Slow Going. . .HH Hall Building Project

Defining the design lines on the photo copy

For this project, I was given a photo copy of my piece of the project and a color photo. The rules were to:
--extend the design so that the raw piece would be two inches larger than the photo copy pattern. This "extra" would be wiggle room for quilting and for trimming the quilt for the facing later.
--use fabrics that replicated the colors in the photograph.
--finish the piece to the facing/sleeve stage and deliver it to the person stitching the facing by August 1. We are also to return the photo copy pattern.

I started with tracing the copy of the photograph. I used a fine tip sharpie and marked the highlights. This marking makes it easier to see the design lines when the transfer material is on top of the copy.

Painter's drop cloth trial

Second, I needed to mark my transfer material. I tried to use a cheap painter's drop cloth as my transfer material. My thought was that I would be able to easily see the design as I built the pieces. It didn't work because there were some tiny fold lines that I wasn't able to smooth out. These folds could have contributed to making the piece larger than it should have been so that was why I didn't use this material. It was a good try!

Design transferred to tissue paper

I have another project that is waiting for my attention that uses this same technique. For that one, I purchased a piece of plastic film that was expensive for something I would use one time.

This time, I didn't want to purchase plastic film.  I had a roll of tissue paper that came from the guild free table a long time ago. It was probably the last of what was used in a physician's office. I used a window and traced the tissue paper over the photo copy. I used an extra fine tip sharpie for this step!

Following the colors in the photograph

The unused portion of this tissue paper became the pattern material for transferring the shapes. Of course, at first, I thought I could skip this step and just draw directly on the stabilizer. I used Soft Fuse as the stabilizer. Guess what? That didn't work because now the fusible was on the wrong side of my fabric and all my pieces were going the wrong way.

Each time I added a section, I carefully checked the color with the color photo I was given as well as used the tracing paper to make sure I was placing the piece in the correct position.

Fusible is on the incorrect side of the fabric!

Yes, the transfer of the design took some time. Yes, sometimes I thought that I had copied the design on the wrong side and I was incorrect. These little pieces will be used when the grands come to create cards and "stuff."

Top floor

Slowly the design grew. This piece will finish to about 7 inches by 39 inches. It surprised me how much time it took to prep, trim and place each piece.

I thought it would be easiest to work from the top down--ah. . .not so much!

Brick portion of the building

Next I tried working on the bigger part--the bricks and the windows. That was okay.

I used the same fabric in all but the darkest window in the above photos. I used the markers to shade all the window fabrics so that the value was closer to what was in the photograph. The hard part was waiting overnight for the marker ink to dry!

Adding a 'curb' line

I found it easier to work from the bottom up! I used a marker to place the "curb" line.  I'll share my progress once I figure out the trees. It took me about a week to get to this point! Isn't that crazy?? It takes a lot of time to cut those little pieces and fidget them into the correct spot!