All about clouds

I have been putting together some samples for my Tangled textiles challenge. 
My first tryouts are to get some clouds going.
I thought I would give a few tips on how I made these samples.

This photo has lots of little wispy bits and lumpy bits on the edge and it was my inspiration for the samples.

 

In this sample (top is on left, bottom is on right), I used my  burning technique  to fuse down the edges of synthetic sheers.  I also layered some more sheers in the centres of the clouds, but found later it was not neccesary. 
Using sheers in this way, allows the thread painting to be much looser.  It is like an underpainting.  The thread painting would have to be very dense if there were no fabric underneath
I simply thread painted very loosely in circles (granite stitch) over the sheers, going out past the edges, to give some wispyness.  You can see from the back side (above) that the granite stitch is very loose.

I liked this, but decided to try out needlefelting the clouds on my embellisher.

 In this sample, (top is on left, bottom is on right) I started on the right hand side of the picture and felted onto the background with white. 
I kept the wool tops in a loose  sort of  yarn or sausage shape and went around the edges, trying to make the lumpy bits of the clouds show.  The result was not as fluffy as I had thought it would be.

On the left hand side of the picture, I put some blue tops down first. then added the white tops in little cotton ball shapes, only loosely rolled.  This gave a more whispy cloud, but very smooth edges.

In the picture of the back, you can see that both sides of the embellished piece could be used depending on how blended you want the clouds to appear.

So these samples have given me and you, I hope, a few ideas for creating clouds in landscapes.  You don't really have to stick to a photo.  Any children's geography book should give you some line drawings of clouds to use.  Practice with some different shaped clouds, such as wispy, windy day clouds, and have fun.

Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.
Rabindranath Tagore

Felting and Lutradur 2

Finally back to your tutorials, hopefully the routine will be correct next week.
As a refresher, we were working on a felted and embellished beach scene using lutradur

We have laid down the main elements and added felting.  In this tutorial we will add embroidery and beading.

I usually start at the top or the furthest away part of my scene.

Prior to embroidering, I test out the threads I have selected for suitability.

These were the first three threads I chose.  The first was a pale blue solid thread, the second was a tonal variegated with a short change, and the third was an ombre variegated.  I chose to use the ombre because the sky shades from dark to very light at the horizon and since the colour change was a long one, I could move from area to area depending on the shade.
I used a wide zig zag and moved side to side in a diagonal fashion.  This is very like stem stitch, which was covered in my machine embroidery stitch lessons.

You can see above how I moved around depending on the shade.
Next, I moved on to the sea.  I know the distant headland is next down, but it will be dealt with when I do the rocks, later.
Here is my colour sample for this section.

The first thread was a pale blue green, the second was an ombre variegated in blue green and the third was a white thread specked with  dots of other colours, which I tested to use in the wave tops.
Again, my choice was the ombre for the water, not because of any colour change in the water, but because it will give the water depth.

 I have used a straight stich in a wavy overlapping, back and forth manner, across the water.  This gives it both depth and texture.  Now for the frothy bits.

Still using a straight stitch and using the flecked white thread, I filled with  a variable granite stitch, and a bit of scribbly stippling thrown in.  I did not work over the grey and brown areas.  These will be done next in the next post, tomorrow and I will spend the evening  picking out the beads for the sandy area.

Good to be back!.

Landscape part 3

Finally, let's pretty up that landscape.

Here is our landscape as we left it, above.  I am going to show you a couple of flower embellishments to put in the foreground at the front. First we are going to do some tall, lavender-like or delphinium stems.  I will show you a few ways to do these first.

Here are two ways to add leaves (above), on the left, a simple fern stitch and on the right, leaf shapes, which you can leave unfilled, or fill in.  You actually need to add the leaves after, but I am showing you the shapes here because they apply to all three flower stitches.  Remember that the picture above is a 10x magnification at least.  At a normal magnification, they will not look as rough.

The first flower stitch can use granite stitch, or circles with straight stitch to make flowers on a long stem (left, above), then put the leaves in (right).

The second way to make these flowers is to use a fern stitch, then add the leaves.  On the left, I have gone over the flowers twice to show you that if you want more colour, you can.

Another way to add more colour, is to make the fern/flowers, using a narrow zig zag.  Above is a sequence diagram showing how these are made.

The left sample uses the leaf shapes, on the right fern leaves.  I will make the first layer using the first two alternatives.
Below shows these two steps on the landscape.  First the flowers, then the leaves.

This layer might seem very pale, however, it is simply a background to the final layer and so I do not want and very vivid colours that will draw the eye.  Also, you can see my travelling stitches between the flower stems.  These will be covered up by the next layer.  If all I was going to put were these flowers, I would make them brighter and I would have gone off the edge with the stems.

For the final layer, I am going to put some organza poppies and above you can see some triangular scraps of green stitched down.  Since these pieces were actually only half a centimetre  in width at the wide part, you can work out that they are fiddly.  Use a bamboo skewer to hold them stable whilst you stitch.  At the top right, you can see my mistake - using too light a thread, and the left top is what happens when you don't hold the fabric down.  At the bottom is a "leaf" secured correctly.  The organza will fray but I like the frayed edge.  If you don't, then you can use felt, or burn the edges which I will show you in a technique lesson soon.  The leaves and the poppies themselves are not accurate.  They do not need to be - They are only an impression.

Above, you can see the green scraps secured randomly over the first layer of flowers.

Above you can see how the poppies are constructed. At the top is a small scrap secured with a granite stitch to represent a bud, and below it a circle of fabric is folded in half and secured to represent a side view.  The bottom two poppies are secured with a granite stitch in black in the centre to represent the stamens. The top flower is one layer, below it is two layers.

Here are the main poppies sprinkled over the foreground.

Next, I added a few side views and buds, then finally a few more leaves over the top.

The foreground gives the landscape a vivid focus and as you can see, the two flowers do not fight for attention.

If you are very observant, you will notice on comparing this final framed version with the one at the beginning of the lesson, I have used a larger mat board, and extended the bottom of the picture by adding more grass and poppy leaves.  I decided that the sky was too limited in the smaller frame, but that I needed a bit more on the bottom to fit in the next frame.

In these lessons we have learned a few basic techniques in thread painting to create a simple landscape.  Make one as a post card for your next swap, or as a gift.  This one is to be a postcard and is going to the USA as a gift in Craft it Forward.  Hope you like it Diana!

My next set of Thread Painting lessons will be a pictorial sampler to accompany the stitch lessons I post each Saturday.

Art begins as an experiment and ends as an experience.

Free Motion Zig Zag - 1

For those people who visited as soon as I uploaded,  I have reloaded the video, sorry for the mistake,
Vicki
This is a short lesson, however I just want to show you my organisational diagram for these lessons.

It is a bit hard to read here but you can download a copy here.
What this basically says is that I have divided free motion into two halves, straight and zig zag. Each of these is divided again into the four different directions, straight lines, circles, weave and multidirectional.  Fuether out are more stitches and the final two rings refer to tension techniques, which can apply to some or all of the stitches in the green and orange areas.  As you can see it is quite complicated but don't let it worry you, I have only included it for those who want it, and I am sure I will add to it, but as we move through the lessons, I will guide you through it.
Below, the first diagram shows where we are now, if you have looked at the first two lessons (here and here )

 and this diagram below shows there area we are going to cover today circled in red.

So let's get on with it

Zig Zag Stitching with Free Motion

These three types of  stitching with zig zag don't have specific names like the straight stitches; Granite, Multidirectional and Weave.  And there are really only slight differences between them, but there are some.  I will discuss them as we go along, and I have also made a short video of all three for you.

Circular Zig Zag Stitching 
Below, is a picture of this stitching. and next to it I have drawn the motion with red.

 As you will see in the video, it is best to use a fast speed on the machine and an even, moderate to slow motion for this stitch.  It is very useful for filling up large areas fast.  I like to use it with variegated thread as in this example.

 This sort of background in a piece of work gives depth, but does not draw the eye.  I often use many hues in a background, even in my paintings.
This stitch is als very good for melding different colours and shading with different colours, especially when you do not want a directional shading like with garnet and weave stitch. 
Weave Zig Zag Stitching  
 There are two ways to do this motion in zig zag, as you will see from the video and the pictures below.

 In the top area, I did not rotate between the vertical and horizontal stitching (for description of this see lesson 2) You can see that the horizontal zig zags are zig zags, but the vertical stitches are not. They are stem stitch, which we will cover in the next lesson.  In the top sample all stitches lie in the same direction.
In the bottom sample, both horizontal and vertical stitches are true zig zag stitches.  This is because I rotated 90 degrees (a right angle) between. You will see me do this in the video.  So in the bottom sample the stitches are not lying in the same direction.
This difference is important when considering the style of your thread painting.  Some artists have every stitch in the same direction, giving a very tapestry like look to their work.
Other artists like to vary the direction of their stitches either all over, or in certain parts.
When stitches all lie in the same direction, they tend to shine and reflect light more, whilst when the stitches are in different directions, the light tends to be absorbed and the effect is duller (I do not mean boring, some parts of you work need this)
Obviously, the top sample of zig zag weave is more useful in areas where you want to define direction, like the lines in a tree trunk, whilst the second stitch is more useful in areas like backgrounds in a similar way to the circular stitch above.
Multidirectional Zig Zag Stitching
Multi directional zig zag is shown below.

In many ways this stitch resembles it's straight stitch cousin closely.  The main difference is that it fills more quickly and so is useful for large areas.
It can be combined with true multidirectional straight stitch quite easily, the straight stitch being used near the edges of an area where more prescision is needed.
As with the rotated zig zag weave (above), it is useful in backgrounds and far away areas in a piece of work, where the non reflection means it does not draw the eye and compete with the focus of the work .
 Zig Zag Stitching Video

Even though this was a short lesson,  It was covering a fair amount of ground.  Remember, the most important thing is to practice and to play.

Almost everyone learns to play, but a creative person plays to learn. 

Straight stitches -2

Hopefully, this will be a short blog today as I have videos!
 In the videos, there is a short whiteboard session showing how to do each stitch.  I'm sure I've said before, that drawing your stitch on scrap paper before you start will always result in a better stitch out.  Of course the other thing to remember, is practice.
 Last week, we looked at ways to do straight stitch and started to look at the three main straight stitches in thread painting: Granite, Crazy and Weave stitch. Well let's just recap with a picture of granite stitch

Granite stitch is also called encroaching circles and is basically a way to shade, fill and add thread to a piece of thread painting. Granite stitch is also called Garnet stitch in some places.  It is very useful for drawing shrubs or treetops in the distance or when done small, gravel on a path or in a creek.
Here is the video, which I didn't have last week

 Crazy Stitch
The next stitch, which is really the easiest to do, is multidirectional or crazy stitch.

This stitch is made by drawing different geometrical shapes, or to put it another way, drawing lines and changing angles a lot.  Watch a fly moving.  It moves in a similar way, in straight lines, changing direction.
Crazy stitch is good for backgrounds, particularly places where you don't want the "shine" of embroidery thread, since as the threads are all in different directions, it doesn't reflect light like, say a satin stitch would.  This is why it is good for backgrounds, which need to fade into the distance.
Here is the video for crazy stitch.

Weave stitch

Weave stitch is a very useful stitch and looks as it says - woven

Weave stitch needs a picture because it is hard to describe in words, but here goes.  Using straight stitch, draw zig zag lines close together in an up and down motion, but of irregular lengths,
Follow this by doing the same in the right/left direction, then begin again in another area, meshing the two together.  I think the whiteboard in the video explains it much better.
Weave stitch is particularly good for creating flat surfaces in a thread painting.  Man made things like wooden fences and buildings, especially.  It is, unlike the other two, a directional stitch, so you need to make sure you orientate it so it makes sense in your picture, ie a fence post does not have diagonal lines.
Here is the video

Next week we will look at some zig zag stitches.
Tomorrow I will be journal spilling, since spilling is the theme for this month's Sketchbook journal

Belated Blog

As I said, Saturday is Stitchin' time, however, I spent a lot of time trying to video my stitches.... and failed.  So here is my blog for yesterday in picture form, instead.
I really love free motion embroidery (FME) in all it's forms and have been studying all the ways to stitch using it.  There are a lot of books and a lot of artists and they all use similar stitches and techniques and some have names and some have several names, but what I observed when I looked at it all is that there is an heirarchy (like a tree diagram) to the stitches, so I will show you that - but later, let's get down to the stitches!
Obviously, most people starting FME start with either straight stitch or Zig zag.  I am going to start with straight stitch, even though in some ways zigzag is easier to start with.
I am not going to look at the technical set-up stuff, because there are plenty of excellent sites with this information: sewing machines for beginners, beginners tute, technical stuff, excellent article from new mexico uni, beginners guide from isew.

Straight stitch techniques in FME
One look at a quilting catalogue, or leah day's project will show you that straight stitch is extremely versatile and can form a zillion different patterns.  This is because it is basically a line and lines make drawings, so anything you can draw, you can FME.  And let's not forget drawing.  Before you start at the machine it is a good idea to draw out what you intend to sew.  Not only will this help you remember where to move, it will make the result better.
The first thing you will probably do and this is a good idea, is just scribble.  Below are a few examples of just that.

 Try a variety of shapes and even some stick figures or leaves and trees,  Keep it interesting, because practice is the key.
Some patterns you could try:

wiggly lines

zigzag lines

pointy scribble

curvy scribble or stippling

curvy lines that touch

practice the alphabet

write your name

These are not special, perfect examples I made up to show you.  They are just my everyday practice.  If I don't practice nearly everyday, I get a bit rusty.
Don't look for perfection in your lines,

• firstly because most applications of these lines in FME will not require perfection 
• secondly, because if it is not fun to do, you are not likely to persist and striving for perfection can be a little boring.
• lastly because my philosphy is that creativity and perfection are opposing forces.  Think about your purpose.  Is your purpose to create a perfect carbon copy that is cold and lifeless, or is it to create something alive and beautiful that expresses your inner self?  

Now let's look at the three main ways to use straight stitch in FME
Granite stitch

Granite stitch is just scribble, the first thing we do as children learning to draw, which is why I chose it to start. Leah day calls it cat hairball, it is also known when done like in the picture above, as encroaching circles in The encyclopedia of Machine Embroidery, or granite stitch by carol shinn, or spiralling straight stitch by Alison holt and probably as many other names as there are FME artists.
Basically, this stitch is used to fill in large areas and shade by overlapping  or to make trees in the distance as in my itty bitty landscape, here is a close up of  that stitching.

The main thing with granite stitch, is that the circles need to overlap, and if it doesn't look right to you (remember to stand back, no-one looks at art with their nose to it to enjoy it,  only critics do that!), then go over it again, or ask someone else, because you will always be over critical of your own work. 

This has been an overlong blog... and I still had two more stitches!  But we will go on to those next week, and I will work out how to post my stitch chart or tree diagram as a PDF for you.

On Monday, I will be posting a tutorial for a zipped cover for a sketchbook, that uses circular straight stitch on a large scale, so tune in for that, and later today I will post my sketchbook for this week.