Those who can't, glue . . .

I am all in finishing mode, so yesterday, my co-worker and I went to AC Moore. She wanted to look for flowers for a wedding she doing the flower arrangements for, and wanted me to go with her. She is a horrible enabler. I insisted I could not go, and wanted to go to the post office, but she told me she needed me to go. And since I wanted some styrofoam, it was not a hard sell.

I am now the proud owner of an electric styrofoam cutter. It was $12.99, and probably will be pretty useful.

I ended up buying some circles of styrofoam. Hockey pucks, SO calls them. I thought I could do some Christmas ornament finishing. I thought I had more circular small finishes ready for mounting. I thought I had one in particular that would fit. Turns out, it doesn't.

But, in rummaging through my finishes from over the years, I found a freebie I had stitched years ago and just not finished. Spring 1999, which is available here. along with some other really nice ones! As luck would have it, it fit on the hockey puck! And, since I had to go through my fabric stash to find fabric for SO's ornament, I decided to look for fabric for this one. I found the perfect fabric, green and grey-blue with baskets on it. I think it will work out really nice.

I wasn't sure how to center it at first. But I figured out if I measured the circle, found center on both that and my piece, if I pushed a pin through the back of the styrofoam right at center with the point coming through the front, it wouldn't be so difficult. And it actually was not. I just lowered the batting over the centered pin, smoothed it and pinned it down, and glued the edges. Then, I lowered the stitching down with center right at the pin, smoothed it and tacked it down, so I can do the edges. It really was not that hard. Of course, it helped that SO held the pins for me, and would hold the puck while I was stretching. God bless him, he complains about how messy my sewing room is, but when I need his help, he helps me.

We're about as far as we could get with it last night. I had to let the glue dry on the sides. I can see that is going to be a problem, so I think I'll end up sewing it down, and I was kinda tired last night after all the decision-making and glueing. SO has to cut me another circle out of foamcore, or else cut up another hockey puck, in order to wrap the basket fabric around it. And I have to pick out some satin ribbon at G Street Fabrics to put around the edges. I thought that would make this look pretty and shabby chic looking.


I am pretty pleased that all I had to buy specifically for this project was those styrofoam circles. I had the fabric for two years, and it was, probably $2 for a yard of it. The batting for the top was part of the batting I bought to do my afghan. My aunt won't need the whole length of it, so why not put it to use? That was $10.99. I know the ribbon will cost a bit, but how much can it really run?

I'll try to post some progress pictures to show you all this.