Motifs

I've been adding motifs to my crazy quilt piece, which I'm tentatively calling Morning Glory. I made a discovery which I may be the last to know about, but which has changed this whole project for me. I was unsuccessful at transfering motifs to the piece with dressmaker's carbon or with iron-on transfers because some of the fabrics are dark and because (as I've discoverd) textured fabrics are hard to mark. but I decided to try water-soluable stabilizer, which works great. It's opaque and you can easily trace any motif onto it. If you use marker or gel pen, you need to wait until it dries completely, or it will smear, and this can take awhile (like a day). Other than that, it's easy to position, pin down, and stitch through. It holds up well and you can even remove stitches and re-do them (ask me how I know) and the stabilizer remains, well, stable.


When I was done, rather than wet the fabric, because I wasn't sure if it would show water spots, I blasted it with steam from an iron held above (not touching) the fabric, and it easily softened up enough to pull apart.



Here is my feather stitch from Sharon B's Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge. It goes from a single to a double and triple feather to fill the triangular space. In the center photo you can see my fly stitch, which I will embellish. In the first photo you can see my blanket stitch, which also will be embellished. I've finished adding the last of the motifs, so now I'll concentrate on the seam treatments.