Embroidering on metal and Free Motion Mavericks

Hi and welcome! For my American readers - Happy Thanksgiving! I hope that you get some time to stitch after all of that eating and visiting family 😋. I didn't have much to share (remember those very SLOW stitching projects!) so yesterday I worked on a little project so that I would have something to show.

Embroidering on metal

Yes, you read it right.... my background for this piece is the inside of an aluminum can! Years ago I played a little bit with burnished aluminum in an art quilt after a workshop with Hillary Rice, but I haven't since (see Related links). Aluminum is very pliable and easy to cut and pierce. Our latest Textileartist.org course is with Emma Pannell. She does some amazing embroidery on metal.

Embroidering on metal - so far

I wanted to make something very simple and small that I can eventually add to my punch needle piece. I settled on a flower, something that I can draw without tracing. Here is my template. 

Drawing of the flower with leaves

I cut the can open with my old scissors and then cut the edges to make sure that they were smooth. The scissors do a great job on aluminum. I taped the template onto the can and embossed it by tracing the image with an old pen. I then used my journal making awl to pierce the holes, following the embossed line. 

At first, the metal was directly on the mat when I made holes with the awl. That made holes in the mat, so I placed the piece of craft foam board between the metal and the mat. It may have made larger holes than I wanted, so I'll have to experiment with that. Our instructor uses a pottery needle to make the holes - these might be a little smaller.

Tools used to cut and pierce the metal

I used three strands of embroidery floss for the base of the petals, using a variation of the cross stitch. After all the petals were stitched, I added a lighter coloured thread of two strands to add some dimension.

Embroidering the petals with 3 strands of cotton.

Petals all embroidered using a variation on the cross stitch

Stitching with 2 strands of lighter cotton

It was only after finishing the first petal with the lighter cotton that I realised that I probably should have stitched them from the centre of the flower. I didn't want to start over, so I stitched three alternating petals in that direction, then I had the next three going the other way.

Finishing the petals and outlining them

I finished the petals by outlining them with a back stitch. After outlining the centre of the flower using 4 strands of embroidery floss, I added a hole in the centre and stitched the area. Over the middle hole, I added a French Knot.

Metal in an art piece

As I mentioned, I used metal in my Canada 150 art piece in 2017. Here is the piece and you can see below the burnished metal that has been stitched by machine and embossed. 

Canada 150 art piece

Cut, embossed and stitched burnished metal

What I learned

• It's easy to cut the aluminum can but not so easy to keep it flat. I thought that I could place it under heavy books to flatten it (like my journal pages) but that didn't really help. 
• Keeping the aluminum flat is important if you want to frame your piece. I'm hoping that it won't make a big difference when I trim the flower and stitch it onto my punch needle piece.
• Stitching on the metal is very much like stitching on cardboard or paper. The holes need to be punched from the front to get the best effect.
• My holes may be a little big, so I'll experiment with that next time. I think that using more strands of thread to outline each section might also help fill in those holes.
• It got pretty difficult to find the holes when there was a lot of stitching. Instead of trying to find the hole from the back, I placed my needle in the hole from the front, without going right through. I could then see the needle sticking out of the back and knew where to stitch from the back. 
• I like the French Knot in the middle of the centre and I think that adding many more would be very effective - hopefully I'll feel like it!😁
• I'm going to use another stitching technique on the leaves - in theory they will be and look denser. 
• In my workshop with Hillary Rice, we had used a big propane torch to burnish the aluminum. That created lovely colours, including gold. Apparently you can also use copper which already had a lovely gold colour. 
• I don't think that I'm going to work with metal a lot but it is fun to discover new techniques and material.

Related links

• Emma Pannell, website, Instagram, article in TextileArtist.org
• Today We Celebrate - Fêtons 150, July 01, 2017
• Playing and Trying New Techniques, June 11, 2017

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties. Why not check some out, after you've linked up below? Monday Musings, Sew & Tell, Midweek Makers,

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 508 of Free Motion Mavericks! It was a very productive week - thanks for linking up! Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting. 

Sandra from mmm quilts made this very lovely Goose Dance quilt. She FMQ it with her favourite fat flowers design with loops and added swirls with hooks as well. She also quilted in 3 ghost geese. It looks great! 

Sandra's FMQ Goose Dance quilt.

Preeti from Sew Preeti Quilts finished her LION quilt for the Island Batik Dresden Challenge and Blog Hop. Doesn't her signature wavy stitch quilting look great on her Grandmother's Fans quilt?

Preeti's lovely LION quilt with Grandmother's Fans

It's now your turn 😉

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