The Illusion of Thin Stems
For the spiral flowers, I wanted really thin stems. Unfortunately, if I cut the fabric as thin as I wanted, I was worried there would be too much fabric to be able to stuff all the edges underneath. So, I came up with this for a solution. I would try to match part of the stem with the background fabric (which is white). I batiked some simple 1/2" wide white stripes and dyed it blue.
Then I cut some strips and folded the ends, and then the sides. You can see a sample in the photo above.
Then I pinned them under the flower heads, slightly to one side.
I hand stitched in place along the dotted line above, and then folded the remaining piece over.
With all the edges turned under, I pinned them in place. I think they look kind of scary with all the pins, and was afraid my thread would get caught on the pins while I was sewing. I was pleasantly surprised that the thread did not catch much at all! After a quick applique stitch with matching blue thread along the blue side of the stem, they are done!
It is a narrow little stem, but half of it fades into the background, and only the blue part is obvious. The actual fabric stem is now about 1/4" wide, but just the blue part is 1/8" wide. There is a delicate and playful quality to it. I am really pleased with the way this little experiment has worked! Adds quite a "pop" to the little spiral flowers! I love how cute it looks with the fawns and the hummingbird! Very sweet and happy!
2 comments:
What a clever workaround! They look great, and the white really does fade into the background!
Ah! So glad you like it Shannon! I thought maybe it was too trivial to even write about....
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