Printing Stitchery Designs onto Fabric Tutorial

What you need:

fabric, freezer paper, scissors, rotary cutter, iron, computer, printer, scanner, picture/pattern.

 

The first thing you need to do is measure up your freezer paper to the size of an A4 sheet of paper - cut carefully - you want nice straight edges.

 

Iron your fabric flat and even give a spray of starch!

Slide your piece of cut freezer paper under your fabric and iron the two together - make sure you have the shiny side of the freezer paper up to temporarily stick to the fabric.

Trim the fabric carefully so that it is now the size of an A4 sheet of paper - I use my rotary cutter for this part.

Place your fabric into your printer tray - make sure it is upside down (fabric side down) if it is a printer like mine that feeds up over a roller so that the fabric runs under the ink cartridges.

This next step will vary depending on whether you are scanning a pattern or using a saved image.
I like to import my pictures into Publisher - it is easy to manipulate images with.  In my picture I was able to import the same picture twice and rotate one  so that I got a nice border around both trees.

Now this is one step you don't want to skip!  When you go to print you need to go into the settings and make sure it is going to print in grey scale not colour.

Hit print and wait for the magic to happen.  Give your image a quick iron, remove the piece of freezer paper off the back of the fabric but don't throw it out.  It's good for a few more uses before it won't iron on anymore.

Don't worry about the printed lines, they will be covered by your thread as you stitch.  In this image on the thicker parts I will use a satin stitch and back stitch for the thinner lines.

Hope that helps - feel free to email me with any questions.

Sunday afternoon

Not a lot really, just a few bit and pieces and things that I can't really discuss yet but...I do love my quilt labels!

A chance to win

I happened to read Lily's quilts before and she is very generously holding a give-away of a F.Q.B. of  Architextures.

All you have to do is pop over and leave a comment.  In fact, she is so very generously allowing you up to 3 comments for her give-away.

So, get your fingers andmouse moving and click here for a chance in a fantastic give-away.  Thanks Lily's Quilts.

Happy Friday to you all!

Gifts

A little something I am currently working on and I have to say printing directly onto fabric rather than using my old blue pen is making life so much easier.

 



My OASS gift arrived and it is AMAZING!  Shez is the very clever and talented lady responsible for my current state of happiness - she spoiled me so.

Thank you Shez - I love everything you sent me!  You made my day!

Good Advice

Recently I was at a professional development day on sustainable gardening with local community involvement and needed to use the bathroom.  When I was washing my hands I noticed this little gem;

I texted it straight back to school and told them I wouldn't be back in...

ever.

It's the last one that gets me every day!

FNSI - bah disaster!

This is what my FNSI needed.  Oh boy do I need a do over....

 

Picture this...Grade 3/4 teacher in the midst of writing reports, not sleeping, had 2 days out of the classroom for professional development requiring 5 hours of travel both days...get the picture?

 

Yep, I'm feeling something like this, but much worse, perhaps throw some of this in as well...

 



 

So all I want is to get one thing finished...stitchery complete (YAY) and then to put the borders on (YAY) and the binding...

 

ONE SHOULD NEVER RUSH BINDING...

 

For the first time EVER (not to mention last time) I decided to save time and trim the edges after stitching on the binding before I turned it to stitch down....with my rotarty cutter...

 



 

I cut off the corner of the binding on 2 corners, rendering the whole binding strip useless...should have stuck to scissors.

 

Not happy...

Surprise!

I got mail!

This photo does not do this 12" mini justice.  I cannot believe how amazing this is and it really is stunning.  I showed it to a male friend and he said "Oh wow, that's cool" so...it is pretty amazing.  I can't wait for the first of December so I can put it up!

Strangely there was an added extra or 3 in the mail as well...

Aren't these guys just the cutest little birdies ever?  And the best part, my cat won't eat them and I don't have to clean up after them!  In all seriousness though, they are so sweet and I happen to have a bit of a thing for birdies at the minute, so very appropriate and all courtesy of this talented and generous lady.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Also a big thanks to Cheryll for organising this swap...as for my partner, you will just have to wait a few more days...

Coming along nicely

I took another short break from writing reports today and managed to get all of Granny's row stitched together...I'm starting to get excited about this one.  Can't wait to get the top finished...can't wait to have my reports finished...

Naughty

I took a break from report writing and decided to spend a little time working on the lay out for my Granny.

She's a big Granny - I'm thinking big enough to go on my bed this summer with a very light weight batting - maybe a bamboo or cotton, ultra thin with a high thread count Egyptian sheet for the back instead of fabric. 

I have a plan...

To send Christmas cards this year. 

It will be the first time in about 3 or 4 years that I have felt I wanted to, that I was finally in a happy place again and wanting to celebrate the festive season for all of the right reasons and not just go through the motions because I have 3 beautiful kids.

I know I have paper and ribbons, and brads and gemstones and stamps and ink all hidden away in boxes...

but on an emergency dash through the supermarket I saw this;

and I knew it was calling my name - so I bought it home with me and once my reports are finished, the baby bears and I will sit down and make some Christmas cards.

Who wants one?

When life hands you lemons, you make...

Scraps.

Life is tough sometimes.

I feel like I am pulled in so many different directions ALL at the same time.

Work.  Kids. Reports. Autism. Sports. Friends. Bills. Rent. Insurance. Testing. Assessing.

There are days when I wish I could turn back time and be at home with my babies and not be a full time working Mum...but I can't.

So, I suck it up and cut up some stuff and soon all feels a little better in my world and I know I can continue to breathe in and out and put one foot in front of the other...

Graduation Dress

Soon, very soon baby bear #2 will finish Primary School and venture off into the world of Secondary School, but not before her Graduation Ceremony.

It begins with a family Mass at our Parish Church and then onto a formal dinner with proper dancing and only parents are invited - no siblings.  This posed a tricky dilemma for my, what to do with baby bear #3 who is reluctant to go anywhere or stay with anyone and leaving him with baby bear #1 for longer than 30 minutes is just inviting trouble....thankfully my friend Carmel has said she will take him...just to tell him.

Anyway, I digress, back to the Graduation Ceremony.  Apparently there is no way a girl can graduate in a dress she has already worn - who knew?  So as I was starting to feel sick to my core about having yet another sewing project on my already massive pile I decided NOT to make her dress.

Yep, I threw in the white towel and we headed out for the shops.

Thank you Target!  You have saved my life.

 

 

She was so happy to find this little dress as was I.  Now I've booked her hair appointment - thinking some up, some down and some enhanced curls, not her usual natural mass of tangled curls that look like some sort of animal lives in there.  I may make a lady out of her yet!

Friday Night with Friends

Well I had all the best intentions of making my Friday night a huge success but in actual fact it was far from that.  I barely managed a stitch...I fell asleep very early (seems to happening a bit lately) so did a very small amount on this...