Friday, April 17, 2015

Teeny Tiny Foundation Piecing

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So the problem with foundation piecing is that I seem to be getting a lot of scraps. How small does a scrap of fabric have to be before it is consigned to the bin? I find it very hard to throw anything away, but I just need to cut down the size of my scrap bag; it's just ridiculous.

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After today's exercise I feel the scraps I am finally discarding are too small to do anything with. They can go even though I love each and every one of them, sniff. I might do an even bigger cull and try to ferret out fabrics which are not favourites. I feel it needs to be contained to favourites as it's just out of control.

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I came across these great feather blocks on @sewstitchinghappy's instagram and decided that they might be perfect for using up some of these scraps. So I downloaded the pattern by @whatabobbin from her Craftsy page. I really enjoyed making these. I did the bottom bit wrong on all of them though which is irksome. Booo. I still love them though. I got much better as I went along.

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I realised that oversized scraps work much better, otherwise I spend along time unpicking. It is wasteful of fabric though which I am not keen on.

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Other exciting news. I managed to melt my iron. See the block on the right! I left the iron on so I could literally moved from sewing machine to iron and back each time I sewed as I was hoping it might improve my accuracy (usually i just finger press). Suddenly I smelt burning plastic and saw that the plastic around the metal part of the iron was literally melting. I tried to iron a block and it burnt a massive mark on the piece and the ironing board. I guess the thermostat just gave up the ghost. I feel lucky that I was right next to it at the time as it could have gone up in flames!

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I also made a right mess of my sewing table by pulling out loads of scraps. You can just about see the sewing machine mat that mumple made me peeking through all the mess. Time for a tidy!

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Anyway here are the blocks. I can't iron them though! Booo. I need to go out and buy an iron straight away!

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I'm annoyed I got the bottom part of the feather wrong, you lose feather somehow without it. And two of my background are the same which is annoying. D'oh

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This was the first one I sewed together and I managed to lose the central stem. I got wise to that from then on. You live and learn. I only made three in total. I am not sure what to do with them now. Maybe incorporate them into something bigger who knows.

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