My favorite gift!
I didn’t plan on doing this week’s Zakka Style project but I’m glad that I did because I’m quite happy with how it turned out and will actually use it! There is a BIG incentive to complete this project and to link it up to the sew along – a nice collection of Cosmo Thread by Lecien. I was intrigued by the post by The Patchsmith who said she has threads all over the place from making this. After thinking about it for awhile and reading the directions again, I thought that starting with a large patchwork piece and cutting it into strips on the BIAS might be an answer to the loose threads. So I tried it!
I sewed some strips together, cut them into smaller pieces and then sewed the pieces together in an arrangement that I thought would give me a long run of bias.
I cut bias strips 1 1/4 inch wide from this. No frays on the edges and the front of the stripes looked great. The back, though, had all those seams.
Front of bias strips – beautiful
Back of strips – not so pretty
I joined the strips together using a bias join technique. I thought about stopping here and using the “ribbon” this way.
Single layer
However, there was so much of it that I decided to go ahead and sew it all together with the wrong sides together using a simple running stitch down each edge. After that, I had only half of the length but no raw edges showing at all!
Double layer
After looking around for something to be the gift to tie it onto for the photo, a wine bottle seemed perfect. My sewing space is incredibly well “stocked”! Don’t you agree?
Fabric to the right. Wine to the left.
I Finally Have Time 