Slow going...

Ok so starting to attach the clouds, tree and leaves hasn't gone entirely to plan.  I went to the local quilt shop to get some fabric glue (can't think what brand, but the one that 'everyone' seems to use) and no luck.  But the lady did sell me a spray on adhesive that is apparently permanent and that she personally uses all the time and finds great.  Well I'm not sure how exactly she is using it.  But its awful!

I sprayed all my clouds and stuck them down, the tree I used an appliqué glue stick... and then carried on with the spray for the leaves.  All seemed to stick ok.  So I left it a couple of days to make sure it was all set and dry.  And then started machine stitching around the edges.  Thats when it happened.  Bits started lifting and in some cases full on falling off.  Grrr.  Of course not all the bits came off, most of them just lifted in weird and unusual ways.  And left a sticky residue on the backing fabric.  So I couldn't even start again. Double Grrr.

So anyway... I had no choice but to re-pin it and just go for it.  After a lot of swearing and the usual amount of blood sacrifices the tree, clouds and leaves are stuck down.  Phew!

I have already glued most of the windows to the houses as well.  But I'm hoping at they're considerably smaller I won't need to scrunch the fabric so much while stitching them down so fingers crossed they'll stay stuck enough to get that done.

I've got no choice but to carry on with the two adhesives I have because I can't get anything else locally.  But as I said I'll work on the windows and doors next.  And then when it comes time to attach the houses, I'll glue one and then sew it really quickly before it comes off.

Lesson learnt - should've gone with Steam2Seam 😆

I did a bit of embroidery yesterday as well.  Hubby and I were big X Files fans back in the day.  And I came across a wee UFO embroidery on Pinterest the other day and ages back I bought some glow in the dark thread so thought it was the perfect piece to try it out on.  After my last foray into drawing my pattern onto black fabric (that didn't wash out, I'm still not over that).  This time I traced my pattern onto baking paper and then stitched (tacking stitch) through the paper and the fabric to transfer the design.  Didn't work quite as I had expected in that it was a pain to remove the paper.  But it did the trick.  Only took a couple of hours.  It's not going to change my life, but it was still a bit of fun and I'm sure I can find a spot for it somewhere.  And yes its still covered in the dogs contribution 🐶

That's it for now.  Thanks for stopping by.

Stalled a bit, but still at it...

Last weekend was a long one so I thought I'd make some great progress on my houses.  What is it they say about best laid plans?  Well, my dear hubby decided (probably not really decided, but he still did it anyway) to have a heart attack first thing Saturday morning completely destroying all my good intentions for the weekend.  He's fine and luckily I love the big lug so I also forgive him for disrupting my weekends plans.  But needless to say I didn't get far.

And now its already Sunday and I've not done anything to it.  In saying that I have managed to buy another piece of fabric for the background, although its a bit darker that what I have already which I'm not sure about but I'll iron it up and test it out.  And I've also managed to buy some more black fabric because I have no idea what the piece I've been using is made of (or from) but its not cutting well, lots of fraying and just falling to bits.

I did make a little progress in the last weekend while hubby was in hospital.  I don't know how I'm going to shift this all to the other piece of fabric... it'll probably take me longer than it has to pin it to this one by the time I've numbered the bits etc...  Oh well 😊

Thanks for stopping by!

Two blog posts in one week - wow!  But just wanted to share that I'm making some progress - Yay!

I've already learnt one new thing.  Freezer paper isn't something that it used in New Zealand for freezing stuff, so firstly getting hold of it isn't easy and secondly its crazy expensive.  I've read blog posts about large rolls of the stuff costing like $4 USD.  Here I think I paid the equivalent of $3 a METRE! Well maybe I've learnt two things then, living at the bottom of the world can make things considerably more expensive haha.  But anyway, with this being my first foray into the use of freezer paper I made a rookie mistake.  I drew out my pattern on the freezer paper, cut it out, ironed it to the fabric and then cut the fabric.  Now if I'd read that a week ago, I'd be like 'yeah and?'  but why did I cut twice?  why didn't I just draw it out, iron it on and THEN cut?!?  Cause I'm a newbie thats why haha.  I realised my mistake after I'd done all the clouds, leaves and about 90% of the branches.  Oh well live and learn, right?

So I've decided I'm going with a plain background for the sky, I might live to regret it.  But if I keep waiting to make up my mind 6 months will have passed and I won't have started.  Instead of having white-blue-white clouds I'm going to do blue-white-blue to put some additional colour in the sky.  Considering how little sky is actually visible between the trees and clouds I'm hoping this will work out.  I'm going to cut and pin everything before starting to assemble, so I can check the colours work. And colours are where I fall down every time, so I'm thinking this hopefully will be a good approach.

Turns out the piece of fabric I'd ear-marked for the background is only 90cm wide, so just fitting with my design.  So I need another piece of fabric, I'm also a bit cross about this because there is no way I would have bought only 90cm and not a full metre, so I've been short changed at the store.  But then its as cheap as chips and its not like this piece won't be used at some point, but even still I definitely paid for that missing 10cm and I need it!

The other benefit of using the calico as a backing is that I can just see my pattern through it so I'm not going to have to mark up my fabric at all - phew!  But since I've started removing the freezer paper I have of course also removed all my numbering, so when I unpin it all I'm going to have to be renumber all the leaves (which I numbered on the freezer paper and on my pattern so I could match them up.  Oh well another live and learn moment I guess.  Maybe a chalk pencil of the back of the leaves or something as I take them off?

Also had a 'Oh yikes!' moment yesterday when I started laying out the branches.  If I'm adding the spots onto those branches with French knots, firstly I'm going to need a LOT of them.  And secondly they're going to have to be pretty sizeable to be seen once its on the wall.  Oh well we'll see, its all part of the adventure. 😀

Oh! Just had a thought... I should add a chicken in there somewhere.🐓🐔🐓🐔

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