Art Piece

Taking your Lumps: What to Do When It Won’t Lie Flat

| ellenanneeddy

Everyone who tries solid free motion embroidery is bound to ask, “Why is it all puckered up?” and right after that, “What can I do about it?”

This is like the part of Lawrence of Arabia where Lawrence does a trick with a match, his friend tries it too, drops the match. screaming, “It hurts. What’s the trick?” Laurence answers, “The trick is not to care that it hurts.”

Zigzag embroidery will always pucker up. It’s the nature of the zigzag stitch. It pulls in one direction only., so it’s not an even distortion. It will shrink only in the direction of the width of the stitch, every time.

How do I control distortion?

There are things you can do that help

  • . Use a stabilizer underneath. I use a sandwich of felt, stitch and tear, totally stable and hand dyed cotton
  • Use a hoop.
  • Use a smaller stitch.
  • Do it on a separate stabilizer sandwich.
  • All of that helps.

It’s still going to pucker up. That much thread placed unevenly in your fabric will pucker.. Sorry. So this is what you do when all that good planning and preparation doesn’t work.

I knew when I drew this octopus in a shell it was going to distort. Distortion happens when you have different amounts of stitching in the same piece. The shell, the tenacle and the octopus’s body are all stitched at different density with different kinds of threads. That will always distort. Also things in a circle tend to pull together to distort as well. I embroidered this knowing it was going to do this.

What Can I do to Stop it while I’m working

  • Keep going. Fill in all of it. Some of it will pull in as you stitch. Even if it doesn’t flatten out enough, you’ll need it stitched.
  • Hold your piece flat with your fingers while you’re stitching. You can pull the surface flat with your fingers spread apart on the piece. I recommend you do this in a hoop. Be careful. You want to hold it down, but don’t get your fingers under the needle.
  • Iron the piece from the back with heavy steam.

What happens if it’s still lumpy?

Steam it as best as you can.

If that doesn’t work, it’s time for surgery.

Now, before you hyperventilate, think of this. I sewed it. I cut it, I sewed it back together. The trick is to cut in on the lines of the pattern. I cut along the line of the tenacle. I’ll oversew it with the outlining.

Why do this? I hate to be limited. I want to do my images as I see them. If they need to be fixed afterwards, so be it. Cutting it to release the tension and sewing it back together lets me create images I couldn’t do any other way.

I think it needs kelp, 2 tentacles from another octopus, and jelly fish. Not sorry about this at all.

Wisteria Blossoms

| ellenanneeddy

Sometimes hand-dye designs your quilt for you.

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.

fluffy: Making Feathers with the Long and Short Stitch

| ellenanneeddy

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 Birds for 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.

The Long-Short Stitch

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.

For more information about the long-short stitch check out The Long and the Short of It.

Bird Feet: The difference in the Details

| ellenanneeddy

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.

Avoiding the Easter Bunny Look: Shading with Pastels

| ellenanneeddy

Anatomy of a Color Scheme

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.

Going Straight: Rethinking Along Straight Lines

| ellenanneeddy

I’ve always joked that it didn’t matter that I couldn’t do straight lines because I really didn’t want to. I tend to justify my limits a bit. I do know better.

I left behind piecing when I was a beginning quilter, because I was much more interested in quilting in creatures than following straight lines. I was also rotten at straight lines. We are defined not so much by what we take up as by what we discard.

So after years of beautiful curves and free motion ecstacies, I find myself if situations where I really do want to make a straight line. At least sometimes.

It all started with a ceiling tile. I have a ceiling tile that rubs out like prairie grass. I love it. It gives the movement of grass without a heavy shape. But the lines are basically straight.

I’ve stitched them with just my darning foot, to mixed results. I couldn’t follow the lines as well as I liked. They’re pretty, and I love the grass stems, but I wanted them to be less sloppy.

I was browsing through some videos where I found one of Leah Day using a ruler and a darning foot together. I’m quite a fan of hers. She has done a lot of good innovation with stippling and texture. She showed how to quilt with a darning foot and a ruler.

I know it’s a long-arm quilter thing, but I had never tried it. There was a special foot involved and some very pricey rulers, so I decided to try to do it on the cheap.

Berninas aren’t either really short or long shank machines. They’re a whole other system. But I do have an adapter for feet that works pretty well. I ended up ordering a short shank darning foot and a five inch omnigrid square.

The foot with the adapter was an epic fail. I could put the foot on the adapter, but it wouldn’t make a proper stitch without breaking needles.

I went through my old Bernina feet and found one that came with a really old machine. It was a darning foot with a raised lip. It worked. Clearly there’s a learning curve.

Would it have been easier to buy a new foot? I’m sure. But it was also pricey, Next time the ship comes in, I’ll buy one.

Will I do this more? There are times when a straight line is just what you need. Probably no way out.

So we have a win for old weird Bernina feet and ingenuity. I’m always pleased with new possibilities. It’s like someone slipped a new toy in my tool box. My reeds are everything I could ask for. They’re almost straight.

Deciding Rather than Designing: Starting from Scratch

| ellenanneeddy

I wish I were someone who could take a design and execute it. I can try. It’s a case of man proposing, and God laughing. Instead, a series of decisions are to be made at each point. Each decision points to the next.

One of the most useful things I do in a class is to start a piece from scratch. It’s not like there is a direct list of what you do next. But there are some decisions to be made. It helps to have a plan.

Here is the list of things I need to decide for each piece.

  • Background-The hand dye creates the light and the atmosphere for the piece. It usually is the first choice. Does it have a sunspot? A pool? A field of flowers within it? It dictates almost everything, especially the lighting in a piece.
  • Major Images-These are the main focus. I draw them in Totally Stable, backwards. They iron on to the back of the piece and remain inside the piece as a pattern.
  • Atmospherics-Water, light, smoke clouds, and sometimes leaves and flowers are atmospherics. They are usually made of commercial sheers, handpainted lace, and dyed cheesecloth. They make a translucent presence in the piece.
  • Details/pathway-These are smaller embroideries, or stones, or leaves that can be used to create a visual pathway through the surface.
  • Texturizing the surface/stippling- after all that embroidery, the rest of the piece needs to be integrated. The stippling over the surface can pulls the piece together.

There are no right or wrong answers. There are simply decisions. Each defines the piece. What I choose not to do also shapes the definition. I’m OK with that. I’ve learned that each decision I reject can be featured in the next piece. Or the one after that. I’m not making one perfect piece of art. I’m creating a body of art that explores the limits and range of my techniques and my skills.

This piece, like most of them, started with a piece of fabric and the idea of herons. I dye a number of pieces of fabric as cenotes, wells of color. Some times the cenotes make a light source, but this piece made a wonderful pond.

The birds started as whistling herons. But at a certain point, they were indistinguishable from the Louisiana Blues. So I did them as blue herons. It’s important to finish the major embroideries first because they shrink. You don’t know how they’ll fit in until they’re embroidered and cut out.

The atmospherics for this piece are water and grass. The grass is an oil paint stick rubbing of a ceiling tile. The water is accentuated with c-shapes of hand painted and commercial lace. Then I put in rocks to anchor the pond and direct the eye.

I decided on damsel flies and grasshoppers, as pathway elements. They did not work the way I had hoped. The damsel flies fit in, but I’m not sure of the grasshoppers. I’ll have to finish them to be sure.

Finally, I wanted seedlings growing up through the water. I made big beautiful bold seedlings the size of God’s underpants. Again, not the best choice. I scaled that down and it was much more effective, although I might want bigger ones at the bottom.

This piece is pinned in position. I’ll be stitching soon. But most of the decisions are made, step by step, before it’s stitched down.

Backtracking: Going back to Old Tech

| ellenanneeddy

I’m always looking for a better way to do something. Easier. More visible. More user-friendly. Tech changes as we go along, partially because we get smarter about what we do, partially because we learn from others, and partially because the materials, thread, and stabilizers change and we change with them.

If change isn’t a four-letter word, it should be. It’s not easy or fun to develop new ways to do things. But if we are going forward on an artistic path, it’s inevitable.

Except when it’s not.

I developed using free-motion embroidered appliques as an anti-pucker technique. First I did it only with quite large objects. Over the last couple of years that has developed into what I call component quilting, where almost all of my images are done separately on a sandwich of hand-dye, felt and Stitch nTear, and then cut out. I apply them to the quilt surface only when they are completely embroidered.

What does that do technically?

  • It diminishes the puckering around heavy embroidery by cutting it away
  • It creates a strong visual image that pops off the quilt surface.
  • It creates a larger outline than you might want for a smaller image.
  • It allows you to use a zigzag stitch for quicker coloring.

What did I use to do? I stitched my images directly into the quilt sandwich. It was where I started as a quilter. First I used to stitch images into the quilting. Then I began to stitch with specialty thread so those images would show up better. It was at least 15 years before I began to stitch the images separately.

What does that do?

  • It requires either straight stitch or very narrow zigzag because of the puckering
  • It allowes the background to show throught the embroidery, so that it blends in more.
  • It can be seen on the back (which is really cool if you embroider directly into the quilt sandwich
  • It puckers up anyway, but less than it would with zigzag

I’ve pretty much stopped using direct image stitching. This time I went back to it strictly for the aesthetics. I wanted fish that did not stand out as much as the frog. Doing component embroidery on the frog and direct embroidery on the fish makes them different in appearance and creates a visual sort where your eye lets you know they are different. I wanted the frog half out of the water and the fish firmly in the water.The fish were outlined in a narrow black zigzag, and then stitched straight stitch from the back with metallic thread in the bobbin.

Did it work that way? I’m still figuring that out. The fish are quieter than the frog and seem part of the water. I’m not sure how I feel about the look.

I do know that I can’tafford to throw away technique. Some things just work differently. Having those options is holy.

Frog River is now available for sale at my Etsy Shop.

Etsy

Does it Have to be Yellow?

| ellenanneeddy

I started a new quilt this week. like most quilts, it started with an incredible piece of fabric.

It’s been a while since I’ve dyed, so I’m down to the most fabulous, I’m scared to use it wrong fabric, and the stuff I really don’t care about.

This piece took time to figure out because it’s only a half yard. Sometimes that’s plenty of space. Sometimes it’s not.

but it made such a good pond. All that yummy blue purple against yellow.

I wanted herons, and I found a sketch of herons I used for my information.

Unfortunately, when I looked up the specifics, it was a whistling heron.

In case that sounds unfamiliar to you, you’re not alone. A whistling heron is from eastern Asia.

Is it different especially from other herons? Not so much. Heron head, heron wings, heron feathers. But yellow. The body is yellow.

I think you can see my problem. A yellow heron is going to show up on this like a yetti in a snow storm.

OK. How real do I have to be? What do I want to accomplish with this piece? Am I copying life precisely? Am I playing with interesting shapes or colors? How tied am I to “The Real Thing.”

Henry James wrote a story called “The Real Thing.” It was about an artist who had a reduced gentleman and lady offer themselves as models to him. That had to be a pretty harsh come down in the world for them.

They said they were the real thing, but in truth, they were only that one real thing. He found the girl who could be a gypsy, madonna, dance, lady and probably was a lady of the night, a much better model because she could be anything with his imagination.

Modern art launched right around the beginnings of photography. There’s a reason for that. Up until then, the goal was to come closer and closer to real. Suddenly, you could have a completely real image at the click of a button. An artist can’t really compete with that. So different things have to happen.

So where do we go if we’re not more and more “real?” We start exploring, shape, light, color and texture. We start to think what if. We start to let the art define itself. We find it defines us in the process. That’s a whole lot more scary than real.

But worth it.

I decided these herons could just be herons. And little blue herons are the perfect color behind all that lovely lemon yellow.

So these birds can be blue and shine in their yellow, not so realistic but perhaps symbolic, world. That there are pools of water, even in strict drought. That we find them even under extreme conditions and can thrive past the hardships. That we are not completely defined by other people’s real.

You’ll find a free copy of Henry James story, The Real Thing, here if you want to read it. It’s an interesting thing for artists to think about. Why are we painting, sewing, drawing, and create? What do we build in doing that? What reality do we create? Because as artists, that’s our job.