Handwork for the trip…..

As I have mentioned before, Michael and I are heading back to Mozambique on Thursday and will be in camp for 2 more weeks. We are getting excited about returning to the friends that we made back in May!!

On previous trips, I have always taken some sort of creative project with me, but as we went on more and more trips, I realized that I seldom had time to work on them. So, I didn’t take ANYTHING on the trip earlier this summer. But, the weather was not conducive to being out and about and I ended up desperately wanting something to work on!!

So, I am NOT leaving this time without something to keep my hands busy!!

The question was exactly what to take??? Lighting is not great so I knew that I couldn’t take any fine work like applique.

As I scratched my brain trying to come up with an idea, my mind kept coming back to Indian Kantha cloth, like the covering for this box…..

I also kept remembering the amazing wall art that I saw in the Mumbai airport….

Click HERE to read more about the Mumbai Airport “art gallery”!!!

After procrastinating as long as I could, I finally pulled some fabrics and threads……

Add started cutting squares, strips, and rectangles……

I finally moved the design to lightweight fusible interfacing and, when I was happy with the design, I ironed it all in place. I glued down any strips or pieces that weren’t being held in place with the fusing.

Then I started worrying about how the edges would handle all of the manipulation, so I sewed strips of fabric over the top to give it some stability…..

You can see the first little bit of stitching that I did to see how it was going to work….

When I put everything together I started to get excited about this project…..it might actually work!!!

The final step was to put together all of the supplies that I would need, including needles, threaders, scissors (ones that go on a plane), a seam ripper, marking pen and a few straight pins….

I also needed a straight edge to use for marking the sewing lines and my ruler wouldn’t fit in my pencil case holder so I decided to make one. I cut a rectangle of template plastic and marked 1/4 lines along it’s length….

The final addition to the project bag was my clip on light…..

Now my bag is packed…..I’m ready to go……

I probably wont even open it on the trip, but at least it is there and available!!!!