Thursday, September 6, 2012

Open/Closed

A couple of weeks (months) ago I shared an open sign that I made for the Yarnery, which is a yarn store where I teach and sometimes clerk.
It so happens that the other store where I clerk and sometimes teach, Treadle Yard Goods, had a problem with it's open sign at the same time.
I thought it was so quick and easy to knit up a sign for the yarn store, I should whip up a sewn one for the fabric store.
However, as quick a project as it might have been, I didn't take into account the fact that I might lose the project half-way through and not find it until September.
My husband is always teasing me for having too many project bags, and this time he was vindicated when I found the sewn open/closed sign in a bag that I almost never look in.
Anyway, I found it yesterday and realized that I was really close to completion.
So after a few false starts with the morning nap, I was able to have an hour to work on it this morning.



Originally I had planned to have the darker colorway as closed and the brighter as open, but I started cutting out the letters on the yellow before I realized what I was doing and so I let the forces of the universe dictate that the brighter one should indeed be the closed sign, since it would be easier to see the brighter side at night.
I made this with 2 - 9" x 12" felt squares, 1/8 yard of two different fabrics, double-sided fusible Peltex and Wonder Under.
I fused the Wonder Under to the entire felt square, drew the letters and cut them out with a small, very sharp scissor.
Next I fused the fabric to the back of the piece.
I hand-sewed around the letters with a running stitch, and then I repeated the whole process for the second side.
I placed the Peltex in the center of the sandwich and fused the whole thing together.
Lastly, I sewed a long piece of bias tape (I think it was a whole package) around the sign.
As you can see from the first photo, I had intended to hand-sew the bias tape around the edge, but I realized that I would have difficulty getting the needle through all the layers, so I did it with the machine.
While I was making both of these pieces I had this skit from Sesame Street running through my head.



Anything on your crafting to-do list today?

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