Enough Fiddling...

....it's time to fuse!

Starting Monday we're looking forward to a couple weeks of nearly back to back houseguests. Then it will be time to put the gardens to bed...organize the garage...wash the windows...then slide into November birthdays and the holiday season. I love this time of year....with all the company and celebrations....and yes...even the chores.

So I decided to take advantage of this mostly partly unscheduled week and bring my stripes project back out to the dining room to see how far I can get before company comes. After some very helpful input from Gretchen, Roseanne, and Dotty several weeks ago...I feel like I did enough fiddling and it was time to start fusing. I can still tweak as I go along...and the best part about getting things fused is that I can eventually hold it up in the space.

I got one panel fused and trimmed yesterday....and it feels good to be starting this phase.

I tried to hold it up by myself to photograph it....but it was too breezy. So I asked Paul to take a photo of me holding it....saying I'm hardly ever in photos. I had to chuckle because this is what I got. 

To his credit...he offered to retake it...but I thought this was kind of funny. Usually you get just one hand...but here you get two! Maybe next time you'll get an ear.

A sliver of soap is a helpful tool during this phase. I learned this tip in my first fusing class and have been using it ever since. I looked back on this stained glass fabric piece post where soap played a major role.

Almost all of the fabrics overlapped each other in their rows and columns with big chunks of extra fabric that need to be trimmed away. Fused fabric is precious so I want to save every scrap. I made a tiny light mark on the fabric with the soap that will just disappear as I iron.

Then I trimmed it up leaving enough extra to overlap and fuse onto the previous piece just a bit.

Once I had the whole column fused...I trimmed up the edges. I purposely tried to make the connecting lines between the strips a bit wonky. A few straight ones are fine...but I want them to have gentle curves and look a bit painterly. 

I made more progress today....but photos will have to wait. The day was just packed!

And....I finally finished my latest puzzle.

And I'm chuckling at how often that canvas print in our living room appears in my photos....and I'm trying to picture my stripes project there! We'll see if it ends up wall worthy.

I loved every challenging minute of the art of Quentin Blake.

Time to start another one!