Well, thank you so much to Caroline for her posting on ’funky letters’ because I loved the idea but I have V7 and my beloved 780 so I was curious to see what I could achieve.
It is certainly possible with V7 but I found that using the pattern fills in CorelDraw within V7 I only had access to 2 colour designs – and that means one colour PLUS the background (white). I wanted 2-colour letters. I use Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator a lot and with determination I was able to work out a way to get my two colour letters and bring them into the V7 programme.
This was perfect timing as I was looking to make a present for a special friend and I could use my ‘funky’ letters on a book cover.
1. First I took a piece of beautiful beige linen.
2. Then I painted some Bondaweb. I used Koh-i-noor paints but acrylic (can be watered down), Inktense or other types are fine. You paint the glue!
3. I tore the Bondaweb into strips and ironed the strips in place randomly across the linen. Don’t forget to use Teflon or parchment paper to protect your iron!!! Remove the paper backing. And remember the Bondaweb will be a bit sticky for a while until you have ironed it several times to exhaust the stickiness – always use a protective sheet.
4. Next I took a magazine, found some pages which would blend in with my colours and tore them into strips and used Gel Medium to glue them to the linen.
5. I added small pieces of gold fish-netting and could have added some gold foiling (I forgot).
6. The rose is my own photo printed onto transfer paper and ironed in place.
7. Now I added a bit of screen printing using gold paint and a thermofax screen with writing.
8. At this point I did add a layer of fine yellow netting (tulle) but it could have been left off or a matching layer of sheer fabric substituted. This is mainly to hold down any bits and pieces you have added to the surface which might be vulnerable with wear and tear.
9. Now I was ready to stitch out my ‘funky letters! Fun, fun, fun!
10. I had to use my megahoop because of the length of the name and I stuck Sulky Sticky+ stabilizer directly onto the underside of the hoop because I didn’t want to crease the linen in the hoop. I placed the linen onto the sticky stabilizer and the first thing I stitched out was a hoop basting outline. Once the ‘funky’ letters were stitched out I removed the stabilizer from the hoop and the linen.
11. I sandwiched the linen with a layer of thin flat batting and a cotton backing and free quilted various areas using a #15 foot – great visibility.
12. The quilted piece was cut to size and two cotton sleeves were added to hold the book cover on (front and back).
13. Finally, using my favourite #2A foot, I added two layers of satin stitch around the outside edge – the first more open and the second slightly wider and more closed.
14. Shame my name isn’t Dianne as I would love to keep the book… Hope she likes it!
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