{"id":24516,"date":"2012-09-29T01:22:20","date_gmt":"2012-09-29T05:22:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/?p=24516"},"modified":"2012-10-08T01:56:17","modified_gmt":"2012-10-08T05:56:17","slug":"making-a-scenebassinette-skirt-and-francesco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/2012\/09\/29\/making-a-scenebassinette-skirt-and-francesco\/","title":{"rendered":"Making a Scene~Bassinette Skirt and “Francesco”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Side 1 is almost finished. A pretty bow will be made from the wad of ribbon sitting above the pleat.\u00c2\u00a0 A 3-dimensional bell will be hung from a silk ribbon and tied around the neck of the plain sheep on the far right.<\/p><\/div>\n

Though it is not yet finished, this bassinette skirt has been such fun to embroider.\u00c2\u00a0 It is for our daughter who is expecting her second child and first little girl.\u00c2\u00a0 When she bought the bassinette, she saw the blank, unadorned side panel skirts as blank canvases.<\/p>\n

Knowing they could be transformed into any style she liked, she chose lambs as the theme and let me run with it. She usually gives me carte blanche when she requests a project.\u00c2\u00a0 I am always so appreciative as it makes the creative process so much more enjoyable.<\/p>\n

I love making a scene from a set of designs.\u00c2\u00a0 In addition to a few components from other collections, these landscapes are made of the Plush Pals Lambs<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0 from Amazing Designs.\u00c2\u00a0 Minkee, polar fleece\u00c2\u00a0 and other specialty fabrics are used for the applique’d lambs.<\/p>\n

A 30″ skirt attaches to each side of the contemporary bassinette which has wooden head and foot boards. A 7″ pleat is centered on each skirt.\u00c2\u00a0 I thought it would be fun to see a hidden vignette when the pleats are opened.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 One pleat shows a clothesline hung with baby girl laundry.<\/p>\n

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Pleat opens to clothesline.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

The second side is started but only the center pleat is done.\u00c2\u00a0 From the beginning, I planned to include a black sheep, but it took a while to work out a setting and situation.<\/p>\n

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This is the baaaaahhhd black sheep in time out.<\/p><\/div>\n

The pleat seemed to be just the place to send a misbehaving lamb.\u00c2\u00a0 By copying, pasting and mirror imaging a fence section, a corner was created.\u00c2\u00a0 The lettering on a sign, extracted from another design, has been replaced with “time out.”\u00c2\u00a0 The flowers used throughout were added for cohesiveness and to maintain the mood and style of the rest of the skirt design.<\/p>\n

Creativing these bucolic settings, I was taken back in time to when our 4 year old reluctantly moved out of the nursery into his own big boy room.\u00c2\u00a0 We were in our Mother Earth phase, with a big vegetable garden, chickens, ducks, geese, dairy goats and Ryan’s very own pony.\u00c2\u00a0 In his new room, one wall was papered with kiddie farm scenes much like those in his little world.<\/p>\n

Bedtime stories were woven from those illustrations–tales of the blue polka dot pony who jumped the fence to play with the goats,\u00c2\u00a0 the pompous geese who made fun of the ducks’ short necks, etc.<\/p>\n

For Alastair, I have already spun yarns of these lambs and their antics.\u00c2\u00a0 When Baby Girl is born, that will be special story time for the two of us while his mama is nursing the baby.<\/p>\n

Making scenes like this can be challenging and fun.\u00c2\u00a0 The process requires\u00c2\u00a0 a sizeable design folder, careful measurements and printed templates.<\/p>\n

First, on my computer I created a “bassinette” folder and copied into it every design I had that could possibly be used.\u00c2\u00a0 Then after planning a few basic landscapes, some designs were eliminated.\u00c2\u00a0 On the computer, I combined the selected designs in BuzzEdit2.\u00c2\u00a0 There I could shorten or lengthen a row of flowers, scoot a lamb closer, etc.<\/p>\n

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When I was pleased with one 15″ side, the designs were arranged into the required number of frames.\u00c2\u00a0 Usually, this was accomplished with two hoopings for each scene beside the pleat.\u00c2\u00a0 Next templates were printed out so the positions could be marked.<\/p>\n

The scene’s center is where I prefer to start.\u00c2\u00a0 For this project, the pleat is at the center. \u00c2\u00a0 So I created the clothesline and the bad black sheep scene so that each measured 7″, the size of the pleat.\u00c2\u00a0 For the sides,\u00c2\u00a0 I arranged and rearranged the templates, edited and measured until I had 15″ of design for each side.<\/p>\n

The clothesline posed a special challenge because it was just freestanding with no posts.\u00c2\u00a0 For my purpose, it had to hang from something.\u00c2\u00a0 Using a tree from Sue Box’s Woodland Treasures<\/em>, on the right,\u00c2\u00a0 a branch was added for the clothesline to tie onto.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The birdhouse sits on a shelf which was lengthened to reach the clothesline on the other side.<\/p>\n

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Initially, I was pleased with this.\u00c2\u00a0 But when the pleat is closed, the two tall features of the landscape seem to be ridiculously close.\u00c2\u00a0 And who ever saw a birdhouse taller than a tree?\u00c2\u00a0 Of course, what isn’t ridiculous about pink lambs and bulky sheep jumping fences?\u00c2\u00a0 But it just isn’t as pleasing as I had expected.<\/p>\n

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The other side will be better because that bad black sheep is just isolated, not joined to the scene outside the pleat.<\/p>\n

This whole project would have been sooooo much easier with the use of the snowman and scanner on my Brother Quattro.\u00c2\u00a0 But it is in the shop for routine maintenance.\u00c2\u00a0 I can’t wait to bring it back home.<\/p>\n

I’ve had a few interruptions on this project.\u00c2\u00a0 Grandson Alastair, 3, called me 4 days ago to tell me the exciting news that he got a “Francesco” character car of Pixar Cars<\/em> fame.\u00c2\u00a0 He was just ecstatic and gave me a very lengthy and detailed description of its wonder.\u00c2\u00a0 I knew a shirt was in order.<\/p>\n

Jerry Nix Roberts makes the cutest short\/applique’d shirt outfits for her grandson Charlie who is about Alastair’s age.\u00c2\u00a0 Her pictures posted on SewForum and Facebook made me want to do more sewing for our precious little boy.<\/p>\n

So with the Brother Cars<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0 design card on hand (a gift from my dear friend Terri <\/a>. Thanks again!) and several blank shirts in his size, all I needed was fabric for shorts.\u00c2\u00a0 As luck would have it, I was going to my favorite local shop, The Sewing Studio<\/a> in Maitland the next day.\u00c2\u00a0 There I found Cars<\/em> fabric for shorts.<\/p>\n

Wednesday, they were mailed.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Friday night I got this picture and a call from Alastair,\u00c2\u00a0 bubbling with excitement.\u00c2\u00a0 He kept saying “Thank you, Nana!” and\u00c2\u00a0 telling me he loved his shirt and he loved me over and over again.\u00c2\u00a0 That melted my heart.<\/p>\n

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He asked me to make him another Cars shirt, commanding, “Do it tomorrow, okay Nana?”<\/p>\n

I guess the bassinette skirt and all the baby dresses I want to make will have to wait a little longer.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ll do anything that little guy asks me to do.\u00c2\u00a0 Because I love him right back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Though it is not yet finished, this bassinette skirt has been such fun to embroider.\u00c2\u00a0 It is for our daughter who is expecting her second child and first little girl.\u00c2\u00a0 When she bought the bassinette, she saw the blank, unadorned … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":24529,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16,7,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24516"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24516"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24610,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24516\/revisions\/24610"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}