Dear Martha:
As I am sure you can tell from the picture above, your fabric flowers left me... frustrated.
I have not done a project for this blog since, um, March 6, 2011 (sorry followers!) so you can imagine my dismay when I tried to resume my martha crafting and your martha flowers were just short of impossible to make.
So here is some advice that I have for you on things to double check before publishing a chapter on fabric flowers:
1. That liquid starch is readily available. I went to my local grocery store and tried first with spray starch because it was all they had. This was an epic failure. It did not make the fabric stiff enough so it just ended up getting stuck in the punch. I decided to accept this as my own mistake and went looking for some liquid starch. Finding it only at the FOURTH store!! (Followers: see the picture below for the fabric I planned on using for the flowers - an old shirt, an old sheet my old dog chewed a hole in, and the sheet bag my new sheets came in - making it a great "upcycle" project.)
2. Martha - this is the most important advice: MAKE SURE THE PUNCHES CAN ACTUALLY PUNCH THE FABRIC! I had two different punches and even after dipping the fabric in liquid starch, and making it as stiff as a board, the punches failed to cut through the fabric. Even the fabric of that very thin white shirt. So the fabric got stuck AGAIN. Then when I pushed harder the punches just made indents. Only after several tries and the force of all my muscle did I get a few measly flowers. It was too unrealistic to punch out as many flowers as I would need to make the "blooming branches" project. (thirty or more flowers cut out and glued to branches from outside). So I ended up just making one small card out of a combination of fabric and paper flowers.
3. Nobody has ever heard of flower "pips" not even the helpful lady at Michael's. Do you mean flower "picks"?
And so Martha, as much as it pains me to say this, fabric flowers is just not one of your best crafting projects. I wonder how you made them look so beautiful in your book when they were nearly impossible to make.
Sadly,
Your Friend Ellie
ps. A shout out to my mom who inspired me to set time aside as a new mom to continue with this blog and who helped me with this project.
Ellie, I feel your frustration. I wished you had sound with the photo of the fabric being tugged out of the flower punch. You didn't even mention how the fabric jammed the punches and we had to use a screwdriver to get it out. I am impressed with the card, your final product. Quite nice but certainly not the flower blossom branches you anticipated as your final project.
ReplyDeleteYes, when the fabric got stuck in the punches, we had to remove it with either a seam ripper or a screwdriver! How come Martha didn't put that in the instructions?
ReplyDelete