One of my cousins got married in September, to a man she met because they were both working at the Volo Auto Museum. I went looking for classic car fabric, and after a fruitless search, I asked the woman at the cutting counter, who led me straight to the perfect fabric. I decided on red binding and orange stitching, using feather stitch to echo the flame shape on some of the cars and in the background of the fabric.
The stitching was three strands of embroidery floss, one each of DMC 721, 740, and 947, for texture. The pieces were 6.5″ squares, two of fleece and two of fabric per potholder, each piece of fabric quilted separately to a piece of fleece before pairs were placed back to back, joined, and bound. I cut the fabric on the bias so that the cars would be upright if the potholders were hung, and fussy cut to center my four favorite designs. The loops were originally 5.5″ lengths of bias tape, and since feather stitch isn’t reversible, I sealed their open edge with whipstitch.
Pretty pleased with these. I have to learn to trust myself when I think something like “How about feather stitch? That’s kind of like flames.” I tend to second-guess because the representation is so stylized, but that seems to be what makes it work. In the last two years I’ve started reading about graphic design, and this reminds me of the principle of contrast, which you could phrase as “Make it the same, or make it very different.” I wouldn’t be able to match the flames exactly, so it’s better to go further in the stylized direction than to be close but not quite there.
