11 June 2007

EtsyFAST Fiber ACEO Challenge: The Card-i-gan Series



A while back, thefunkyfelter and I convo'd about starting an ACEO challenge for the EtsyFAST team. I posted the idea to the Yahoo! group, and it really took off. June was the month to post ACEOs, and so far, the team has come up with some great ones; a search for both etsyfast and aceo will bring up some great works.

I felt an obligation to come up with one of my own, after all, I was the co-challenger. My original idea was to felt one using the gorgeous fiber I received from fellow team member northstaralpacas, but I discovered that I am horrible at both wet and dry felting. At least, with plain roving. And so I decided I should stick with crochet. The idea came to me that a granny-square inspired line would be in order. Sort of like a collectible set of ACEO-sized afghans. And so the card-i-gan series was born. I know, bad pun, but it's the best I could come up with.

I wanted my first card to "pop", and so I selected geometric shapes and high-contrast colors (inspired by Judy Schwartz's great book "Hip to Crochet"). I settled on a granny square and a striped strip. And I'm pretty happy with my results. I also had to come up with a way to sign the darn thing, which I accomplished with a bit of heat-n-bond, a clothing marker, and one of my sewing labels.

Lessons learned:
1) It is hard to work on a small scale
2) It is easy to scorch cotton while blocking
3) Heat-n-Bond adheres to irons, so be careful

And, of course, this is up in my Etsy store. It represents my very first original ACEO (the rest being limited edition photographs of paintings). Hopefully, it won't be my last.

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