Sew-Along Step 2: Making it Personal
When decorating a cake or your home, you always do the flourishes and decorative touches last. It may seem a bit backwards to do our final touches first, but this is the best way. Part of it is convenience for you- it is far easier sewing embellishments onto a piece of fabric where the back will eventually be hidden, than sewing on a finished product where you have to hide knots and stitches. Part of it is the fact that this is the hardest bit, and once we get this done it just gets easier and quicker from here. Better to get the hard bits out of the way while our motivation is high, right?
The final bag will have a front and a back. You can either decorate across the fold so when it is open one large picture will be visible -or- you can decorate each side with a different image. After I made my original design and posted step 1, my daughter asked for a change in layout and is now going for the "front/back" design rather than the "over the fold" design. We mothers aim to please, right? On the bright side, it gives me an opportunity to show you two methods. Everyone wins!
First and foremost we need to mark off the section that we will be decorating. To start, you need only one of the two 16.5" long and 10.5" high rectangles (that you have already cut out for the main body). You will also need a piece of string or ribbon, some tape or pins, and a ruler. We are going to use the string to make a frame, and the pins or tape will temporarily hold it in place.
The fabric rectangle should be placed on the table in front of you in a landscape position (longer sides on the top and bottom, shorter sides on the left and right). We are going to start on the right side of the rectangle. First, take your piece of string and lay it on the fabric rectangle so it is 1" from the edge of the rectangle. The inner part of the string (the piece closest to the middle of the fabric square) should be at the 1" point- just like in the picture below.
Tape or pin it in place (I chose to tape mine). Fold the string at the top and bottom to make a corner, and repeat this step for the bottom and top of the frame.
Once you have the string on the top, right, and bottom in held place with tape or pins, you need to complete the square. The left side of the frame needs to be placed so the inner edge rests 11" in from the right side of the fabric rectangle. Like this:
Everything within this frame will be on the outer cover of the bag. The bag will eventually fold right down the middle of the frame, from top to bottom, and have about a 1" thick spine. Because I want my design to be half on the front and half on the back, I eye-balled it in place just for now just to make sure it all fits. I had to adjust my peacock a few times to get it the size you see pictured. Now is the time to make sure your design fits as well!
I documented the steps that I used to make my design. If you want to make something similar you can follow along. If you already know exactly what you want to do, just skip ahead to the very end of this post and the rest of us will meet you at the last paragraph!
I want to put my daughter's name in stitching along one of the bag faces. To do this, I opened up my word processor and typed in her name. I used the "Harrington" font, size 80 if you are curious. I also formatted the font to "outline" rather than normal. I like to save toner, plus thin lines are much easier for me to deal with than thick ones. I printed as normal and cut roughly around the name.
Next, I flipped the paper over, and traced over each letter several times (about 4-5) with a normal #2 pencil. I tried to be pretty accurate, but you can see my tracing skills leave much to be desired.
I want to put my daughter's name in stitching along one of the bag faces. To do this, I opened up my word processor and typed in her name. I used the "Harrington" font, size 80 if you are curious. I also formatted the font to "outline" rather than normal. I like to save toner, plus thin lines are much easier for me to deal with than thick ones. I printed as normal and cut roughly around the name.
Next, I flipped the paper over, and traced over each letter several times (about 4-5) with a normal #2 pencil. I tried to be pretty accurate, but you can see my tracing skills leave much to be desired.
I placed the name onto the fabric rectangle, within the frame, exactly where I wanted it to go. Next, I scribbled over each letter with the pencil. I did push a bit, but certainly no where near enough to rip the paper.
I removed the paper. You can see the name has been traced onto the fabric. I went over the lines one more time with my pencil to make them darker for the picture- if you try this method, yours will be a bit lighter.
I sewed the name in a simple chain stitch using plain white quilting thread.
That being done, it was time to work on my applique. I want each feather of my peacock to be a separate piece of fabric. To do this, I need to work in layers. First, I traced the back row of feathers onto a piece of iron-on interfacing, with the glue part down. I added a bit of length to each feather so I would have a bit of wiggle room later. I then repeated for the second layer of feathers, and lastly for the body. I placed them back on the pattern to ensure I got all the pieces cut.
Next, I put the pieces glue side down on the wrong side of my fabric, and pressed. I took advantage of the polka-dots on my fabric and used them to accent the feathers.
I then cut out each piece carefully and checked the placement once more, just to be sure I was happy with the final design.
I carefully slid the pieces off the paper and onto my fabric within the frame. I pinned each one in place and double checked my measurements, tweaking it as I needed to until I was happy with it.
Now it is sewing time! I removed the body and top layer so I could access the bottom layer first. Using standard embroidery floss, I did a simple naive stitch around each feather. While the interfacing will help keep it from fraying, it still will fray slightly with use. To prevent fraying you should either use fray-check or fully encapsulate the edge with either fabric paint or stitching. I like knowing my feathers will get a bit fluffy around the edges, so I made sure not seal off the edge.
Once the bottom layer was complete, I sewed the next layer in the same way.
And finally the body layer....
Last, I needed to do the accent pieces. These include the feet, face, and little feather bits. I am doing these out of regular embroidery stitches, making these the last "layer" to the design.
About half-way done, my design looks like this. I don't mind the intense mind-boggling element of a design on such patterned fabric. It is meant to be seen up close, and as it will fold into smaller sections the big pattern will end up being looking less, well, big.
Here are the completed shots:
Now, it is time for you to sew on your design! You can do an applique. You can do embroidery. You can sew on a bunch of buttons. You can bedazzle it. You can iron on a patch you purchased at the store. You can use fabric paint to make it fancy. Knock yourself out!
Onto step three.
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