Laura Vegas

guess where making memories is this weekend? they are at the international quilt market in houston, texas. they are there to introduce their brand new slice machine that is specifically designed for cutting fabric. the new slice fabrique, and the new slice fabrique design cards, were designed with the fabric appliqué quilters in mind. want to see this new machine? here's a photo, courtesy of making memories. 

 

the first thing i have to tell you, is that i don't sew. i don't stitch. i don't even iron. i actually do own a sewing machine, that i bought years ago, so that i could machine stitch on my layouts. never learned to use it. i LOVE the look of machine stitching. and i do LOVE fabric projects. i have done all of 2 fabric projects in the past, which were for the slice infomercial last year. but i didn't stitch on those.

so when i got asked to work on this assignment with the slice fabrique, i was a little worried as to whether i could actually pull it off. but i'm always up for any challenge that comes my way, and of course, i said "yes". i was excited to learn something new and push myself to try new things. and that's exactly what i did. for hours and hours on end. lol!

i give some major props to anyone that works with fabric. or makes quilts. or hand stitches anything. it takes patience. lots of it. it was also tons of fun. but working with fabric is an involved process. once i got started, i was fully invested in it. for 4 days straight, all day long. every waking moment. ask my family. nothing else mattered for those 4 days. lol! i felt better, knowing that my BFF wendy, was also fully into the same project. we kept each other on track, compared updates and notes, gave each other tips, asked each other opinions, laughed together, and i'm pretty sure we even cried together at one point. lol! seriously, i love when we work on things like this at the same time. we keep each other sane 🙂

ok, enough rambling. on with some projects. i was assigned to create some projects for one of the "rooms" in the making memories booth for the show. and my room was a little girls room.

 

first up, a lampshade. i'm sure they have a cuter lamp base at the show. this is one i found in my garage, so i could get an idea of the overall look as i worked. i was going to adhered the butterflies randomly around the frame, as if they were fluttering all over. but i'm so glad that i decided to adhered them all in a row, around the frame. i'm going to use this same idea for a lampshade in my family room, except with flowers 😉

 

how cute are these butterflies! and the fabric is just adorable. it's all from my mind's eye. i'm going to be honest on this one. my mom machine stitched the butterflies for me. i did ALL my own hand stitching, but she did help me out with the machine stitching. but i really do plan on learning how, because i love the look. and because now, i have this weird desire to make fabric stuff again ;)

 

i adhered each butterfly to the lampshade, using a glue dot in the center of the butterfly. then i used some glue dots on the outer edge of each wing (top and bottom), so that i could curl the wings slightly before adhering them down. this way, they're not totally flat on the lampshade.

 

next up was a picture frame. this picture of alyssa didn't stay in the frame. they had a little girl in mind for the booth. i just stuck this in there, so that i could take a picture of it 🙂

 

the new slice fabrique design cards have a fun cutting tool. most of the cards do have the mirroring and shadowing options (MS+). but the fabrique design cards allow you to cut shapes in different pieces. like this pinwheel on the frame. it has 6 pieces to the design. the 4 triangle pieces for the main part, the stem (which i left off of here), and the center of the pinwheel. and because you cut each piece individually, your shapes can end up larger than the typical 4 inch slice size. the largest choice on the pinwheel, will actually give you a 5.6 inch tall shape.

 

isn't this pinwheel so fun! i cut all the main pieces twice. so i had 8 pieces total. then i ironed 2 pieces back to back, and hand stitched them around the edges. i folded the corners over, just like the design quide showed me, and stitched that down too. i added a few fun buttons to the center, and a pipe cleaner for the stem. there's more pipe cleaners on another project, that i'll share later. so they tied together. i also sliced out the letters to spell "FUN", and hand stitched those as well. 

 

and how about a cute tote bag? giving credit and props to my mom, who machine stitched this for me too 🙂

 

i have to tell you, that i did fix his button eyes, after taking these photos. i have no idea why i stitched them right there, in the middle of his face. it wasn't until i was looking at some of wendy's project peeks that she shared with me, that i noticed HER frog's eyes were on the top of his head. i had to ask her about it, because i suddenly couldn't remember where a frog's eyes are. this is where the "asking each other for advice and opinions" comes in handy. lol! his button eyes are now nicely stitched where they belong.

 

another example of the pieced together cuts. the frog is actually made from 6 different cuts on the slice fabrique. his head, his body, each leg cuts seperately, his hands cut together, and his eyes cut together (i didn't use those). so it makes it really easy to cut pieces from different fabrics, and then tie them all together. the kite is made from 4 different cuts. the 3 pieces for the kite, and then the tail piece (which i cut 3 times).

 

these flowers are one of my very favorite parts out of all my projects. i LOVE these flowers! i used the largest size cut on these, so they are 4 inches wide and 5.8 inches tall. good sized flowers. each one was 4 cuts. the 3 parts of the flower, and the stem. we stitched down the outer flower, and the center of the flower. i left the middle flower as it was, so that the edges lift up and give some extra dimension to the bag. i hand stitched on the buttons to the centers of the flowers.

ok, it's almost 2:00am here. and i have to be up at 7:00am for the girls soccer games. so i'm calling it a night. i'll be back tomorrow (sunday, since it's technically saturday right now) with some more of my slice fabrique projects. and make sure and check out wendy's blog, to see her projects too. her "room" was a baby boy nursery. and she did some super, duper cute stuff. and make sure to leave her some loving comments. we both worked so hard on these, and we really hope that you like them. we both love making memories, and are so grateful to work for them. we hope that they are getting an awesome response to the new machine and the new design cards at the quilt market this weekend, and that our projects helped make their booth a little cooler and prettier 🙂