Aurifil Artisan Challenge: April 2021

Hi there! It's April, and I'm back with another Aurifil Artisan challenge featuring Kaffe Fassett fabric. For this month's challenge, we were provided a stack of 5 Kaffe fat quarters and our project assignment was open ended! I drew up a couple quilt designs, but ultimately I ended up going an entirely different direction to highlight the bright and colorful fabric by Kaffe.

For this project, I decided to experiment with my laser cutter, creating crowns out of two layers (cork and the fabric), and reinforce them with Aurifil thread. I found several paper cut crown patterns on Etsy and purchased those, and I drew up one of my own on an iPad app that I use for CAD-like sketches. In total, I had four unique designs.

I experimented with laser cutting settings on the first crown, and then I went ahead and cut the remaining 7 with the correct settings. Once cut, I carefully glued the two wrong sides together (many were also cut wrong sides together) for stabilization, and then I stitched around the entire crown perimeter and each laser cut hole. I chose corresponding colors for each crown, featuring 8 different Aurifil colors in 50wt thread. Many of the Aurifil color picks were from an older collection I had (the Strawberry collection) with very bright, rainbow-ey colors! The crowns are two-sided, featuring colorful cork on the back (not shown in the photos).

The only tweak I would make to the process would be to add interfacing between the cork and fabric prior to laser cutting. This would minimize a bit of the fraying before additional stitching reinforcement. Outside of that, I would consider this project a success!

We are all set to use the crowns for family photos during an upcoming 4 year old birthday celebration with grandparents!