Monday 14 March 2011

Plan C (or should that be third time lucky?)

Remember my plan for the Charley Harper Quiltalong? the little mouse.

Well.........last night that mousehole caused me more than a little bother. 

I decided that I want my wall hanging to be textured, so I used a heavyweight but soft furnishing fabric for the background.  I did a few tests with ribbon, string, fabric etc and then opted for a lime green furry trim (which is actually the selvedge from a chenille fabric). Let's call this Plan A....

Because Plan A required me to fix the trim behind the hole, I cut my mousehole first, using a dinner plate for size.  I then machine stitched green furry trim to hole.....


Yikes!  My mousehole became frilly!  This was really not the look I was after.  Possibly strengthening the fabric with interfacing first would have reduced this effect, but too late for me.  

I cut out the green furry trim and went with Plan B for my (slightly bigger) mousehole.  Plan B involved stitching twine to the outside of the hole.


I had tested this but the result.......messy, and because I'd already cut the hole, the edges of the fabric were on show, all too slapdash. 

I went to bed grumpy!

I woke up at 6am with a brain wave, and Plan C was formed. I got up and actually made a start on it before little Felix woke up at 7.  Basically I have bound the edges with a grey chenille wool that I had in my stash, using the largest darning needle I could lay my hands on.  I kept going until the edges and the string from plan B were completely covered...and finally, I like the result!  It's textured and raises up slightly so the mouse really will be in the hole.

Here's progress so far.  The mouse is next, let's hope he's easier :)


x

3 comments:

  1. Cuteness! Hate that it took three tries to get there and one grumpy night of sleep, but the end product is well worth it. Would have never thought to chenille!

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  2. It looks fab, I can't wait to see the mouse hopefully he will be less trouble and I hope he appreciates the work you put into his house.
    Emma x

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  3. I'd maybe have done the mouse first and secured the front to the back mouse panel then either couched (embroidery term) the string or something else around to form the edging to the mouse hole (maybe a bias strip of background fabric with the string fed down it to form a piping strip that could be slip stitched into place then over stitched to add extra texture)

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