It occurred to me yesterday that I needed to spend a bit of time explaining colour spotting.
Although I use it mostly in Free machine embroidery, the same technique can be used in normal feed dogs up sewing, so long as the bobbin tension can be adjusted.
When children colour in, they tend to colour in with blocks of colour. The sky is blue, the grass is green. In free machine embroidery, we begin by doing this, too. Colour spotting is a way to introduce shading and tones into machine embroidery as an artist would with paint. In the pictures above, the top circle is all one colour, the lower circle has two colours and appears to have more substance and depth.
The principle is simple, we use a different colour in the bobbin to the top of the machine and tighten the top tension so that it draws the bobbin thread up (above). The reason you need to be able to alter the bobbin tension is that at a certain point, you will not be able to tighten the top tension any further (the thread will begin shredding) at this point, if you need more of the bobbin showing, you will have to loosen the bobbin tension (I usually work with a bobbin that is on the loose side to start with to avoid this).
This stitch with the bobbin thread drawn up is called Whip stitch
In whip stitch, the upper tension is tight and the lower is loose and when you stitch in a straight line or a very smooth curve, the bobbin thread wraps around the upper thread.
Just to give you an idea of the subtle effect you can get with colour spotting, I made up a colour wheel for you.
In the three squares, I have used red, blue or yellow thread in both top and bottom.
Between the squares I have usd different colours in the top and bottom.
Between blue and yellow, the top circle had blue in the top and yellow in the bobbin.
Between blue and yellow, the bottom circle had yellow in the top and blue in the bobbin.
Between blue and red, the top circle had red in the top and blue in the bobbin.
Between blue and red, the bottom circle had blue in the top and red in the bobbin.
Between red and yellow, the top circle had red in the top and yellow in the bobbin.
Between red and yellow, the bottom circle had yellow in the top and red in the bobbin.
Wow, that was a mouthful, but what I hope you have picked up is that it makes a difference for each pair of threads, which is in the top and which is on the bottom. There are two oranges, two purples and two greeny patches.
Another important point is that dark colours, like blue show through very clearly from the bobbin, whilst light colours like yellow, are much more subtle. If you want speckling, use a darker colour than the top thread in the bottom, If you want a more subtle blending, choose a lighter colour in the bobbin.
Well, I have finally gotten this tutorial together for you. Today we will look at free motion embroidery on our landscape.
Since I am not videoing the stitiching for this tutorial, I have included short videos of the pattern on a whiteboard to help with visualising the motions. Remember, drawing is great practice for free motion embroidery.
So far we have cut some strips and arranged and fused them. It is a simple landscape, but a really easy one to start with and one that can be changed in many, many ways.
The first part I do is the sky. This is a very simple treatment for sky, a sort of flattened stippling. Look at the video of drawing this pattern on the white board.
Next the far away hills. I have used an up and down motion to cover the whole hillside. I used a grey thread and allowed the purple to show through. I also used two different greys in the bobbin, which was loose so the colour spotted. Darker towards the bottom and lighter towards the top. The reason I use grey, or sometimes a grey blue colour here is that these colours will make the hill seem far away. See the whiteboard video for this stitch pattern.
The next hillside was with a matching olive green thread and grey in the bobbin. The bobbin thread was loose so it spotted from time to time, helping to meld the two into the distance. I used granite stitch along the edge of the hill here. Watch the whiteboard video of this pattern.
On the next hill, I again only stitched the top edge. Variety in textures will give depth. The thread was a slightly lighter thread with no spotting, starting to move forward in the picture with brighter colours. The pattern here was a horizontal zigzag (using straight stitch) down the diagonal slope. Watch the video below for a clearer idea of the pattern.
In the layer above, I used a bright green with balanced tensions (no spotting) and drew grass shapes of uneven heights. The white board video is below.
In this last layer, I actually did two different threads. The one above in a dark green with the same pattern as the previous layer, and the one below, where I used a variegated thread. The pattern is the same again, grass shapes, but I spaced them apart. You can also see at the bottom the stitches going left to right, where I was marking time waiting for colour changes in the thread. Again, this has led to a serendipitous change in my plan, which I will discuss, but first, here is the pattern video.
Below is my practice fabric. I always have a practice fabric, made up the same way as my piece, so that I can test out tensions and patterns on it before I begin on my actual work. When you change colours and bobbins and bobbin tensions frequently, you need to test everything on a similar piece of work - every time.
OK, so here is the piece in a piece of mount board 3x5 in. The serendipitous part is that when I put this on the scanner, the fabric slipped a bit and uncovered that little bit at the bottom. Now that I have seen that bit at the bottom, it looks like the side of a road to me, so road it shall be, and perhaps we need a fence post as well?
All art, if it is good art, takes us on a journey, and sometimes that journey is not where we intended, but somewhere better.
I will show you the decorative stitch tutorial tomorrow, hopefully.
vicki
So it's thread painting Thursday and today I made a small freestanding applique for the waterfall piece. It is the tiny tree that you can just see at the top of my design from yesterday.
To make this tree, I put some water soluble stabilizer very tightly in a hoop and started thread painting with straight stitch and a variegated brown thread.
Here, you can see just the basic outline of the trunk. I made the shape up as i went along, but you can draw first if you would rather. I find it easier not to have a line, so little mistakes and wobbles simply become part of the piece.
Next, I filled in the trunk, making sure I went back and forth over and over so the stitches interlocked.
And here is the finished trunk.
Next I filled in the leaves. Most thread artists tend to use a tiny granite stitch for this, however I like to use up and down strokes, simply because that is what Eucalyptus trees are like. If I was drawing a deciduous tree, I might do it differently.
I loaded two values of khaki green, lighter in the bobbin and tightened the top tension so the lighter thread would show at the tips. This is called colour spotting (see Encyclopedia of machine embroidery, or Beginner's Guide to Machine embroidered Landscapes)
This was taken at 10x using my digital microscope. You can see the tiny bits of lighter thread comming to the top.
here is the tree, with the foliage done.
These three pictures show the final steps.
While the work is still in the hoop, I pin it to a piece of poly styrene
Next. I release the hoop and trim of most od the stabiliser
Finally, I hold the piece under running water until the stabilizer has washed away The work the needs to dry
If you are impatient like me and If your poly styrene is very thick, you can push the pins right down and use an ironing cloth over your work, lightly ironing until it is dry. This will still take a fair amount of time, because you need to make sure the polystyrene doesn't get too hot and melt.
Your small piece can be used as an applique, or in another fibre work.
Hopefully in a week or so you'll see this one in the final waterfall piece
Tomorrow we will look at another fibre art technique in Friday Focus
