waiting for my book to arrive but Connie graciously loaned me hers so I could play). I didn't have a metal grid anywhere in the house so while searching through my cabinets I found an extra dishwasher silverware sorter that had the right size grid I was looking for. My one concern was while ironing the fusible interfacing to the fabric there was a small chance I could melt the plastic but all turned out well and I was able to remove my bubbled fabric with no damage to the fabric or the plastic dishwasher tray.

 Now that I have overcome that hazzard the next part of my design idea is to see if I can cut and sew the breast pattern piece from the bubbled fabric. The bird pattern I am using is one created by Terry Grant for the 2009/2010  International Quilt Festival magazine. As I was mulling this over before falling to sleep last night I decided I would need to draw the breast pattern piece on the back of my fabric and then stitch around the drawn line before cutting out the piece. By sewing on the line I'm hoping to anchor down my bubbles so that when I cut it out the shape will remain.

As Mom's Easter card is waiting to be finished and a couple of birthday presents and cards need to be made, I'm not sure when I will get back to this part of my fabric bird so you'll just have to keep checking back! Oh, and don't forget to wish me luck on this process, I think I'm going to need it.

Happy Birdie Day

Happy Birdie Day!

A while back I ordered the "Straight from the Nest" Cricut cartridge and I recently had a chance to play with it.  It is a fun cartridge and I can't wait to use it again.  This card was made for my sister-in-law and I really hope she likes it.  Did I mention this was a milestone birthday?  Here is the inside of the birthday card.

Printing on Ribbon




Printing on Ribbon

   I am still waiting for the book Fabric Embellishing the basics and beyond  I ordered a couple of weeks ago to arrive.  Hopefully, it will be in my mailbox this week.  One of the projects I remembered from looking at Connie's book was printing on ribbon.  I decided to try it this weekend and I am pleased with my first results.   The book recommended to make your design layout, then save and print your design.  This helps for your alignment.  Next, you center and  place your double-stick tape over your printed words or design and then lay your ribbon on top of the tape making sure no tape is exposed. Then I think it said to put a piece of tape over the ends of the ribbon so the edges did not catch in the printer roller.  Next,  you place your ribbon paper back into the printer and print your file again. With a little luck your words or design will be centered on your ribbon.  Some of mine printed a little off center but for a first effort I am thrilled.



Printing on Ribbon Detail

 Along the way I learned that I do not need to anchor all the edges of the ribbon down with tape. Just taping the ends down that feed through the printer works great.  I think when I removed the extra tape from the edges it caused my ribbon edges to be extra wavy. Also, I do not need to bold the font as the bolding causes the ink to bleed more (this could also be due to my particular printer ink or the type of ribbon I was using). The last ribbon on the bottom is the one I used the bold font on and you can see how much darker it is.

Printing on Ribbon Close Up

What worked really well was expanding the font spacing. This kept the letters from blurring into one another.  For this project I used the 1/2 " double-stick tape but yesterday while I was out I picked up some 3/4" double-stick tape and plan on experimenting with wider ribbon and using some of the wing dings or graphics.