Putting the silhouette on

After deciding to go with the tree image, I then had to work out how to put it on.
I had thoughts of putting on a silhouette and then free motion sewing the leaves.

You might notice that the image is the reverse of what I wanted, I forgot that you have to reverse things when using Vliesofix.

It might have turned out alright but this piece, as you can see from the cutting mat, is less than 30cm. It would look different when enlarged to fit a 1metre piece. I thought the leaves would look too little, or that it would take a LOT of sewing to make them look in proportion. 

I decided to just go with the silhouette as it came out. I got my picture, that I had worked on in Photoshop, and decided to print it out full size. This caused some working out too. I know some printers let you organise a large photo to print out at A4 size by dividing the picture up for you but I couldn't remember how to find that function. I did a rough cut and paste of the image, estimating the A4 size. I allowed for some overlap, fortunately. Then I stuck the printouts together and had an almost lined-up tree. 

Because I had practised on the sample above, I remembered that you have to then trace the image in reverse onto the paper side of the Vliesofix. Being frugal, I had printed my image out on used paper, to save the world, and had a bit of trouble seeing the image through all the print. Out came the light box - another great invention. The image was then traced onto the back of the paper, ready to be traced, yet again, onto the Vliesofix.

Eventually, the image was traced onto the Vliesofix and I was able to iron it onto the fabric. All that tracing had gradually reduced the finer details, which was probably a good thing. 

Then came the even more time-consuming task of cutting it out. Many years of teaching children how to cut out various shapes gave me good strategies for going round all the little curly bits. Small, pointy, sharp scissors helped too. 

There are quite a few leftover pieces, some quite tiny. So far I have held on to them, thinking that I might find a use for them in the future. No wonder I have a lot of stuff!