Trimmin' Mah Beaver…and Other Stuff

Isn't He Cute?
Well, what did you think I was talking about?
This is one of our newest “test stitchouts” There are no green polka dot fabric shirts anywhere around here…but the remnant was cheap and I just needed to run the file. I also didn't have the right colors of fabric or thread but this is close enough. Hey, I could have done him in pig-hog pink or all grey.

This is our most ambitions appliqué project to date. Lots of pieces to place, tack down, and trim. I have a nice special set of sharp scissors to get all the details. It doesn't look like much right now.








Now all the fabric pieces are in place. The beauty of appliqué work is that a shape of colored fabric can be put down in lieu of thousands of stitches as a background. We figured out how to do this fairly fast.







As you can see the stitching adds detail and dimension to the appliqué pieces. This went well until quitting time last night where the particular color needle I was using kept detecting “false thread breaks”. That's how I knew to quit for the night. I don't troubleshoot really well close to midnight.

The following morning I found the take up spring for that needle to be completely…er…sprung. They get fatigued after a while and need to be replaced. I didn't want to replace it just then. I just pulled that color thread to the next needle and continued with the stitching. I wonder how long I can procrastinate on replacing that spring. I guess that depends on the next design.

Then there's the cursed design from the other day. On the red and black color-blocked shirt. It looks okay, but I really, really wanted the teeth stitched and not appliquéd. Rather than have the horns, beard, and eye flames the same contrasting color, I decided to do the horns and beard in red and the flames in the eyes as orange. We'll come up with something else to complete this shirt back.

For example, “something else” could mean the “Ride Like the Devil” tagline above or below, and perhaps some nice tribal-ish swirls like on this white size 5X shirt. This white shirt is finally finished. I thought it was finished before the swirls. The swirls were very scary to line up and have meet in the center. I let out a “WOOO!” and did a happy dance when the two designs “kissed” in the center. I had no way of knowing if they would or not, I only had measurements…and those don't always work.