One Step Forward Two Steps Back

Remember the quilt? The one posted on 16 October? The second of the two? Of course you do, but incase you don't, here it is:

Well last trip to the United States I dug in my Quilt closet and found the proper binding fabric. I cut and brought back what I thought was enough binding strips to complete the binding on the quilt.

I was 5 inches off.   Bummer!

One of the members of the group is sewing the binding on now, but it will need to wait to be completed. Just darn. It will be the early December now before it is complete, if then.

Speaking of setbacks, I have a nouveau projet! Except it is fighting me. Normally I figure something out, it gets lodged in my brain and "poof", out comes a finished product. This one is not quite doing that and I do not know why. So here is the start of it.

The pattern is a common long sleeved shell that I have cut down the center front to make more of a jacket. I have some really great butterfly embroidery designs. Actually I have very many much's of butterfly designs, you see, I am a sucker for butterflies. Any type, any size, I am sew there! The ones I am referring to as "great" are from Zűndt out of Switzerland. I have wanted to use these designs forever. I just needed the proper idea.

Over the summer I traded an old linen sheet with a ladder or faggoting stitched top edge for many yards of lace tape. Linen sheets for me are rather easy to come by. Lace tape not so easy. For the person I traded with, the lace tape was not something she was going to use and linen French sheets were hard to come by. It was a good trade for both of us

The lace tape is in an off white color and each piece is about 2 yards long. This tape is one of my front and center inspiration pieces in my sewing room that I want to do something with.

Finally, the idea hit me. I made copies of the embroidery butterfly designs.

I plotted out the colors I wanted to use. I tested threads and colors for what I wanted to do with the lace tape.

I started embroidering.

First setback - The darker blue does not work on the butterfly. Unexpected since it did work on the test. I can redo the front piece with a better blue.

Second setback -  While cutting the embroidery design from the stabilizer, I cut through the shirt back piece. It is not repairable. No, one cannot embroider a flower in its place.

Third setback - I don't have enough fabric to replace the back - this is a show stopper. But can be fixed, I just need to buy the last of what was there at the store.

 

When something fights me like this, it is time to stop and re-evaluate. I think another fabric might work better, something heavier perhaps. Maybe I don't want to use the lace tape on this.  Would lace work better? With the bad front I have been experimenting. I took the lace tape and added color to it with a Sulky Blendables with the same colors as the embroidery designs. I have pulled lace from my stash. So far nothing is working, but it is early in the process since the process has to start over. If I need more fabric to play with I have the back of the shirt to play with too.

So here is the idea to date before I had issues with the scissors.

The front with a test of colors for the lace tape. Did you know it is dark in France now until almost 8am? I work in the mornings or when I get home from work. Ya, it is dark then too. Nice pictures are hard to take in the dark. even with the ceiling light.

Here is the back with the two fronts, one with a bad blue color. Never mind that it is there, you can not see it anyway.

Of course it will need old lace somewhere and here was one of the trials I rejected. One really does not know until the embroidery is completed though.

Rest assured, when this gets finished it might not look like this anymore.