Makers Gonna Make
There’s an exciting new product launching this week at The International Quilt Market in St. Louis and we just had to share with you!
We thought it was so cool when our favorite fabric collections started showing up on calendars, planners and even our coffee mugs. We loved being able to accessorize our work room with notepads and boxes featuring the art of J Wecker Frisch; The perfect finishing touch to our “She Who Sews” workspace.
As if that wasn’t enough, now there’s a new way to have fun with these three ladies:
Each one of these characters is ready to come to life as a full 60” appliqué project! The Handmaids Maker’s Guides will be available soon at Great Joy Studio but lucky us, we have been playing with them for weeks! J Wecker Frisch let us make some sample pieces to take to The International Quilt Market with her so we thought we’d show you what we made.
Here’s our “Press On” girl made from J Wecker Frisch’s “Sewing Seeds II” collection of fabric from Quilting Treasures. Her pieces have been ironed in place and stitched down in a traditional applique manner with a variety of stitches, mostly satin stitch. Her edges aren’t trimmed because she has yet to be quilted.
The shots below show face detail and corset detail. One of the great things about these patterns is you can mix media to really make them your own. Here I chose to shade her cheeks with color pencils rather than use fabric or stitches.
For our second girl we chose “Press On” again but in a completely different way. Using Frisch’s yet-to-be-released line “Hatters Tea Party,”* we let the subtle colors of the art take center stage on a crisp linen background. We lightened the stitch profile by using straight stitches instead of satin, giving us a soft raw edge. Minimal quilting onto a homespun backing with cotton batting gave us a more delicate girl.
Notice how her face is just an outline? I copied her face details onto tracing paper, used basting spray to hold it to a piece of white linen and stitched the details on my machine with black thread. I sent her back to Frisch who will paint in her face colors! Fabric markers or pencils would work as well.
Her corset has much less stitching because the stripe of the fabric added its own detail. These pictures show her before Frisch added a ribbon bow, buttons and vintage hat pins.
*Hatter’s Tea Party will be in quilt stores October 2017.
Our third project tackled The Maker’s Guide for “Seamstress.” We used the newly released collection “She Sews Sea Shells.” (Say that three times fast). Again we used a white linen background and a softer look, replacing the “Seamstress” traditional red hair with neutral creamy waves.
Again we mixed media a bit by coloring parts of her eyes detail and cheeks. Rather than stitch the white highlights on her lips, we snipped a bit of one motif that had a nice textured, highlighted red.
And those eye glasses? If you come out to the farm don’t look too closely at the inside hem of my voile curtain panels. It’s possible I might have borrowed a piece.
Her pin cushion hair ornament got a little jazzed up with pieces of broken jewelry—some black jett and a few bronzy seed beads.
Check back to see finished photos of all the Maker’s Guide samples from The International Quilt Market!