yin and yang and a satin stitch tip

Watercolour paper on card, concentrated liquid watercolour dripped and dried between colours, hand made stamp.  This is my own take on the yin-yang symbol, which you might have seen before in my sketchbook

No leaf today, but there are two leaves in the stamp. 
Instead, I'm going to tell you about my trials and tribulations with satin stitch edgings.
I have tried every method known to man, but my corners get eaten up by my machine!  I have tried the embroidery floss technique, I have tried the sew first cut second method,  I have tried using water soluble stabiliser, and heat aways and tear aways.  I have tried so many ways to do this seemingly simple thing that all other sewing machines seem to do so easily, that I thought I would never get it.
When all of a sudden it occured to me.
When I am quilting or thread painting something small, I often put a larger piece of paper-scrap computer paper underneath to stabilise.  It seems to have more strength than the tear aways, which crumble as soon as you look at them.
Anyway, I thought, why don't I try this with satin stitch edgings?

You can see in the picture that I have gone around the corner really nicely, with the paper underneath.

The paper tears away quite nicely, as you can see.

Then, because this happened to be a satin that liked to fray, I had a little trimming and a touch up with a permanent marker to match the thread and voila!

A great satin stitch edging (which I showed on my ATC the other day)
With some pieces, I leave the paper on the back.  It depends on the purpose.  With an ATC, it gives extra strength and somewhere to write on the back, so I glue it on before I start.  With other pieces, I take the paper off the back afterward.
I am pretty pleased with this method, because after so many tries, I finally found a method that suits me, and secondly, scrap paper is easy to find!
I vaguely remember reading somewhere that Once upon a time, before we had all these mods and cons, paper was used as a stabiliser.

circles

This ATC uses a few of my recent samples.  The fabric is a negative print from a perpex plate monoprint using a cookie cutter (ie the print you get off the plate after you have printed the lines of the cookie cutter)
One of the Tangles, Beverly, used a circular stitching attatchment in her recent challenge quilt.
This remided me, that although my other half has promised to make me one of these attachments, and therefore I do not have one, I do have a flower stitcher foot,

 which makes 1-2 inch circles and makes interesting patterns with different stitches, so I had a play with that over the top of the circly fabric, using a few different stitches like, blanket, satin, feather, etc.  It was a bit of fun.
I decided the ATC was a bit boring, so I fremachined the word, circle on it and then satin stitched the edge.

My machine tends to chew up the corners when I do this, so what I have done, is used a piece of scrap printer paper underneath, then free machined the satin stitch, going around a few times.

Even though the paper is quite perforated by now, I still found it easier to tear it off by hoding a ruler down over the edge.  (I think if I had simply satin stitched with the feed dogs up, the paper would fall off by itself, and probably before I was ready for it to, because the stitches would have been very straight and regular).
Anyhow, you can leave the inside paper on the back to write on or remove it in the same way. 
There will be little bits of white paper showing around the edges and I would advise not to try and pull them out, but to do what I did below.

You can see that there are no little white bits showing at the top in this picture.  A permanent marker works wonders and saves weakening the edge by removing the hangers-on.

Using Prompts

Recently, I read an article by Robin Olsen from the sep/oct 2009 issue of Cloth Paper Scissors  I decided to extend her idea, which was to use prompts to direct the construction of a fibre art piece.
I made up 110 cards for my prompts.  I used a list of techniques from my database, where I keep a record of  my reading and the ideas which come from it.  In the past, I have simply been able to scan through the database until I find something I felt like experimenting with, and do it - but now, with the techniques converted to prompts, it gives me random ideas for a piece.
Today, I decided, it was time to put the cards to the test!  Were there too many?  How flexible could it be? Would it work for me?
Let's find out!

I started with a piece of felt.

The prompt said "Add needle felted fabric" - Now, I have only small scraps of fabric left from other projects, not enough to cover this piece, which was about 14-16 inches square!  So here, the flexibility came in.  I decided to just needlefelt onto the felt.  You can see, I already had the machine out above.

Here I am in the final stages of covering the felt with needle felting.  (As usual, I got too engrossed to take pictures!) I used scraps of Fabric from my scrap box which included cottons, organza, satin, plastic, silk, roving scraps, painted nappy liners and face cloths, dyed batting and felt. Any fabrics which were not felting in well were covered in a fine film of roving scraps and re-needled.

 Above are a few close ups of the surface.

Here is the final foundation layer, with a few bits of scrap yarn added.

A close up of the yarn.

My next card said "Use a monoprint"  I was stumped for a while.

There was nothing for it but to get out the fabric I monoprinted a little while ago.  I looked at it.   I looked at it again.....  Finally I thought of cutting some flowers out of it.

So I got some flowery stencils out and moved them around.  The tulip and sunflower looked interesting, but... then I saw this stencil.

Decision made!

I thought the butterfly might look nice placed like this.  But I wanted to be sure.  So I loaded all my pictures into Photoshop.

First I cropped the background.

Then I got rid of most of the background from the butterfly and flowers (only a rough job, really)

and then I pasted them into place.  The contrast between the background and the elements is not wonderful, more is needed, so...

I drew around the butterfly with black to see what black satin stitch would do for it - and I liked that!

So I cut out my butterfly and put it down on the background.  I was still not sure about the flowers, though and just to make up my mind, I drew another card.

 It said "Attach something that isn't fully anchored down / dimensional" and that made up my mind for me.  I would make some dimensional flowers to add.


So that is where I got to today.  Considering I had no idea where I was going this morning and now I have a piece well on it's way, I'd say this method works.  But I'll have to try it a few more times, just to make sure, lol.
When I first started thinking about doing this, I  thought it might be a little too lacking in creativity, but the way I have put it together allows a bit of freedom in interpreting the prompt and the challenge actually seems to stimulate more creativity.  If I hadn't had to look at my monoprints, I wouldnt have looked at the stencils and I probably would never have  seen the butterfly and thought of using it.
Instead of how I thought it would be, it actually helps my creative impulse to not have to wrack my brain thinking of how to do something and instead simply take a random technique and  make it fit.

Try making a list of the techniques you regularly use and/or want to use.  Make them into cards so you can pick randomly, and have a go.  You might be surprised (like I was) at what you create.

Well, that's my story - and I'm sticking to it

Felting and Lutradur 3

Continuing on from yesterday,
Here are my colour samples for the rocks

On the left are three browns, a dark and medium shade and a red brown.  These will form most of the rocks.  On the right are two shades of a warm grey (pinkish rather than blueish) which will form the rock highlights and the foam over the rocks.

 I used a wide zig zag, both open and closed (satin stitch) over the rocks, using the darker colours first, then adding highlights on the left of the rocks with the lighter colours.

Finally, I added beading to the foreground sand.

You can see here the selection of beads I used, mostly clear seed beads, but with some coloured and some larger beads.
Before beading,  I  loaded monofilament in both upper and lower feeds and put in a size 60 needle (A size 70 will work for most seed beads, but not all). The machine is still set for free motion, and if you are using a darning foot, you need to remove it.
Beading is done in a hoop with the foot lever down, but no foot attached.
I add beads to the hoop one at a time.  If you add more, they will jiggle all over the place as you stitch.  In the above picture I have picked up a bead on a very fine stilletto.

 Before picking up the bead, I hand turn the sewing machine so the needle is about  a half a centimetre or and eigth of an inch above the surface (enough room for the needle to clear the bead) and on it's way down.
Above, you can see I have placed the bead close to where I am going to put it.

 

Now, I hand turn the needle, slightly moving the hoop if needed, so that the needle goes into the bead, but not yet through it, or touching the work surface.
At this point, I can move the hoop and position the bead wherever I want using the needle.
When it is in the correct position,  I use the foot pedal and make three to five stitches, the first one or two inside the bead and the rest outside.
The bead is attached and this is repeated for each bead.

This seems, complicated, but after a bit of practice, you will be doing it quite quickly.  In reality is is only slightly faster than doing it by hand, but I find it more efficient, and there are less threads on the back of the work.
HINT:  Always hand turn the needle into the bead.  You will find that you can manouever the bead to standing if it is on it's side and move it where you want it easily, more importantly, hand turning also helps to weed out the misformed beads, because if the bead is too small, you will feel that the needle is not fitting, and be able to remove the bead before the bead cracks, the needle breaks, or the thread breaks, all of which will happen if you use the motor to sew into a too small bead.

 Above, I have added a few clear beads to the top of the wave crests.

And here are the beads in the sand area at the bottom.  I have mixed these beads to give an impression of a pebbly shore.

And here is the landscape at the end of the embroidery and beading.  You could just frame your work like this, but next week I will show you a quick way to layer and quilt it.

Don't fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The biggest regrets in life all start with could have, might have, or should have.

Stem stitch

The next in our series of free motion embroidery stiches, is stem stitch.  I talked about this last week when we were looking at weave using the zig zag.  We will also look at a stem stitch derivative, the stem stitch extension leaf.

Stem stitch
When you are doing stem stitch by hand, the stitches look like the picture below.

To accomplish this in free motion, we use zig zag.

Satin stitch is a closed zig zag stitch.  This means that it has a short stitch length.  In free motion, this is controlled by how fast or slowly you move the fabric under the needle.  If your movement is not even, the satin stitch will be uneven too,  but you can go back over it as I have done in the video to even it up.
Above, you see a normal satin stitch.  In order to create a stem stitch, with overlapping stitches like in the hand stitch we rotate the hoop 45 to 90 degrees or one eighth to one quarter of a turn.  A quarter turn is easier to accomplish.
When we rotate the hoop, we do not change the direction we are moving in.  In the top example, I am moving the hoop to the left and  I am facing the machine at the left.  This is much easier to see in the video.
So, really stem stitch is quite and easy stitch, however, it does require a little practice to master curves using it.
Stem stitch is used for, obviously stems, but also for any definite lines in a piece of work.

Leaves

I use this technique usually for grasses and long leaves.  I use another technique for small leaves.

Basically, we start with a satin stitch and end up with a stem stitch as in the diagram below. 

This looks easy, but you will find that it requires a fair bit of practice.  If you have a digital or sliding stitch length dial, you might find it easier to just do a satin stitch that gets narrower by moving to a narrower stitch as you stitch (or pausing often to shorten), You may also be able to program in a narrowing stitch that you can select when you get to the end of your leaf.
As my machine has neither of these things and to boot I am left handed and the dials are on the right, i have developed this method.

If we look at the leaf from the right, I have started with satin stitch, then as we go left, the stitches angle so that at the tip they become stem stitch.  This is much clearer in the video.
  You might find it easier to stabilise the fabric near the leaf and allow the rotation by using a bamboo skewer (cut short to make it easier to manage.)  I use use my finger, but I DO NOT RECCOMMEND THIS TO ANYONE.
This stitch takes lots of practice as you can see below.

But remember, little irregularities can usually be remedied by more stitching (to a point).  None of us is perfect.

Video

This short video shows both stitches being made on the machine.

Hope you are enjoying this series.
I have designed a sampler (it is actually a little landscape) to go with the stitch course and will have the pattern ready for the next lesson.  I will also go back over the previous lessons so we can do some homework with it and get our stitches in the right places.

It has been an extremely long day and I am finally off to bed.  Happy Stitching

“The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.”

Anna Quindlen