I want to share with you a couple of ways to “transfer” lettering/wording to our wool projects…To be honest I can draw the words/lettering on with my dependable Clover white liquid chalk marker on most anything…but sometimes you want something just perfect…In the case of this Angel Tree Skirt I wanted the FONT to turn out exactly like the computer prints it out….so I’ve heard Glad Press’n Seal was the answer…So I gave it a try…
With a medium tipped Sharpie marker I traced the design from the book, along with the bottom edge of the mat for accurate placement.
I then “pressed” the Press’n Seal onto my wool mat.
With a #8wt. perle cotton and a#22 Chenille needle I started stem stitching my letters right through the press’n seal…as you can see I didn’t want to stitch too much before I knew if this was going to come off…I took my small extra sharp Dovo scissors and cut away the PnS as close as I could to the stitching. I then proceeded to take my extra sharp tweezers and pull away the PnS from the outside of the letters and insides. Awesome!….It was going to come off…was it easy? It was kind of picky and sticky coming away from the stitching, but the results were beautiful.
Now I thing the biggest reason it worked is because my stem-stitching was nice and close together…a little smaller than I usually stitch…mostly because these were tiny lettering…and to make it pretty it had to be tiny….
Now..for the next step…I am stitching this same Angel Tree Skirt as FULL sized tree skirt!!!
I blew up the pattern as stated in the directions…it comes out to 42″. The perfect size for a full size tree…The wool for the background had to be specially dyed because I needed more than 1 yard…I think we dyed a 50″x 6o” piece of wool to get the 42″ after it was dyed. Wool shrinks/felts in they dyeing process to you have to account for that shink-age.
For the full sized tree skirt I stitched the much larger letters/words in a chain stitch…and then went back in and did a running stitch inside of the chain stitch…
I am done with all the stitching now its time to pull all that PnS away…
So my final summary is this…If I need something to be perfect, I will use the PnS…If it doesn’t matter and I want to do it in my own hand I will skip the PnS because it isn’t really that fun to pull all that stuff out from the words/lettering…but it does work for those who do not care for their own lettering…and for those “perfectionists” out there. So it’s a very accurate means of transferring the word/lettering on to our wool projects.
A couple other methods I have used in the past have been tissue paper…you would baste the traced tissue paper onto the design and then stitch on it…then wet it when compete and put it away…this comes off easier, but it is a little more awkward to stitch through.
Then the final way has been to use “tulle”. You would trace the words onto the tulle with a marker. Then place the tulle onto the wool and trace the words again using the liquid chalk market or the fixion pens that are now available.
I hope this helps when determining how to get those words onto your dark wool backgrounds that you cannot use a lightbox for. I can’t wait to show you how this large tree skirt turns out…it’s a monster but will be so beautiful under a tree!
If you would like a kit for the large tree skirt we can get that info to you…I have not figured it out yet as I usually don’t until the project is finished…but I wanted to share this with you while I was stitching. Email us or comment on this post and we will get the kit info to you when it is ready.
I will be posting soon about…The Magic of Christmas…a 25 block red/white (city) or reds/cream (country) stitch along….
Time to get ready or today’s workshop and meet some Maine quilters!!! LB
