Finishing my August Challenge Piece

Tags: applique, art fabric, coaster, creating fabric, how-to, silk

I've been thinking about what method to use to finish off my challenge piece. Although I have loved creating it using the different elements (words) to work and especially working with the silk I'm not sure the overall design is something I would hang on my wall. Knowing this I've decided to look at different sections of it to perhaps chop up for a series of mini displays.

The easiest way to do this is to cut out a cardboard window and use my camera to take snapshots of various sections.

using a frame to select a section of the fabric

Here is a series of snapshots of different areas.

leaf sectioned from the fabric

the whole leaf

leaf sectioned from the fabric
leaf sectioned in a frame
only a small bit of leaf is shown in this selection

Even the one with only a small bit of leaf looks great...

very little leaf is seen in this selected area

...unfortunately some of these options overlap so I won't be able to use them all.

Using the frame I marked in four outlines that included leaves.... can you see the white outlines?

drawing the selected areas using a frame

...and then cut them out.

coasters cut out of the unique fabric

You can see I still have quite a bit left over which prompted me to cut out another couple that didn't include any part of a leaf. Now I have 6.

coasters cut ready to edge

I could make a bunch of frames and hang them together or one big frame connected so the windows are in a row. One last idea one I think I will go with is to make a bunch of coasters.

There are a number of ways I could finish off the edges. I could possibly bind them or simply stitch around them. I decided on the latter. Using an overlocking stitch on my sewing machine I stitched entirely around the outside then I used a straight stitch to stitch around again basically connecting the dots of the 'bite' created from the first stitching.

stitching around the edge to prevent fraying

It didn't take me long to get around all six!

my unique coasters with coffee.... where's the cake?

my six coasters

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