Saturday, May 8, 2010

Take a Letter...

What do you do when your house is clean, your laundry is done and folded, the bills are paid and you've done the groceries for the upcoming week?

If you're a quilter, you head into the sewing studio and start sewing. After lunch on the Saturday after I came back from my trip to Maryland, I went into the sewing room, and started making the letters for The Rules. I stopped to eat dinner, so I worked about 10 hours. I made 18 letters before taking this picture and going to bed. As soon as I made a letter, I added a piece of the yellow background to the right hand side (this makes joining the letters together into rows easier), and set it down on the floor of my sewing room.

I have learned (the hard way, believe me) not to trim the letters to size until I start sewing them together into words or rows, so these letters are a bit ragged.

Whenever I make letters, I always start with the first letter and work my way through. I never think, "I have to make four "E's", three "O's", three "S's"..." and make them that way. I want each word to "read" as whatever word I am making, so the letters making up that word had to be related somehow, like "THE" and "ALL." I also knew that each letter would be made out of the same fabric (at least until I got to "FUN.")

The "font" I created for these letters are anything but truly wonky. They were much more time-consuming to make. Usually I can make about five letters in an hour, these took about 15 - 25 minutes each. The negative spaces finish out at 1/2" by 2" (the hole in the "O"), and that half-inch was critical to the look I was after.

The letters were coming along beautifully, and I was very excited.

2 comments:

Joyce said...

These letters are wonderful. I love the font. I often put a background strip on the top and bottom as well when I am building my letters. Then it is easier to assemble them when they are of different heights.

wordmama said...

I love "The Rules". Thanks for explaining more about your process. I'm intrigued by your letters and sayings, but hadn't the first clue where to start. I love the look!