They're or a swap via a new blog (of a swap bot person).
The whole set. The only rules were keep them square/rectangle and "family friendly". Totally doable.
The biggest of the group is the picnic blanket. Mmm, bacon cheeseburger, pie, and ice cream. Crap! Are those ANTS? Of course, what picnic is complete without guests (be they invited or crashers). The ants are sets of two and three french knots with little stitches next to them to resemble legs. The food is attached with heat and bond. The "stuffing" in the patch is a piece of acrylic felt. I only used one layer so the patches aren't very puffy. I prefer them that way because they're easier to work with. I'm also pysched to be able to use up some of the acrylic felt I have in my stash. This is a perfect use for it. You don't need the highest quality felt if it's just being used as stuffing. The backing fabric is a red/cream/brown plaid.
This was the first one I made for the set. It's very simple and minimal. I kind of like patches like that. The strip of cars is a separate fabric that I hand stitched on to the striped fabric. The backing fabric is blue polka dots/bubbles. All the fabrics are leftovers from the pencil pouches I made. I did a bit of embroidery on the patch, just random things here and there. There are also two sets of beads on two of the cars (for the wheels). Like I said, very minimalistic.
Another long rectangle patch. This was the last patch I made for the set. I was going to make a really small patch but I like the front fabric so much I had to make a little comic strip from it. I did fill stitches in the top panel then fused some little hearts to the other panels (the hearts are from the same fabric). I embroidered the edging line between the second and last panel just to help hold the fabric down as I stitched it all together.
I had to share a snap of the back fabric. I love this print and it went well with the kind of over the top cartoony look of the front fabric.
Last but not least, my favorite of the group (really, I was so tempted to keep this one).
Holy shhhh. Is that. . . we need a close up.
Aww, yeah, that's Spock. Spock with a Superman S on his chest AND (for any Big Bang Theory geeks out there), lizards in the background. The S was fused to Spock and then Spock to the lizards then the whole thing stitched together. I embroidered a few of the background designs (those jaggy triangles) and then added some beads to the main lizard just to bling her up a bit. The back fabric?
Why cake? Well, cake is just. . .cake. It needs no explaining. (don't mind the few specks on the back, I'll get them off there before I send them out).
I hope they're a hit in the swap. I also hope folks aren't put off by my take on the Teesha Moore style. I'm not a fan of the way she makes her patches. I find it cumbersome to stuff with polyfill (or fluffy stuffing like that) and then try to work with the patch. If I wanted a really dimensional look to the finished project, I could deal with the weird feel when working with it. But I like the way the flatter stuffing looks. They kind of all look like little framed paintings. I'm also kind of anal retentive about the edges. I like the mitered corners if the patch is square/rectangle. It's just neater. That's not to say I dislike the look of non-mitered corners, but when I'm sewing mine I like the added challenge of trying to get the best miter I can get. And I like using up my acrylic felt, which I can do since I make the flatter style patches. (I also like a clean back to the patch--I don't like seeing all the embroidery stitches on the ones I make--it doesn't bother me on other folks' patches but on the ones I make I like them clean on the back).
The backs are supposed to be messy. That's the nature of this craft.
ReplyDelete