I am late to several parties as a rule and some I don’t really feel that I want even be invited to. Foundation Paper Piecing falls into this category. Boy do I admire other people’s work but I have no desire to dip my own toe into the water. Yet.
However. I do want to be able to do some of the things that FPP is used for. Like adding text to a project for example. I want to do that badly. And I understand that sometimes, a sacrifice may need to be made.
It occurred to me one day that text might be possible to make up without the backward facing FPP method that I don’t want to get involved with. If you think log cabin, it should be possible. So I set out to give it a go- nothing ventured right?
I made a very easy zipper top pencil case a while ago. You can find the free pattern here and I thought that it might be a great vehicle to have a bit of a play with words. These words are made from scraps and they are free style which means, in this context that they will often not be all the same. They are supposed to have their own personality. If you want them to be the same, then sadly, FPP may be the way for you to go.
If you are happy with personality, then please do stay on board for the ride! Now I could make an alphabet and that may well happen in the future, but today, I am going to keep things very simple with one word. It means something to most of us and it is easy to do.
So what will we need?
- scraps of fabric to make the letters
- scraps of high contrast background fabric
- a ruler, cutting mat and rotary cutter
- a Fat Quarter of batting. I am using #279 80/20 cotton mix wadding by Vlieseline
- to make the pencil case you will need some trim fabric for the front, a zipper and some backing fabric and lining. All of this will be concentrated on in the pattern for this (there are a couple of links) and I am only going to show you how to make the actual letters today.
The first thing to do is to cut some strips. I found that 3/4″ is about right for a smaller sized letter. That gives something to stitch into but didn’t look too clunky. The main drawback of this style is that there is a limit as to how small the words can be.
I am showing you the word ‘hey!’ this time so we don’t need too much. I have opted for a fabric with small florals and then a white background fabric. Let’s start with the ‘h’. As you can see, there are some parts of the letter which are not based on a 3/4″ strip. You will have to eyeball these (don’t worry, it really isn’t too hard) and see what fits so keep some scraps.
Okay so here is the basic layout of the first letter. There is more eyeballing then measuring here although the part of the letter on the left will give you an idea of how high the overall letter might be. Mine is about 4 1/4″.
But we don’t start there. We start with the two pieces on the middle bottom. sew them together.
Then we need the bit to fit on top. If it is too long, trim it.
Now the bit to go on top of that and there was some trimming to do
All that is left to do now is to put the two strips onto each side. As you can see I have also added another white strip to the front of the letter. the letters have to float like they would on a page of writing and the fancy name for the spaces between the letters is called the kerning space. So for each letter, you need to add this in.
That is the first one done! It is quite square (looks as much like a chair than anything) but it will all work out I promise!
The next letters are the ‘e’ and the ‘y’ and they are built on the same principles. As you can see, there need to be a few pieces of white fabric to fill in the gaps. Add these and trim them as needed. This is a great project to use up lots of awkward scraps- you can ring the changes by making the lettering solid and using your scraps for the background
Keep filling in like this
Then add some background to make sure that the word ‘floats’
Trim it to make it square and even- as you can see from my photo, there is work to be done!
Basically this is it for the word. I have added some strips to the bottom and sides of the word panel and quilted it – that is the reason for the batting.
It is now ready to be made into something, and as I mentioned, I made an Easy-Peasy Pencil Case with mine because you cannot have too many! You can find the link to that pattern and it is a perfect (and easy) way to use your word.
Before I go guys, don’t forget that my Big November Event is still on in my Etsy shop! This is a great, free competition that I know you will want to be in on. Who DOESN’T want to win free patterns!
Happy sewing and see you next time!
Debbie
xx