Sound City Quilt- dying fabrics, checkerboard guitar and the right side up letters!

Working a little bit here and there on the Sound City quilt.  I dyed some of my fabrics the other day, hoping to get the yellow of the letters just right.  Not too gold, and not too canary, so I took 4 fabrics and tea dyed them.  Here are 2 photos of the before (left side) and after (right side) fabrics.  I thought that just tea dying the white Moda Grunge fabric would work, but it turned out way too brown. (bottom photo, top right fabric)  So I took the other 3 yellows I had and dyed them to tone them down a bit.  My favourite, once it is tea dyed,  is the lightest yellow fabric. (top photo, bottom right fabric)

I now have 3 other dyed fabrics I can use for other projects and they smell delicious like Chai Tea!

I was limited on time, and did not want to work on the letters, plus the fabric needed to dry, so I decided to assemble the guitar.  All the pieces were cut out and basted around the edges.  Mostly to hold the edges down, but also because I put a layer of batting under the guitar fabric to give it a little bit of dimension.  I sewed the neck to the guitar body, a few times as I didn't have the angle quite right and Dan was pointing out that the guitar strings would be crooked it left on that angle.  I don't play the guitar so what do I know on proper placement of the neck.  Once "someone" was satisfied, I sewed grey thread across the neck to make the frets, then switched to a lighter grey to make the bow tie fret markers, and hand stitched the HAMER logo on the head.  

Here is the finished guitar, just waiting to be appliquéd onto the whole quilt, and then it will need the guitar strings sewn on.  I think it looks pretty cute! And truth be told, I have grabbed it a few times and played air guitar! Clearly I had better not quit my day job. 

We had a very sunny and FREEZING (-20oC) day today.  (thankfully no more snow!) I took the opportunity to re-trace the Sound City letters on my "light table" window, and made sure this time I traced them backwards so that when they get ironed on the fabric they will be the right side up.  This evening I had a melt down trying to iron the dreaded and much hated Steam A Seam onto the back side of the perfectly dyed, light yellow fabric.  I only have a little square of fabric and did not want to waste any, so when the Steam A Seam was not sticking and rolling and peeling off, there was some yelling!  I am used to working and sewing all day with my wonderful deaf dog Dulux. (he also can't hear me while I am singing)  I use the opportunity to talk to myself and back it up with the explanation that I am talking to him.  I am one of those people that has to state out loud what I am doing before I do it, so that I get it straight in my head, and boy did I want to get these letters straight.  Well, tonight there were other people around, not just me and Dulux, so when I was yelling "WHY WON'T THESE LETTERS STICK?", Dan was just trying to help by offering suggestions.  

We all probably know how that went-LOL

Anyway, venting done, back to the letters.

  I cranked up the iron temperature and risked ruining the Steam A Seam glue, but took the chance anyway.  Thankfully it stuck well enough that I could cut out the letters, peel off the one layer of paper and lay the letters on the guitar amp front.  Once they were moved, moved again and then moved once more (ok, maybe two more times), I was ready to permanently press them down.  By this point my iron plate was so gunked up with glue it was streaked black, and I didn't want to stain the yellow letters so I used my trusty tea towel again.  I flattened that iron hard to make sure the letters stuck, which they actually only seem to have stuck to the tulle and not the fabric underneath the tulle. YIKES.  Well time for bed as I did not sleep well last night with the furnace going non-stop.  I didn't have the energy to blanket stitch each letter tonight, that will be another day.  Everyone in the house has strict instructions not to touch the amp as I am worried the letters will peel off before they are sewn down.  Here is a photo of where I left off. 

Blanket stitching comes next……...