Showing posts with label stem stitch. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 03, 2021

All for One

In July, I wrote a post "Trying to get from fine to great!" This was about my embroidery of Chevy, my daughter and I doing our "All for One" move. It was bitter sweet doing another embroidery since we are missing Chevy so much, but I did want to get this second one done so that my daughter and I would each have one.

All for One Embroidery

This is the original embroidered piece, after fixing it up. It was actually easy since the fabric is mounted on a canvas. All I did was tighten some of the loose stitches from the back. It looks much better now. This is now in my daughter's room.

All For One - Take 1

The new embroidery is very similar. I used slightly different threads and finished the collar in a different pattern, closer to Chevy's Princess Warrior collar.

All For One - Take 2

This is the photo that the embroidery is based on.

All For One!

What I learned

I re-did some of the second embroidery because the thread colour didn't stand out enough. I would have thought that the cream colour would have stood out more, but I think that it might have been too close to the fabric's warp colour.
I considered doing something different for this second one but I really like the simplicity of it. I used my favourite stem stitch but was more careful with my stitches.
I'm surprised that I didn't think of tightening the thread from the back on the original piece. Since it's mounted, no one will see the back.
I'm not sure that I went from fine to great but both of these are definitely better. We are both happy with them. 😊

OMG for November

One Monthly Goal for November

This is my OMG for November. I've already started but I want to finish piecing and quilting it! It's the Mallard on The Lake, a foundation paper piecing mini by Made By Marney. Wish me luck!

Related links

Trying to get from fine to great!, July 16, 2021
Mallard on The Lake by Made By Marney

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun parties, including Free Motion Mavericks with Muv - remember, you don't have to be doing FMQ to link up! One Monthly Goal (OMG), Monday Making, Midweek Makers, Put your foot down, Needle & Thread Thursday, Off The Wall Friday, Finished or Not Finished Friday, Peacock Party,

If you're looking for Free Motion Mavericks for the week of November 11, 2021, go to Muv's blog. See you next week!

Friday, July 16, 2021

Trying to get from fine to great!

Hi, it's been a while. I haven't been motivated to do much of anything except a little bit of gardening. I thought that it might be time to try to ~~kick~~ motivate myself out of my funk. So here's a project that I've been working on. Unlike most projects where, whether it's good or not so good, I try it once and move on, I'd really like to get this one, not just fine, but great!

Version 1

My daughter took this picture of our "All for One" pose with her, Chevy and me. I've been thinking of how to embroider it - so this is my journey 😊

All for One

I wanted to embroider this image onto a denim coloured cotton fabric. I wasn't sure how to proceed. In this first version, I tried a couple of new techniques.

All for One - version 1

The first new technique was to mount the background fabric onto the frame of a painting canvas (8" x 8"). First I removed the canvas for the frame. Then I pinned the fabric over the frame with tacks and used the frame as an embroidery hoop. This works well if the image doesn't go anywhere near the edges of the frame. The back of the frame is much wider than an embroidery hoop, so it's difficult to stitch near the edge of the fabric.

Close-up of All for One

I started by tracing the photo onto tracing paper. For the stitching, I followed Sue Stone's suggested technique: to stitch directly through the tracing paper with the fabric underneath. I used a stem stitch of 3 or 4 strands of embroidery floss. When I finished stitching the outline, I carefully ripped off the tracing paper.

I did a little bit of filling inside the image. I even used some fluffy yarn to stitch part of Chevy's coat.

I'm not crazy about my stitching. I'm not sure if it's because the stem stitch is looser after having stitched through the paper and fabric or from pulling the paper off. The awkwardness of stitching using the frame can also account for some of it.

What I learned

I think that a tighter stitch would be better.
Sue Stone uses a backstitch, so that might have made a difference.
I'm not sure that I want to have just an outline or to add something extra as a fill.
What I'd like to try next:

Use a background colour that is more skin tone.
Use a different stitch.
Stitch more details such as shadow.
Possibly add a sleeve or two, to add texture. It's also possible to add appliqué but I don't think that I'll do it in the next version.

I really like having my piece finished on a frame like this, but this time I'm going to embroider it as usual and then cut and tack it to the frame after it's done.
I've always had problems with the corners when adding fabric to a canvas. However, after taking the canvas off of the frame, I saw how they cut and folded it. I highly recommend that you do this if you want to figure it out.

Monday, June 08, 2020

More hand-stitching fun

As you may have read previously, I've been doing a lot of slower stitching - hand stitching, mediation stitching, embroidery and other fun stuff. I'm having a blast and learning so much.

Making a seashell container

I've enrolled in the TextileArtist.org Stitch Club. It's essentially the same concept as their original Stitch Challenge, but for a fee. After all that they have given to the stitching community this spring, I wanted to keep playing and learning as well as support their great initiative.

The first artist, at the end of May, was Debbie Lyddon. She makes very cool textile art. Since she lives near the sea, a lot of her imagery and techniques come from there. For example, she adds grommets to a lot of her work. These are hand done and are used a lot in sailing boats. Our assignment was to make three containers to hold something special to us or our environment.

I'm going to start with the second container that I made since it's much more like the work that Debbie showed us how to make.

Hand-stitched seashell container

I started by painting the fabric, a white on white cotton that came out really well. For this second container, I learned from the Q & A sessions at the end of the week that Debbie dilutes her acrylic paint quite a bit. I hadn't done that for the first piece and so the fabric was very stiff and a little difficult to sew by hand. The darker blue fabric pieces that have Sea and Shells written on them (with markers) are from the first batch of fabric. I could never have embroidered the words on there 😊

Seashell container with lots of embroidery

Other side of the seashell container

I embroidered the bag before I stitched it together. I love using the feather stitch when I don't have to be accurate and follow a line. This stitch is perfect for making sea weeds.

On this side, you can see that the grommets are smaller. I actually used half of a twist tie to make each of them. On the back of the fabric, I drew the circle around the twist tie. I then cut into the hole, leaving most of the fabric there and stitched very densely around the tie. I used a buttonhole wheel stitch to highlight the grommets. Inside of the small grommets, I stitched a small piece of netting - the stuff that comes from a bag of potatoes.

One the inside with the cheese
cloth covering the grommets

On the inside of the bag, with the
netting over the small grommets

For the side of the bag with the large grommets (top image), I used a whole twist tie for each grommet. I did it the same way as the small ones but removed some of the excess fabric from the middle. I then put a layer of blue hand-dyed cheese cloth over the holes - one dark and the other lighter blue.

A peak inside!

For the top of the container, I stitched down a long piece of wire (that I use for hanging frames). I had about ½" of fabric on the inside so I added a row of stem stitching right under the stitching for the wire and then about a ¼" from there, a row of chain stitch keeps the seam down on the inside.

A container to display an arrowhead

This container is used to display
rather than contain

This was the first container that I made. It was much more complicated than my second one since I wanted to use it to display rather than contain the arrowhead within it.

The prototype for the bottom of the container

I started by painting the fabrics and then made a prototype for the bottom of the container. Since it worked out, I ended up painting it instead of making another one. After that, I sewed three different fabrics together, the brown, green and blue and then stitched them into a tube. My fabric was stiff but not stiff enough to hold the arrowhead, so I inserted a roll of toilet paper inside to strengthen it.

Displaying the arrowhead on a shelf

The arrowhead comes from Northern Ontario. I found it near the swamp at the cottage where I spent all of my summers when growing up. This was probably part of the hunting territory of my husband's community. I only realised this as I was making this display container. On the outside, I used markers to draw the tree with deep roots, and birds. Around the top, I stitched on some beads and feather charms in the four directions.

Inside the container I added a stone from the area as well as cedar, sweet grass and sage. These are not the traditional things that you would put inside a pouch but I didn't have any tobacco. I made this container for my children, who are also part of this community.

What I learned

I am really enjoying learning about all of these techniques, but more importantly, I love expanding my knowledge and appreciation of textile art. Some of it can be pretty out there - and I may not be quite there yet, but I'm loving the journey.
The art that the other participants are making is sometimes quite intimidating. However, I'm not letting myself be too hard on my work - I haven't been doing this for very long and we all have our paths to work on. I make sure to save many of the work that I would like to learn from. Sometimes it's just a little detail that I might never have thought about but that's how we expand as artists and makers.
I used Perle Cotton size 8 for all of the stitching in these projects. I hadn't used it much previously and really love it.
The arrowhead container was quite difficult to make because I had no idea what I was doing!😊 I'm really happy with the way both of them came out.

Related links

Debbie Lyddon's website and blog
I use Sharon Boggon's website - Pintangle's Stitch dictionary for most of my stitches.

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties. I hope that you'll join me to see what else is going on out there! Monday Making, What I Made Monday, Design Wall Monday, Colour & Inspiration Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Needle & Thread Thursday Off the Wall Friday, Friday Foto Fun, Beauties Pageant, Oh Scrap!, Favorite Finish - June 2020

Monday, January 28, 2019

Slow stitching - embroidery and a red mini art quilt

There is a lot of slow stitching happening these days - in my home and around quilting blogland. It's so exciting to see everyone re-discovering slow stitching with embroidery, English Paper Piecing, hand quilting and even hand piecing.

More embroidery

I've been following TAST - Take A Stitch Tuesday with Sharon of Pintangle. Here are the stitches to date: Chain stitch, Fly stitch, Buttonhole stitch, and Stem stitch.

Green Buttonhole and green & yellow Chain stitches

In my excitement, I started with the Stem stitch. However, last week I added the Chain stitch to my piece, as well as the Buttonhole stitch. It was so much fun working on this fabric - it's like it was made to practice these embroidery stitches!

Working Fly stitches in the wider areas

I want to go through Sharon's stitch dictionary to try out these stitches in the many options she illustrates.

Lots of Chain and Stem stitches happening

Red Mini Art Quilt

My red mini art quilt, aka “Peek-a-boo Red”, is now completed.

This one is totally hand-stitched with embroidery and beading. Peeking out from behind the curtain, you can see the batik hexies. I wanted to incorporate some traditional quilting in this piece – and although English paper piecing is new to me, it’s actually an old quilting tradition.

“Peek-a-boo Red”

I love the curtain that’s made of banana fibres. I just happened to have the perfect colours. It just goes to prove that when you find cool supplies, if you can afford it….pick them up! You never know when you’ll be needing them.

Can you see the hexies peeking though?

The background is a red grunge and the embroidery floss that I used is the one that matched the paint chip that went with bright red. I practiced my fly stitch and of course used more stem stitch for the top. Finally I beaded the red banana fibre with red seed beads.

Here are my three mini art quilts so far.

Three Mini Art Quilts so far

What I learned

My son helped me with the colour. I had some white fibre in the curtain but he said that it was taking away from the red – so off they came!
It’s interesting that the white was too much but the green and blue-grey were fine. I guess it was a matter of value.
I didn't finish the green mini art quilt for the deadline. Luckily I wasn't the only one. We now have a couple more weeks to get these done - so stay tuned for my green mini art quilt!

Monday, January 14, 2019

Mini Art Quilts and Slow Stitching

Mini Art Quilts
✔Two minis done, and two more to go!

Blooming Yellow

The yellow mini art quilt is finished.

My original intention was to wrap the mini over the canvas. I had a difficult time because the seams in the background made the corners bulky. When I trimmed on of the seams to reduce the bulk in the corners, I ended up ripping it. It was a pretty frustrating mess!

Blooming Yellow Mini Art Quilt

I ended up finishing the art quilt like a pillow case. I then added a background using one of the fabrics on the mini quilt and then wrapped it around the canvas. I used my scary but efficient staple gun to attach the background to the canvas. Then I very carefully stitched the mini quilt to the background fabric.

Blue Moon

This time I used a larger selection of blue fabric to make the background of the quilt. Using improv piecing, I sewed strips of fabric together, then cut them up, added more fabric and sewed everything back together again. The fabrics were mostly different values of blue, but there were some bits of other colours included.

Playing to create a mini.

I have to admit that I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do with the background. I took out some bits of yarn and started playing. I found a silvery blue piece that I liked and coiled it. On my table, I had a bag of batik pieces that I used to make hexies. I found a few pieces that had leaves and flowers and cut these out and Voila!

For the center of the coil, I used a blue foil paper from a chocolate I had just finished. 😊 On top of it, I added a crystal that I wore for years as a pendant until the string broke. Since the crystal has a hole through it, I was able to stitch it in and re-purpose it.

You can see the blue glittering through the crystal

This time, I didn't bother trying to attach the art quilt directly to the canvas. I finished it using the pillowcase method and found a piece of light blue flannel to cover the canvas. Again, I just stitched the mini to the background.

Blue Moon Mini Art Quilt

Slow Stitching with Take A Stitch Tuesday (TAST)

I found another project to follow. It's a Stitch Along on Facebook for embroidery. Every week Sharon of Pintangle highlights an embroidery stitch from her stitch dictionary. It's very low key with a Facebook group. It's been around since 2007 and still going strong.

Frankly I just wanted an excuse to keep doing embroidery. Since I have an embroidery course from Craftsy, I can use multiple sources to figure out the stitches.

Week 1 featured the Chain Stitch and Week 2 was the Fly Stitch.

As I'm writing this, I just realised that I did the Stem Stitch for week 1 instead of the Chain Stitch - so I'll have to add the Chain Stitch to my sample.

First two weeks of the Take A Stitch Tuesday (TAST)

Isn't the fabric amazing? I think it's a Kaffe Fassett fabric. I've been wanting to stitch on printed fabric for a while, ever since I bought a Wild Boho book for my daughter. I spent a great evening last week just playing with these stitches.

Stitching on beautiful printed fabric

What I learned

I learned that stretching fabric over canvas is pretty tough on the fabric. It's also important to avoid having seams where the fabric needs to be folded around the corners.
I was using the canvas to ensure that my mini art quilt was the correct size. All I had was to make the mini roughly the same size as the canvas. It turns out that that wasn't very easy to do! It's really a good thing that the canvas was there.
For the blue mini art quilt I decided right from the start to attach the quilt to the canvas in the same way as the first. It was even wonkier than the first but it looks good against the canvas frame.
I've included a reference from Quilting Arts that includes different methods of binding art quilts. Of course I didn't look at it until it was time to write this post! I might help me for the next two.😊
It's a good thing that I trust my intuition because I would never have figured out what to do with the blue mini art quilt since I didn't really want to do an abstract piece. I must remember this for the next two....which I've started and still have no idea what I'm going to do!!!
When attaching the silvery blue yarn to the background, I just sewed through it since the thread showed too much when I tried to couch it
I just used a glue stick to attach the blue foil and the batik fabric to the background. I then FMQ the whole thing down.
I'm pretty happy with the amount of contrast in the blue piece. It still reads blue, and hopefully it will be the right blue! I figure that if it's surrounded by other pieces with the correct blue in them that they will each play off each other.
I've been wanted to stitch on printed fabric for a long time. I love it!!!

Sunday, November 18, 2018

Symphony in Stem Stitch

My piece is ready for the Out of the Box Fibre Artists group's exhibition at the Stittsville Library in December. I have never placed a piece in this venue but when the organiser said that it should be art with a quote, I got an idea 😊 Why not make something with one of the embroidery pieces that I've been working on?

Finding the right words

Google was made for finding suitable quotes (among a few other things of course!) On the Goodreads site I found the perfect beautiful quote by John Keates:

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever"

Symphony in Stem Stitch

I've been working on this project for over a year. It's the second embroidery using free motion quilting (FMQ) motifs. It's been a lot of fun to create since it's very improvisational. I just started by doodling some FMQ motifs with a Frixion pen. I would embroider it using a stem stitch then add more doodling and keep at it. If I didn't like what I had drawn, I would simply iron it off.

This is the first picture of this project that was posted on this blog (see Related links below).

Embroidering colourful FMQ motifs

First stem stitch embroidery -
Étude in Stem Stitching

Adding FMQ motifs a little at a time

The image to the right is the first stem stitch embroidery piece that I started. I used much more muted colours. It's still a work-in-progress (WIP).

I started this to practice my stem stitch after taking a Craftsy course with Jessica Marquez.

This image has the binding attached and ready to be sewn to the back.

It just needs the binding to be sewn to the back

It's such a great feeling when a piece comes together the way I imaged it. It doesn't always happen, and sometimes it's really not a bad thing, or so I tell myself. 😊

What I learned

When I had almost finished the FMQ, I squared off the piece, marked it and then quilted it along the line. I then cut it a ½" past the line. This gave me the chance to finish the FMQ along the edges without going over it much. I don't mind loosing a little bit of FMQ when squaring it up, but if I don't mark it before finishing it, I tend to go over the edge - a lot!
I finally used my quilting ruler to FMQ the line around my piece. I used Angela Walter's "Shorty" ruler. I was pretty impressed since it's difficult to FMQ a straight line. I will definitely use it again.
I had no idea what I would do with these embroideries but I love asking the question...."What if?" So in this case, the question is "What if I FMQ an embroidery? What would that look like?"
I must say that I'm very pleased with the results. There is a lot of potential here for interesting effects for art quilts.
Now to make the label and packaging for the piece before tomorrow!
I was happy to see that my practice with stem stitching payed off. When I decided to finish this embroidery I could do the stem stitch without referring to my favourite embroidery book (see Related links) or the Craftsy class. Of course I haven't done any other stitches in a long while, except for a few French knots, so it may turn out that it's the only stitch I can now do without looking up! 😊

Sunday, January 28, 2018

Islas Canarias finished

It's done! This is my travel art quilt of the Canary Islands.

Islas Canarias Art Quilt

I started this project on a cruise to the Canary Islands and other destinations in Spain.

I didn't expect it, but the Islas Canarias stole my heart. 😊 As I mentioned in my last post, the islands are now on my bucket list of places to visit (for at least a few weeks!)

I've had a great time finishing this baby. All of the embroidery represent places on three of the Islas Canarias: Gran Canaria, Tenerife and Lanzarote. As you'll see, each island is very different.

Gran Canaria

Playa de las Canteras, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

We walked around Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, from the port to the Playa de las Canteras. This is a 3 kilometer beach with a lovely promenade, hotels, stores and cafés. We stopped in a restaurant for café con leche while a quick storm passed through and ended up staying for an amazing homemade pizza.

This is an embroidery of the promenade and the slightly stormy Atlantic Ocean. I also included a palm tree, although the water behind it is calmer.

I added some poinsettias since they were found growing in many parks. I don't think I've ever seen them grow in a garden, especially in January!

Palm tree and calm water

Poinsettia flowers on Las Palmas de Gran Caneria

Parque Nacionale del Teide

Tenerife

Our second stop on the islands was Tenerife. There is so much to see and do, but on this trip, I decided to focus on the natural aspects of the islands. Our tour was to the Parque Nacionale del Teide.

On the way to the park, we drove through the Corona Forestal, a protected forest of Canarian Pines that are endemic to Tenerife. The trees can survive forest fires and volcano eruptions through their fireproof bark. After such a fire, the tree trunk will continue to grow after a few years.

You can read about the red bugloss plant in my previous post (see Related Links).

Canarian pine on Tenerife

Red bugloss plant in winter

Lanzarote

Lanzarote has a radical landscape because of the volcano eruptions that lasted six years from 1730 to 1736, and then a smaller one in 1824. It's really amazing to see the destructive force of a volcano, as well as the perseverance of the inhabitants of the island. They have adapted and have succeeded in working in this new environment.

El Diablo de Timanfaya

As part of the tour of the Parque Nacionale de Timanfaya, the guide takes you around three stations that highlight the geothermal energy of the dormant volcano. The fire in the quilt depicts one of the stations where straw burns brightly from the underground heat.

The image next to the fire is based on the metal sculpture known as El Diablo de Timanfaya. This scupture was designed by the great Lanzarote artist César Manrique.

César Manrique had a huge influence on his home island. The white buildings that are traditional to the island, are also a part of the government's policies to preserve the original look of the island. On my next visit, I will spend much more time seeing Manrique's creations.

The last two images below illustrate the wine industy of Lanzarote and the lichen covered lava rocks.

Before the devastating volcano eruptions, Lanzarote had a lot of agriculture, including wine production. After the eruptions, it was discovered that the soil underneath the volcano ash was still good for agriculture and that the volcano ash acted as insulation to keep water in the soil.

Because of the wind conditions on the island, they started sheltering their vines in man-made depressions that are partially protected by rocks. In our tour, we visited La Geria winery that makes lovely sweet wine.

I chose to depict lichen on the lava rock because it is the first thing that grows after a volcano eruption. The lava rock that I used comes from a necklace that I purchased. I created lichen to cover it by placing a couple of pieces of wool fibre between 2 small pieces of Sulky Solvy water soluble stabilizer, and then FMQ it with various colours of silk thread.

Wine growing in Lanzarote and lichen covered lava rock

To finish it off, I decided to write the name of the islands (in Spanish) at the top of the quilt. As much as I like the black fabric with yellow polka dots, it needed a little something to liven it up. The letters are cut from fabrics that I had brought on the trip and were then raw-edge appliquéd. I used some of the green olivine gemstones (peridot) found on Lanzarote to add the dot to the "i".

I moved the sun to the top left corner of the piece and then added a little needle felting underneath to separate it from the letters and add a little whimsy. While I was at it, I felted some of the same wool fibers inside the embroidery of the fire.

Top half of the Islas Canarias art quilt

What I learned

Bottom half of the quilt

I had an awesome time making this art quilt. It was fun to decide what to put on it to depict the islands and then to figure out how to do it. I used my notes, some of our pictures, the internet, as well as the many postcards that I bought for inspiration.
It's the first time that I used the Solvy Sulky water soluble stabilizer. I've been wanting to make something like this for ages. It was super easy and fast to make. I'll be using this technique again!
All of the fabrics, except for the backing and the binding, came with me on the trip. I did have to dig into my scrap bags for more polka dot fabric for the binding.
Since I had a finished edge on the top and bottom of the quilt, I decided to create a separate backing and batting piece that is attached to the quilt top through the quilting. I've done this before on my Woven Landscape (see Related Links).

I measured the back of the quilt top, then cut the batting to roughly that size and a backing that was a couple of inches larger on all sides.
I then wrapped the backing around the batting edges and sewed around it. I did have to cut and re-stitch one of the sides to adjust the backing/batting piece.
When the backing was the right size and didn't show from the front of the quilt, I pinned the backing to the front and FMQ around the blocks, appliqué and embroidery. Finally, I FMQ over the binding to ensure that everything would stay together.