kimberly ah

I’ve had my sewing machine for over a year now…it’s only fitting that my first “sewing” project would be a paper one. I’ve been wanting to sew up a garland for a long time now and last week (since the house was a mess, laundry needed to be done and I had to work) seemed to be the perfect time.

On a Wednesday night whim, I pulled out my cheap watercolors and “painted” with all of the fall colors. I use the term “painted” loosely because I really just slopped the colors onto some watercolor paper. I tried an ombre effect–sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t–but it didn’t really matter how neat and tidy the painting was because I knew I was going to cut up the end result. I mostly used a sumi brush instead of my watercolor brushes. It covered more ground and it soaked up the cheap watercolors like a dream.

Once the watercolor dried, I flipped the paper over and did a solid color wash on the back so that the garland would look pretty on both sides. The next day I punched out a bunch of circles with my Fiskars two-inch circle punch. At first I tried to keep each color within the same punch, but by the end, I was mixing things up, letting some circles have white space or two colors…whatever worked. As I cut, I trimmed off the scraps so I could keep cutting further into the paper.

Then, I moved into the bedroom and uncovered the sewing machine. Yes, it is avocado green. It deserves its own blog post.

Things did not go smoothly at the sewing machine. (It was the first time I’d used it without help.) The thread kept coming out of the needle and I wouldn’t notice until I had a few circles through…it was terribly frustrating. The circles weren’t connected, but there were all sorts of tiny perforations in them. I finally got out the manual only to learn (after several tries) that the machine wasn’t threaded all the way. Once I solved that little dilemma, there were no more mishaps. Smooth sailing with the rest of the garland. (And, unless you look closely, you don’t notice that some circles have a few extra holes!)

Right now the garland is living on my desk, but I think it will move into the dining room for the rest of the season. I am excited to try it again with some bright wintry colors, and maybe some shimmery watercolor snowflakes for December!

P.S. Happy Birthday, Mom! XOXO