Needles and Threads - Chapter 1

As this is a new project and a new activity altogether that I have taken up and its a total DIY (Do it Yourself), I am going to share every small bit of detail of it with you. I will try and cut the long story short but I really have to tell you all the small tough times this new activity has given me.

Firstly, I had to pick the fabric I would do it on. Recently we got a new couch for our home and with that we received three matching cushions. So, I picked up one and started my google search for the design. Here is the simple design that I picked.

Now, I didn't have any tracing paper or any kind of tracing supplies with me. And the impatient me wanted to get going. The fabric I have chosen is a thick upholstery material, so it wasn't easy to just draw on it. So I had a little crazy idea to get this done. I perforated the entire design with a needle. Tch-tch-tch-tch I kept on going around the lines of my design. My idea was to dip a cotton ball in thin color liquid and then placing the temporary stencil on the fabric, I would rub the cotton ball all over the design and it should be traced. So proud I was with the brilliant brainwave I had. Well, it wasn't easy as it seemed to be. 

Firstly, I didn't pin my design. I was super impatient in getting this done with. I simply dipped the cotton and started rubbing over the design. After making the  paper half wet, I picked one corner to see if the design got traced. All I could see was blots of red color all across the fabric.  I thought to myself, ok let me use a ball pen instead and simply tear through the perforated lines. But the paper was too wet to take that assault. Thus first try, total failure.

Second try, again I took a print of the design and started all over again ..tch-tch-tch-tch.  This time I pinned my design to the fabric and started to trace it with the pen. Blame it to the quality of the pen, it still didn't give me satisfactory result. Just then, came in my hubby dearest, Patty to the rescue. He said, instead of all this, I can simply draw it for you. And ta-da!...He completed it for me perfecltly! :)

If anyone has better ideas on how can I trace better next time, please share them with me :). Here is a pic of what I have done till now. I will share the story of stitches and colors in the next post! Let me know if anyone has done this kind of work before. It  will be great to know your stories too.