I haven’t made a lot of shells before. Starfish, yes. Jellyfish, inevitable. I find shells daunting. They’re not easy to draw, and they can’t be made to look like they’re moving. So this was an experiment.
Designg for contrast
One way to look at design is how to separate the field from the ground. You need to create differences that help the eye sort out what it’s looking at. The shells should be immediately different from the octopus and the sea.
This quilt required a shell for the octopus, And a tangible difference between them to be visually clear. The way to make things pop is to create a visual difference between differnt design elements of color, texture and size.
The color palate makes a clear separationg. The octopus is strongly orange, contrasted by the complemetary blue sea, and the off white and browns of the shells.
But we can make that contrast even stronger through the texture. Texture is made by stitching patterns, thread content, and thread size. Those design decisions clarify the design.
Shells are deeply textured with a smooth inside. I didn’t show the shiny insides of these shells. So the outsides needed to be crunchy and rough.
So the octopus is garnet stitch in polyester thread. The shells are out of both wound and flecked metallic threads. The threads contrast strongly. Metallic thread is much rougher than the smooth polyester. Both threads are 40 weight.
I also used a zigzagged scallop pattern for the shells. I stitched the rows irregularly with ribbed veins, so they’d seem more natural.
‘
The water is stiched with an 8 weight metallic to separate it from the shells and the octopus.
Thread choices help the eye separate the shells, the octopus, and the water, ‘It helps your viewer unnderstand what is happening in your piece in a glance.
This piece is ready to back and bind. I’m just waiting for a cool enough day.
This is a cautionary tale. I’m hoping someone can learn from my mistakes.
Maybe you can sew too much.
This has been a bad year for sewing machines. I’m trying to figure out whether I’m really sewing that much more or whether it’s attrition, or just bad luck. I’ve broken 3 220s, been told my 770 is worn out at 31 million stitches (in four years) and had two 930s break down.
My mechanic has two of my machines in shop. I was down to working with a 807 minimatic. I love my mechanic. She’s meticulous. On average, she takes 2 months to fix a machine. It’s not an instant fix.
For this discussion, I’m leaving brand names off the machines. You’ll probably know what the numbers mean. They are all machines known for their tough durability. That doesn’t seem to be enough right now.
Thank you, God, for Don.
I knew Don had worked on vacuum cleaners in the deep dark past. I didn’t understand what that meant. Don is a small motor specialist. Sewing machines are about small motors. He had fuddled with several older machines and got them working. I had no idea how skilled he was.
I had two 930s. One was my machine from when I started. I picked up the second because the first was soooooooo good.
I had put them up on the rack and not used them for a while. But as machines kept going down it got more desperate. We pulled them down, decided which was less beat up. It sewed like a top for around a month and then locked. We brought out the second machine, made some adjustments. I got two months out of that. Then it jammed.
I was so upset I couldn’t even cry.
In came St Don. He watched a bunch of videos, took both machines apart. We saw what was fixable, and was not. Then we had the kind of transplant surgery where really only one patient survived. He dusted it off, I oiled everywhere and now I have Frank En 930. But it’s working.
What did I learn? What would I say to anyone doing the kind of embroidery I’m doing?
Skip the bells and whistles. You need something tough. I do think most of the machines today are much more fragile.
If you have a machine that’s working for your craft, don’t ever turn it in for another machine. It’s not necessarily able to do the same things for you.
If you have an older machine that’s working for you, find an extra one for a parts machine. It doesn’t need even to run. But it means you have the parts to fix things, even down to the right screws.
You’ll probably need someone like Don. You can’t have him but you can find a reasonable facsimile. If you do, feed him plates of brownies and videos. Other treats may be applicable. You need someone able and willing to hunt the snark (whatever is wrong with your machine), and brave enough to take the back off the machine. I’m fixing his third batch of cookies today. We can’t let him run out.
My next sewing machine
This has changed how I feel about my machines. Instead of looking for the great new features (which are a wonder) I’m looking for something with alligator blood. Pulling out my 40 year old Berninas was a really good patch on this.
So I pulled out another old machine I hadn;t even moved with me when I moved to Ga;lesburg. Luckily, the man renting my house had left it in a safe place and not disposed of it. A 20 u is the machine I bought when I blew the brushes off my 930 for the first time. It’s the machine you’d find at a drycleaners. Very fast. Uncontrolable except for straight stitch clothes construction. In the end, I stopped doing the elaborate embroideries.
But those are at the heart of what I’m currently doing. I can’t give them up. They are at the heart of my art right now. They are the flame I’m drawn to.
Things change. My threads and stabilizers have changed since then. And what is available for a fix has chnged too.
I’m putting a servo motor on my 20u industrial to see if we can tame that machine to a reasonable speed for embroidery. And I’m looking for another 930. Other than for demo, I’m done with plastic toys.
Don, neither plastic or a toy, is a total keeper. So he is now St Don, for healing the halt, the lame, and the blind stitch.
One of the things that’s hard about a circular image is that it doesn’t move very easily. As a design. Circles lie like a lump unless you put them in a row or on a path.
I love this octopus in a shell, but it was static. There are several ways to create motion in a piece. Creating a visual path with rocks or shells would have worked. But I wanted something showier.
The best piece of fabric I had was a half-yard of blue hand-dye. But the shell didn’t fill it up. I could cut it to fit the shell. But a square wouldn’t work
So I decided to make a frame. But a rectangle was no better. There’s nothing square about an octopus. They flow with the ocean tide. They exude curves.
So if I wasn’t going to put the octopus in a rectangle or a square of some kind.
I needed to apply a different aesthetic. When you need design help, go look at great art. They knew what they were doing.
I’m a huge fan of Art Nouveau.
“Art Nouveau is …known for its flowing, organic shapes, curved lines, and reliance on natural motifs like flowers and plants. The movement aimed to unify all artistic disciplines, creating a holistic design experience.” Wikipedia
Art Nouveau has always made my heart beat faster. Natural organic forms that flow in movement, are based on the oriental concept of the visual path and movement make perfect sense to me.
I hadn’t seen an Art Nouveau octopus before. Japanese art is full of them. But tentacles would make a marvelous frame.
One thing about octopuses is that you don’t always see all of them. They hide, they move, they twist in the water. They don’t stay in one place while you take their picture. So I made three tentacles of another octopus, encircling the one in the shell.
Besides, the tentacles interact with the rest of the water and the jellyfish.
This is all pinned up and ready to stitch. I hope none of it splashes into the studio.
Not every frame is a box. A frame centers your design, accentuates it, and interacts with it. It is there to put the subject in the center of attention. Who says you have to be square?
I had embroidered a radiated spoonbill landing, and I needed a background for her. This purply brown piece seemed nicely swampy and I loved the range of purple running in an arc through it. It looked like a bower of wisteria, so that’s what I went through.
I’ve done wisteria before. I sometimes feel I can smell them in the studio as I stitch on them
I wanted particularly soft glowing wisteria for this very dark swamp. These were done mostly from hand-painted lace, stitched with poly neon.
And small bright birds sitting in them.
On thing leads to another. The bird leads to the swamp background. The swamp leads to a wisteria bower. And the wisteria need bright little birds.
Wisteria, like roses, sunflowers, and hollyhocks, are part of the garden of my dreams. I can’t help but slip them in wherever their fragrance and illumination are needed.
The next step is to fit everything in together with a pond at the bottom, birds, and small fish.
On the other side of the studio, we have 2 torn-up 930 Berninas. Don has been heroically deciding which will live and which will be a parts machine. I’m working on the only functional embroidery machine, an 807 Bernina from around 1970. It’s a tiny machine, originally for classroom. We’re waiting for the resurrection, which sometimes spreads more slowly than you would like. It means I’m not able to work the 2 large quilts I have laid out at the moment. So….
An ocean floor, several external tenacles lots of jellyfish, I think. On a much smaller piece of fabric.
This is what I did this week. She’s a secretary bird.
I have to thank John Muir Laws book Law’s Guide to Drawing Birdsfor its descriptions and information about different kinds of feathers. I’ve been pleased with my pinions, tails and wing feathers for some while, although I wanted them to be less stripey.
I like these pinions. But even with overstitching, they look a bit stripey to me. I’ve been working at overcoming that look by more irregular uneven stitching on the feathers and overstitching.
Body feathers are different. They’re fluffy. They aren’t a part of the flight system. Instead, they are a body cover.
I went back to an old embroidery stitch pattern that gave me exactly what I needed, The long short stitch is made by moving your hands unevenly from side to side with your stitching. I made the scallops I would have made for breast feathers, but ragged and without outline so they blend into each other.
Long-short stitch
Fills in beautifully.
Doesn’t need an outline.
Doesn’t need to completely cover the fabric to be effective.
Is easy and forgiving.
Utilizes a simple zigzag stitch moved from side to side.
Progresses nicely. You can add multiple colors of stitchery to build shadow and form without adding a hard line.
The long short stitch in freemotion embroidery has nothing to do with a machine stitch set on your machine. It’s all in how you move your fabric through the needle.
The piece shades from dark underneath to brighter up the neck. But because there’s no internal outline, it looks like fluffy feathers. It’s a bit tougher because we’re shading to white. It needs to look white without actually being a white hot spotlight.
I’m planning this background and sun. Not sure what happens after that. Heavy grasses, I think.
One of the reasons I like working larger is that I get to play with the details. Smaller images sometimes only need a line of stitching to define things. Larger images allow me to play with color and texture. And the space to make the details count.
There are a couple of defining factors. Are the legs and feet segmented? A solid line of black stitching defines that.
These feet were stitched with progressive colors in garnet stitch, small circles intertwined together.
Does the stitching flow into itself? These have simpler feet and legs with segments.
Does it have patterned stitching? These were stitched in u-shaped scales.
Garnet stitch textures these feet with quieter tones.
Of course, the angle of the legs creates the movement of the bird.
And you can cheat by putting the feet in water.
Different textures, different treatments make the kind of details that define the piece.
There’s no help for it. If you are shading a pink bird, you’ll need to use pastels at some point. I’m not a fan. But you don’t get to throw out a section on the color wheel. Eventually, you’ll need all the values: tones, jewels, and pastels. Tones and jewels. Yes! Pastels. not that much.
Let me break down the color scheme for you.
There are six color zones, in the feathers of this bird, and then a zone for the neck and thighs, the feet, the head and the bill.
There are two progressive color themes going on. The pink under body and feathers, and the green overstitching. Both progress from dark to light.
Where did it go wrong? I chose the wrong yellow.
White objects are rarely pure white, unless you want a posterized deco look. They’re made up of other colors pale enough to be perceived as white. The bird itself is pink. I pulled in bits of lavender and yellow to blend it and to create a shadowed projection. I chose the wrong yellow. If you look at the top feather, you can see a strip of yellow that’s pretty loud.
You know that kind of Easterbunny pastel. Yellow, pink, blue, purple, and maybe green. It’s only appealing if you’re under the age of five. It missed here. I stitched some cream and natural white thread all over it.
Then I added the overstitching. The overstitching takes center stage, and the yellower bits back off. I think I’ve saved it. It also browns out the pinks a bit. They’re all there, but quieter for the green.
What should I have done? I should have lined up that yellow in a row with the other colors and taken a black and white picture of it. I would have known right there. But I’m happy with it now.
I’m ready for the next step, which is the background. And I think it needs yellow fish and birds.
I’m about to get crafty on you. I usually don’t do a lot of Pinterest. But this is a Pinterest-inspired answer that I’ve been looking for for a while. I’ve been reworking my studio storage. Which is a nice way of saying I’ve been clearing out all the stuff cluttered in the corners.
I create heaps of scraps. Of all kinds of things. They silt up. some of those are cut shapes I use for design. I have collections of clouds, water ripples, leaves, suns, moons, and flower bits cut out of lace, cheesecloth, and sheers. If they’re in one place and I can find them, they help create the elementals in my backgrounds. If they’re not contained, they float across the studio floor under immovable objects. Sometimes never to be seen again. Sometmes found years after the project is finished.
Hence the cheese puff jars. Don has an addiction to cheese puff balls. I can’t eat them without setting off my celiac, but the containers are great. They’re small plastic barrels with a pop-on lid.
I’ve used these for years to store scraps. or to store threads, paints, dyed yarns, thread ends. Unfortunately, they tend to float back and forth over the floor. You can accidentally step in one, with predictable results. They’re somewhere between an answer and an accident waiting to happen.
I was trying to figure out how to make a storage container for them. I tried mesh shelving. Not quite the right size. I was considering making a shelf system out of PVC. Then I saw a Pinterest post of cans glued together as a pencil sorter.
Gluing bendy plastic bins sounded awful. Then I thought of elastic.
It sounds like you could just wrap elastic around them and pin them together. That was harder than it sounds. I used 1″ rolled elastic and #2 safety pins. I cut elastic the right length, and pinned them together. Then I pinned the elastics together with safety pins into a harness. I slipped the barrels into the harness. Two rows of elastic gave me more stability.
I’m pleased. I have a collection of fabric rocks all together where I can find them. And a water/cloud sun collection. I can put them right by my photo wall and design with them. And a station for 3 different kinds of scraps all in one place. Those have open lids so I can slide bits in as I cut things. I can either use them on their sides, or upend them. It’s all within reach.
I stacked mine in multiples of three. That makes a pyramid and it’s possible to move them as a unit. Groups of three are easier to move than groups of six. I wouldn’t try for groups of nine unless I didn’t plan to move them.
It remains to be seen, if groups of three can be stacked.
Haven’t tried working with them yet, but I’m excited. How long did it take to make the pyramids?
Some thoughts:
Cleaning the jars is essential. they’re greasy. The new Dawn Power wash spray does a really good job.
You could take off the labels, but that seemed like work.
There might be something else out there that is sold in a barrel, that doesn’t leave as much residue, but I don’t know about it. Let me know if you find it.
This last year has been a disaster for my sewing machines. Most of my work depends on intense embroidery. Lately I’ve depended more and more on that stitchery for my images. I love it. But it does wear and tear on the machines. I had 6 major machine breakdowns. last year. I broke down 3 220s, my 770, my 630 and a 930. Some have fixed. Some have not.
I’m a Bernina girl from way back and have been a Bernina Ambassador for most of my career. I work with Berninas because they are tough and they stitch accurately. That doesn’t mean they don’t break down, Particularly if you’re sewing at speed demon speed for hours on end. I was told this is my fault.
I suppose it is. It’s what I do. I can either back away from this kind of stitching or find another way.
Zigzag embroidery allows for intense detail and color, I can’t step away from it. I also can’t keep breaking machines. So something has to change.
Don is my miracle in this. He’s a wizard with older small motors. He’s not specialized in sewing machines, but very mechanically savvy. He’s collecting manuals and parts machines. As always, he’s my hero.
I really can’t function though without a working machine and I prefer 2 backups. I’m not exa sane without a sewing machine.
Years ago I bought a 20 U Singer for intense embroidery. That’s not what these machines are known for. In a way, they’re the cockroach of the sewing machine world. Not in the sense that they hide under the cupboards, but because they are pretty much unkillable. You find them most often in dry cleaner shops for repairs.
It was a mixed success. This thing eats babies and cats, breaks thread constantly, and is fast—too fast—even with different slower pulleys. And it was the weight of a tiny elephant. When I left Porter, I left it in my studio, where it has sat.
Ken, the person renting my house, offered to bring it to me. That in itself is a huge glft But I’ve had my reservations about making this machine work. I first felt I was stepping backward, Is it an answer to the same problem? Is this machine tough enough?
Well, we know it’s tough. Can we make it work with embroidery thread? There’s the question. It’s also paid for.
It had its problems before. But things have changed. I now use stronger threads. I no longer work in a hoop. And we found that a servo motor would step down the speed. So it’s coming to the studio sometime this month, and we try it out. I’ve gone from feeling like I’m stepping back to seeing new possibilities.
You can’t step in the same river twice. You are different and the water is different.
I’m digging out the studio this week to make room, which is why I don’t have new work to show you. I’ll let you know what happens next.
Wish me luck. I think it’s time for another spoonbill.
