Trying something, and laughing.

Honestly, sometimes there are days.

I have to look at myself and just laugh and wonder 'what were you thinking?'. So here goes.

I have this idea of wanting to stitch a bunch of small cards together.

I want to hang them on the wall

I want to machine stitch them.

I want there to be a gap between them.

I want the stitching in the gap to be good, not chaotic.

Here is my layout. I spent a lot of time working out balances, distances between,  how they might hang; where I could stitch and how that would impact the layout and so on.

You can see with the cards laid out like this, the stitching lines all line up. Still to work out a sewing sequence...

So I thought about how best to pass these cards through the sewing machine. How could I stabilise them so that they were connected whilst sewing, then released and held only by the sewing thread when I had finished?

I had heard tell of something called dissolvable embroidery stabiliser or something so I searched.  Tracked some down at Spotlight (under the counter) and came home thrilled and excited.

And then realised. It dissolves in water. I would have to soak my paper. My paper may disintegrate. My ink might run. Whose idea was this again?

I wondered if I cut a piece big enough, could I tape the cards to it in position (with washi tape) and then sew and then see what happened? Maybe I could sponge it off gently?

It worked pretty well I thought.

Then to the notion of dissolving.

Or simply removing.

And yay, you could tear it away.

Leaving little piles of mess, but the washi tape had held it in place, and then the sheets came away.

Ah ha.... looking like I wanted it to!

I may yet do a test with soaking the paper after sewing and seeing what happens; but for now I have a solution.  I expect the soaked paper might look different and it might be a look I like so it is worth investigating I think. But seriously, I laughed at how I had failed to pay attention to the word 'dissolve' in all of the searching I had done!

All alternative suggestions welcome!