No. I'm not a member of the power tool brigade. But I do have a way with fabric and
in particular, quilts. As in quilts for beds. And you know that doll houses have
beds in them...little, tiny beds which require little, tiny bed coverings. Hilary
asked me if I would make quilts for those beds. She wanted a 1 1/8" sized Variable Star. You
know--- the block with 17 pieces. You try to subdivide 1 1/8" into 17 pieces and
see how far your love for your child goes! But then I remembered cheater's cloth
and my computer. Why not produce a 25 block quilt of Variable Stars and alternating plain blocks
as a line drawing, print it onto a piece of fabric, and color in the blocks using
my fabric pens? Why not, indeed!
Print from your computer onto fabric, you ask? Of course. I've been doing it for two
years and have a lot of fun with it. You need a graphics/drawing program for your
computer which draws lines, a printer, and some fabric and freezer paper (which can
be bought in most grocery stores in the section that sells plastic wrap and aluminum foil).
And, oh yes, a designing mind.
I let Hilary do her own work. Our drawing program, ClarisWorks for the Macintosh,
has a background grid on the computer screen which is similar to eighth inch graph
paper. Hilary drew her stars and plain blocks as one would draw with lines on graph
paper. She even added an outside border. When she was ready, we printed out a test copy on
a piece of standard sized paper. When we were satisfied with the design we then took
a piece of cream colored fabric and ironed freezer paper, which had been cut to
8 1/2" x 11", onto the wrong side of the fabric. The plastic coated paper will adhere
to fabric without harm. This step is necessary to create a stiffness to the fabric
to enable it to feed through the paper tray in the printer. The fabric is placed
face down (freezer paper end up) in the paper tray. Then we print! The black lines of her computer
design were imprinted on the fabric. We allowed the ink to dry for a few minutes.
Then we heat set it with a hot iron. Her next step was to color in the stars as she
desired. We used Vogart liquid embroidery pens. (In order to set the printer ink to
not fade if it should be washed, give the fabric one or two coats of a spray liquid
acrylic called Krylon. This can be found in any hardware or paint store.) I added
the curved stitching on the borders. Hilary layered the quilt sandwich and carefully machine
quilted along the lines dividing the blocks. We added binding to finish her lovely
25 block Variable Star miniature quilt. And all this happened without her mother
having to piece 17 little, tiny triangles and squares over and over again!
Most drawing programs let you "draw" all sorts of shapes, even circles and polygons.
Just think of the possibilities awaiting you computer owners (and friends of computer
owners). This may just turn you into a miniature quilt maker.We couldn't wait for Grandpa Gawbill to arrive. He hadn't come across country to visit
us for almost two years. But, when he comes we plan lots of projects for him to help
us with. After all, he can do almost anything and create something out of nothing
in no time! Our project this time was doll houses for my two young teens. They had each
found five-room doll house kits in their budget range, and knowing their dad's non-expertise
in woodworking, they timed their purchase to coincide with my dad's 10 day visit. Of course, they knew Grandpa could add on a few extra rooms, a porch and other
home improvement spruce-ups. Little did I realize that I would have to figure into
this picture when construction was complete!
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