Fusible fun with a side order of frustration

We've been busy little beavers of late. And this week has been full of interesting projects. We've been lucky to carve out some playtime though. There's always time to play.

The sweater gift tag has grown in scope to become an entire quilt. It'll be a knitting themed quilt and we have sketches planned for several other segments but it's going to be pretty spontaneous and we're going to practise our machine skills on it....ah, once we have some machine skills to practice, that is. :)



Copyright © Cheryl Coville 2011


Here's part of the sweater gift tag with all the pieces fused in place. We're using Lite Steam-a-Seam 2 because we were told it's less stiff in the final product. We like the way the pieces are slightly tacky until you iron them in place. Once they're ironed, they're stuck for good. However, before you commit them with the hot iron, it's very handy to be able to move them around. And when you do decide to iron them, they can safely move to the ironing board without shifting. Seems like a great product so far.

Here we've started to machine embroider around the appliqué pieces using that lovely green rayon thread we blogged about a while ago. (We went right out and bought some other colours. They'll show up later, no doubt.) We have some 70 weight stuff in the bobbin.

Everything was going along just dandily until we changed threads for the lady's apron. We had just the right colour of poycotton sewing thread (40 weight?) and that thread is fraying and skipping stitches. (This is the frustration part.) Now, if it weren't a 45 minute drive to Taylor Sewing Centre, we'd just run right over and buy more rayon thread. For now, we're going to try a larger needle. If anyone's got a suggestion, please just leave it in the comments. This is all new to us.

Oh, and in a secondary appeal....anyone know how to get that blue marking pen ...you know....the (supposedly) water soluble stuff?....out of a quilt top? We put a quilt away for a while....do you think a 5-year time-out for bad behaviour is excessive?....and when we retrieved it, you guessed it. Those blue marks just laughed at the water. They giggled and dug in harder. Any suggestions?