In one of the videos, Mercy Tiara sews down chevron bits then pulls the ends up off the page to give it all sorts of extra dimension. I just loved it and wanted to give it a try.
Aside: I have two sewing machines. I don't really know how to operate either of them. I could tell you story of how I came to have two machines and absolutely no sewing skills, but it would take forever. I should mention that the better of the two had been stashed in the back of my closet for the last three years and I only just found it in the move. In fact, it was in the back of my car until Friday evening...
So yeah, back to being inspired on Friday night... There was no way in hell I was going down the stairs to get that machine, especially since I had no idea how to use it. No problem! I'll just hand stitch the chevrons in place! No big deal. Ha. Ha. Ha. What a hot mess that was! The holes (and subsequent stitching) were all unevenly spaced - and not in a quaint, casual sloppy way, but rather in a 2nd grade craft project gone wrong kind of way. I was also using more of a thin twine than thread, and I was ripping the cardstock in a couple of spots. I ended up cutting the sheet of cardstock in half, ditching the botching sewing job half and putting the salvaged half in with my scraps. I abandoned the idea of sewing the chevrons in place and just adhered them down all boring-like.
(Instagram shots by Kerig)
And while I would have prefered to have just a sleek line of thread running through the tips of the chevrons and the ability to bend the ends up off the pages for a little more dimension...maybe this works in a neat and tidy way. I do like the combo of teal and grey patterned papers and cardstock that I used. I'm loving both of those colors lately.
By Sunday I had finally hauled up the "good" sewing machine and decided to spend some time trying to remember how to use it. You know, sometimes I just don't know how we existed as a society before YouTube. I watched a video that showed me all the basics - threading the bobbin, putting the bobbin in the housing, threading the needle and getting started. Yay, YouTube! I still had a bunch of hurdles, including several times when I was just punching holes in the cardstock because the thread had broken 6 inches ago, but with the help of Google and some sewing forums I managed to get it sort of figured out.
Do you SEE ALL THAT CRAZY SEWING?? It's a mess, but sort of a good mess, so I'll take it.
The other thing that I'm pleased about on this layout is the size of the car frame thingee. It was originally sized at 4x6 - I think it's meant to be for a Project Life journaling card. (Am I the only one not doing Project Life? Am I the only one sort of sick of hearing about how amazing Project Life is? #grump) Anyway, I managed to use some trickery I learned through one of Kerri Bradford's Silhouette classes to size it fit my 8.5x11 page. There are a bunch of those journaling cards in the Silhouette shop...no my brain is working overtime wondering if I could/should use this technique on other shapes. Hmmm...
After I finished that layout I still had plenty of daylight and I was killing time til the Real Housewives of New Jersey came on. So I did this:
The jury is still out on this one. Way out, in fact. I had watched another process video that inspired me to use the busier background. Plus, I ♥♥♥ the hexagons, so I impulsively bought the paper. That was sort of dumb for me, given that I really only feel comfortable using very tight geometric patterns. But we're seeing vellum tone things down, and I thought I'd be able to add more stuff to cover up the overwhelming pattern and it wouldn't be so...overwhelming... Ah well, another memory saved. :P
So that's it for today. There's actually more that I want to say, but I save that for tomorrow.
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