Friday 5 August 2011

Treasure box finished

My last swap for a while with the Surface Design group is a box for Deb Cragan in Australia. I've decided to dramatically decrease the amount of swaps I do so I can have more time to play and experiment and hopefully do more design work.

First I created the fabric for the box by fmeing in various threads, including some thicker threads in the bobbin.   The background was a piece of paper fabric which I'd made some time ago and liked the colours.  This was covered with a sheer fabric before I began to sew.  Once I was happy that there was enough thread play on the piece I took a heat gun to it to create more texture.

Next I digitised some 'inchies' using Bernina V5 software and sewed them out onto soluble fabric covered with iridescent film.  I wanted the inchies to have a gleam of treasure.  These are very simple to make and doesn't need digitising skills to create them.   If anyone is interested I'll show you how I made them.

Once I'd sewn out a hoopful I separated them and washed out the sabiliser.  I quite liked them when they were finished and I might make some more later.  Not sure what I'll do with them but I did think they would make a bracelet or a cuff if beads were interspersed between the inchies.

I added some beaded beads I'd made earlier and some beads in toning values to the inchies and this was my treasure for Deb.
 I created a cardboard template for the box.  I had to keep adjusting it so that all the sides met up  properly.  Once I'd got a template I liked it was used to cut out the fabric I'd made earlier.  I satin stitched round all the pieces then sewed them together to form the box.  It was a treasure box so I put a few hot fix gems on the top before closing the lid with a piece of velcro.  The latter was intended to keep the box shut and stop the 'treasurers' from falling out en-route to Australia.
 

5 comments:

Plum Cox said...

Fabulous! I'm sure that your swap partner will be asolutely thrilled!

Unknown said...

I would love to see how you made the inchies. They are so cute.

Jilly said...

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Carol said...

Please do tell us how you made the inchies!

MulticoloredPieces said...

I love following your experiments. The box is so pretty with nice texture and to think there's something inside too. The inchies are among the most elegant I've seen to date.
best, nadia