Progress

Three things to be happy about:
(1) tossing out the junk food
(2) the wisdom of experience
(3) happy news

I have some happy news, in part because I tossed out [some of] the junk food!  Back at the end of June I had an African outfit made for my cruise, and when I was trying on my clothes two days ago I discovered -- it's too large!  SO yesterday when I took it back to the dressmaker and told her the deal, she looked at me and said "yeah, you've lost some weight!"  Good for me!

Thanks for your comments yesterday, the poetry cracked me up!  I agree about the coloring books you get today, there's not enough clean-lined pictures, too many super heroes you never heard of doing ridiculous things a REAL super hero wouldn't do, because if you're a REAL super hero you don't have to prove it, you just ARE.  I guess I got these at a good "era" in coloring books, at the Dollar store yet!

I stayed out longer than I intended to running around, so I didn't get as much done inside the house as I wanted to.  But I sewed my candle to the background and added a border...

the border looks black, but it's a deep mottled green!

Looking at those leaves, I should have used a lighter shade of green... or at least I shouldn't have used striped fabric!  It's from a large piece of Debbie Mum yardage I bought a few years ago, I didn't think to get a picture but maybe I'll post one later.  You can barely see the outline stitching or the vein in the leaf... oh well, it's not meant to be a masterpiece, just a little sump'n sump'n.  And yep, I used gold thread!

Next step?  I'll add a white outer border from scrap yardage and applique some fussy-cut holly around it.  I really like the fabric I cut these from!

I'm leaving some of the background attached, otherwise it'd be way too small to make me sing while I'm trying to applique them down!  Light bulb moment - After I got these cut it occurred to me I could have used it around the candle - DOH!

Someone asked how I did the candle - I have a good-sized light table that I place a copy of the page on, then I trace each part separately directly onto the smooth side of fusible web...

I fuse the pieces onto the back of my fabric of choice, then I cut the tracing out, remove the backing paper and iron the pieces to the background fabric.  I know that's a pretty short explanation, but I found a tut on about.com that might help.  (On the page, click on the "next" button above the picture to see the rest of it.)  Also, here's a You-Tube link you can try, I hope it helps!



That's it for now, need to get some breffus!  Sew forth and sew on til later...