Hello Monday, we meet again

Design Wall Monday is here again. I spent most of the past weekend in my sewing studio and it shows!

I spent a lot of time this past week canvasing the big box stores and the quilt shops for some go-with black fabric. I was having a hard time because everything was too black. In a Eureka! moment. I remembered that the bandana is a poly/cotton blend. And so, that is what matched the best. Go figure.

The coping strips were added to the bandana to square it up. Looking a bit closer at that silly thing I see that the words and the floral band aren't centered. But then, it is a bandana and if you fold it diagonally (before the coping strips were added) then both the words and flowers would be visible. It is what it is *shrug*.

I drew up a rose to match the ones in the bandana. I had a hand-dyed pink fabric that I dyed a couple of years ago that worked very well as the rose. I fused the rose, leaves and stems using a light weight fusible that I cut into donut type shapes. I don't really like a lot of fusible because it makes the applique too stiff.

This was a very good opportunity to use up bits and bobs of thread in the bobbins as I satin stitched the rose onto the background. If you use this satin stitch applique technique it is very important to use a stabilizer. I use freezer paper as a stabilizer behind the background fabric because it is easy to apply and somewhat easy to remove when done. I thought the rose was a bit 'flat' looking so I added a bit of shading with a dye pen and it sure made it pop.

It will be a couple of weeks before I can work on this again as I will be working my day job for the next eleven days. It is sculpture show time again, so you know where you can find me.

Do you want to see more design walls? Then you need to visit JudyL's Patchwork Times.