Ahh that light that occasionally comes on!!

Sometimes I am amazed that it takes me so long to see the light.  I'd blame it on senility but it has been a life long problem....  For years when I am stitching, I put a brown paper bag  on the floor to my left to put all the scraps etc. into... But I often accidentally knock something off the table and it falls into the bag... So it is a ritual to check the bag before I toss it....   Then after all these years I had a moment of brilliance and realized  I always was holding my stitching with my left hand and it was the left arm resting on the table that was knocking items off the table.  I moved the paper bag to my right side and the problem was solved because my right arm never touches the table......  Duh!!!!

I have a piece I have been trying to finish for Pam Kellogg and  had a bothersome patch.  It for just too big for anything I could think of and it was too large to leave blank... I was like a big hole in the design and I kept trying to think of  something to fill the space.  The again the light finally came on....instead of trying in vain to fill the space.....just make the space smaller by widening the seam with a piece of contrasting ribbon.   Duh!

Below is an old post on modifying the shape of a patch.. Enjoy!:

I had three areas I wanted to change..

1. I wanted the orange patch to appear bigger and make the lavender patch beneath it a little more interesting shape. 

2. The teeny tiny corner patch upper right was just too small so I either had to make it appear larger or disappear.

3. The long narrow patch lower left just had to disappear..

First the orange patch.... I put a purple ribbon on a very wide orange ribbon and stitched it at the very lower edge of the orange patch making the orange patch look larger... By putting it at a slight angle it changed the shape of the lilac patch below it.. You don't have to ALWAYS follow the seam//

 

I used the same treatment to solve two different problems (#2 and #3)... an extra large bold seam.... 

and it made #2 (tiny triangle) seem larger by again putting it on the very edge of the patch. and #3 (long narrow strip) seem to disappear.

The bold seams are always an excellent way to draw OR focus attention on a block

Mini-tutorial - Modifying a patch

This a technique I use a LOT and seems like a silly tut but someone might find it useful...  On this new CQJP block I have a rather small green patch lower right... I wanted a fancy seam AND a daisy patch AND a bunny on this small patch and all three weren't going to fit so I decided to make the patch larger.

First I folded a wide piece of seam binding and stitched it to the top of the patch..

At this point I could have used braid or lace to hide the seam... The gimp was too bulky since I wanted to embroider over it so I chose to cover the joint with a simple ribbon.









This technique added over 3/4" to the patch and will give me enough room for all I want to do.  Nothing matches perfectly but it all blends in.










This is especially useful if you end up with small awkward corners or long skinny patches...Remember this works equally well for a patch that is too large and not in balance with the rest of the block..

The following is a repeat of a tutorial on block talk demonstrating some of the same elements.

I discussed this block a little when I did it. It was Jeanne's block in a "seams only" RR. I had three areas I wanted to change..

1. I wanted the orange patch to appear bigger and make the lavender patch beneath it a little more interesting shape. 

2. The teeny tiny corner patch upper right was just too small so I either had to make it appear larger or disappear.

3. The long narrow patch lower left just had to disappear..

First the orange patch.... I put a purple ribbon on top of  a very wide orange ribbon and stitched it at the very lower edge of the orange patch making the orange patch look larger... By putting it at a slight angle it changed the shape of the lilac patch below it.. You don't have to ALWAYS follow the seam//

I used the same treatment to solve two different problems (#2 & #3)... an extra large bold seam.... 

and it made #2 (tiny triangle) seem larger by again putting a purple ribbon on the very edge of the patch. and giving it a bold seam and a bold seam on #3 (long narrow strip) makes the narrow strip seem to disappear.

The bold seams are always an excellent way to draw OR focus attention where you like  on a block