Chevrons and Machine Stitching

Scrapbook Steals has a guest sketcher the first Wednesday every month. For December we were treated to a project by Heather Conklin. She made a great sketch using a new trend in design elements...the CHEVRON!

Ol' stick-in-the-mud me is just not sure I like chevron's yet. But after some thought it seemed like fun to incorporate them with machine stitching. Out comes the ruler!!! Since it's a double page spread I had time to perfect my measuring system and snag some pics so you'd know how to duplicate the process.

First off, this delightful sketch has room for at least 7 photos. That was perfect for some pics we took a few years back at my nieces High School play, "Beauty and the Beast". After the play the girls had the opportunity to take pics with the cast. Because these pics were taken in a crowded high school the backgrounds are CRAZY busy and overload was imminent. I choose a mild color scheme and only two patterned papers. I also added a layer to the original sketch to tone down my pics yet tie in their matting. The instructions are as follows:

Step 1 Cut your base paper to 11x12.
Step 2 Cut two 1 x 12 inch strips and all your photo mats from an alternating color.
Step 3 Using a pencil and working on the back, measure and trace a horizontal line the length of your paper, every two inches, starting at the base and working up.
Step 4 Place marks along your lines at 3, inch intervals. Erase the mark at 3" and 9" on your top line and erase the mark at 6" on your last line.

Step 5 Play dot-to-dot! Draw lines from the top right edge of line 1 (at the top of the page) to the 3" mark on line 2. Then from the 3" mark on line 2 to the 6" mark on line one. Next draw a line from the 6" mark on line 1 to the 9" mark on line 2. Last draw a line from the 9" mark on line 2 to the far left edge of  line 1. Repeat this process for the following 3 lines. Your page should look like this:

Step 6 Machine stitch the chevrons drawn on the back of the page. This step will leave strings everywhere. These should be attached or they will break and unravel.

Step 7 Tie off the strings or pull them to the back (where the pencil lines are) and fix them in place with a piece of scotch tape.



Step 8 Adhere the one inch strips of the alternate paper to the top and bottom of the page so that a 1/2 inch of patterned paper shows at each end.

Step 9 Back to the machine. Using a zig zag stitch this time, sew a line the length of the paper where the two patterns meet.

Step 10 Adhere photos to mats and mats to page. Embellish as desired.

A simple page that lets the photos shine, but incorporates trendy design elements.  It's a win-win situation!
I used MME Lush paper, Prima flowers and leaves, and Creative Charms ribbon.

Catch Heather's latest crafty escapade on her blog. http://goldiecar.blogspot.com/
As always, keep yourself in the loop by liking Scrapbook steals on facebook and checking out the blog for great crafting ideas. http://scrapbooksteals.stealnetwork.com/wp/

~charity becker~