Fabric Flowers and Vase (Edges Pinned)

Fabric Flowers and Vase (Edges Pinned), a photo by randubnick on Flickr.

At the end of January, I finished the image in this fabric appliqué still life. But there is more to do if I want to hang it (and I do). Because I started this project in a fabric arts class, hadn't the slightest idea what I was doing (and had low expectations for this project), I didn't center the image on the fabric or square off the material before I began. As I worked, I kept things square by measuring and using a straight edge, and It was easy enough to crop the image in photographs, but today I tackled the problem of "cropping" it for real. I had to square the image off, pin it, and then cut off extra fabric. I grabbed an old bulletin board that was just the right size for the project. The bulletin board supplied guidelines to measure against and made it easier to see if things were square. I even pinned the project to the bulletin board, which was helpful. It took me an hour to get the image centered so I could cut off excess fabric and do a rough pin for hemming. I still have to straighten this out a bit more and then sew the hems. I didn't have enough fabric to create pockets for dowels, so I plan to make a hanging system with safety pins inserted in back, hidden in the top hem. The holes in the safety pins will slide right over small nails. (I remembered this method because I have a small piece of fabric art in my house that is hung this way and it works fine.)