FALSE START

We're still here at home! due to a dental emergency. We are so lucky to have a good friend for our dentist who will start her day earlier than expected just for us. I stayed home and updated the blog with pictures from Cancun, yesterday's chore that didn't get done. Only took three hours!!! Holy moly! why ever so long? I'll leave that to your imagination, but suffice it to say that although a blog is an on-line diary, it takes longer to create than any journal I might have kept in my younger days.

When that was finished I had some free time. What to do? The answer was obvious as I had not had time to stitch the piece pictured. No photos here; instead I put the finished 9"x10" quiltlette? on the scanner.

You might be wondering what it is - content, technique, etc.

In creating my t-shirt fabric (pictured & described in a previous post), the serger's cutter left me with many bits and pieces of fabric in addition to thread clippings, all of which I saved. I sprinkled them on top of acrylic?? batting and topped it off (just like cake icing) with my neighbour's (Louise) donation of used dryer sheets. She 'makes' the best ones. Not certain why or how as she claims that she just buys Bounce in quantity. Anyway her dryer sheets come to me all sparkly unlike others which are more opaque and dull, but also torn in half as she is clever and knows that that is all that is required for one load of laundry. This of course creates a delimma for me in creating larger pieces.

If you look closely you can see the straight line stitching which I did to tack down the dryer sheets. Then I started what is known as free motion stitching, i.e. feed dogs are down with me, not the machine, moving the fabric.
I was never any good at doodling and this is the same type of process only using a machine so I don't think my friend, Elaine, will be too impressed with my technique or patterning. "No I didn't practice doodling first as I was told". I decided to make use of the straight line divisions to create grids; of course my resolve to create different but distinct patterns in each section faltered very quickly (as it usually does).
When I finished machine stitching, I then proceeded to minutely trim the edges to remove the backing and expose individual bits. What you see here is both front and back.
Unfortunately a tiny portion of t-shirt fabric bits was not covered by the dryer sheet and it captured my attention. And that was definitely not my intention. No problem I said as I started to 'scrape' off parts of the dryer sheet using the tips of a pair of manicure scissors to expose more fabric. As I did this, I realized that I was also creating more texture as I released the tension and allowed the fabric to pop out. I kinda like that effect.
Hopefully the next post will be about our journey south - first stop being Watertown to get a new SIM card telephone number for the cell phone. With that in place we are truely on our way.
Stay tuned for more. That is if you are still awake after wading through all of the above.