Shabby Rose Fairies

I’ve finished the first lot of ornaments for this years Christmas sales. These are what they looked like last week.  My friend described the heads as yummy cookies… Bet the fairies wouldn’t think so… ;o)

The fabrics I used are not Christmas prints, so they can be left out all year long which is good in some ways, and in other cases, it’s always that element of surprize the following Christmas when you bring things out again and remember what you forgot…  Did you follow that…lol

The fabrics are a mix of these different lines from K Fassett. The local fabric dept. had a collection of his fabrics. At first I thought it was a line of fabrics, but when I checked K Fassett’s site, I see it’s a mix of fabric from past lines. That doesn’t bother me, the colours are so bold and crisp that one line blends with another regardless of whether the prints are a theme or not. If I were a quilter it might matter, but not for dolls.

I would add that I do have an issue with the fabric. Given his name I would have thought the fabric would have been of a better quality. The pricing is up there with other name brands, but this is definitely not a fabric suited to especially small doll parts that need stuffing. I had to re-do a few body parts due to fraying even though I used the smallest stitch on my machine. This fabric does fray badly, but what I learned in the process is to just stuff very gently and use the tiniest stich and I got it done.

On the plus side, if using this fabric for clothing, it doesn’t wrinkle like most cottons. The clerk and I did a wrinkle test. If I were using it for quilting, I would have to do a lot of top stitching just because I would be worried it might not take the constant use. I’m not 100% sure, but that’s my feeling on it. I can see some beautiful garments and quilts in my minds eye, but also a lot of extra top stitching for both as well…. I have no idea how colour fast it is, I’m guessing it’s fine, but I don’t know…

Overall though, I think the fabrics are beautiful, bright and bold in colours and prints. The only down side is the fray factor, so if you have looked at these prints locally, just check that out before buying….  Pictures of my finished fairies in my next post, but they all follow the theme of this one I made for a customer a while ago.