Every image has to be attached to a quilt at some point. There’s more than one way to accomplish that. But the one I use most is a solid black line of polyester zigzag embroidery.
That sounds dull, doesn’t it?
The black poly outline does more than you would suppose. It creates a crisp outline.
I’ve tried using other colors. Bright, light, neon colors. Nothing gives the same punch as black.
It’s not true of flowers. I can use a bright color outline on a flower that pops it perfectly.
The outline defines the edge visually. If you want it to show up across the room, you’d better make it bold. The outline is the finish line.
I’m just finishing outline octopus 4. One nurse shark is outlined. One is not.
But it does two more things. It makes the image puff just a little. I like the 3-D effect.
And it holds images down solidly. These embroideries wave around the edges like the flag on a windy day. A light line of stitching does not hold them down well enough.
I did not need to cut either the sharks or the octopuses, to get them to lie flat for this quilt. All of it was done with a heavy black outline. The thread traps the edges and mashes it into place.
I used to use black metallic thread to outline metallic images. But since that has to be done with metallic thread in the top, it’s an all-day sucker. Takes forever. Endless breakage. The polyester thread doesn’t have the same shine. But I only have so much hair I can pull out in one afternoon of sewing.
Outline, dark base, shader, and the beginning of the blue range
The nice thing about color theory is that it works across all kinds of media. What changes isn’t the color theory, but the way the media is applied.
Color theory for thread is different only in the fact that you really don’t mix colors. Instead, you lie them next to each other, and your eye mixes them.
These nurse sharks are part of my octopus garden. I don’t have their octopus stitched yet, but they were compelling. I love the spiky shapes. They will have orange-yellow stripes. I’m not quite there yet. Right now, I want them round and shaded, with a clear indication of which side is up. I need smooth color for that.
Smooth color creates a color range.
The formula for it is
A dark base color
A dark complementary color as a shader
A range of colors in the base family
A bright color as a shocker
A lighter or brighter shade of the base color to finish.
If the subject is too large, I can zone the areas of the image and repeat the formula in a set of lighter or darker shades.
I usually work light to dark. The last color will be the most prevalent, so keep that in mind. Sometimes with fish or frog bellies, I color the dark to middle section, add the lightest color on the other edge, and work in my darker colors, so the tummies aren’t so blatant.
Green as a shocker
I chose green as my shocker color. Usually, I would have used either the blue or purple complement, but orange is so strident. I will use yellow for the stripes, but I think I’ll brown them out so they don’t scream at me.
It takes a fair amount of courage to add the shocker. The shader layer makes visual sense. The shocker layer screams at you. There’s a terrible urge to rip it out immediately. But it quiets down once you put the next layer of the base color. And the color is smooth without being bland. The shocker is an electric spark in a range of smooth, quiet color.
It’s time consuming, but I love the base colors. Between the shocker and the shader, the color has a splash of excitement, but creates a flow color base.
What will they look like with yellow-orange stripes? I expect they’ll be quite jazzed up. I’ll show you next week.
I love organza and lace for natural elements. I can make water easily with some fusible and sheers. I cut c shapes in various sizes and colors, and fit them into pond or river water.
This is a process I usually do right before I put on my embroidered components. I get everything embroidered, so I’m sure it fits in, and then add the elements (air, wind, water, clouds, smoke) to the background itself before I stitch down any of the embroideries. Only after tthe sheers are stitched on, do I stitch the components down.
There is one problem with that. It leaves my fish and reeds all out of the water. They are in front of the water, but not in it.’
What I’m looking for is the feeling of layers. I usually cut c shapes and swirls. Then I mix them together until I have water amalgamated with different temperatures and depths.
If you think about real water, it’s always in layers. You put your toes in, and maybe you feel the sun warmed top layer, Go further in, and the lower levels feel colder. How do we express that as art? I think the deeper the colors are, the colder they feel. We can make layered water, warm on the top, but colder as we go further in.
So the last thing I often do is to lay a few pieces of organza and lace over top of the fish. Not completely. but enough that they’re completely clearly in the water.
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.
I’m a big fan of silk flowers and leaves. I love them as an inclusion. They add extra texture and color in a marvelous way.
So I was delighted when I went into the Galesburg Mission sale to find a pile of fake silk ferns.
I love swamps and wet lands, and ferns are just part of that. But they’re not easy to do either as stitchery or as applique. They are detailed, fussy and wonderful. But I haven’t ever stitched a fern I was truly happy with.
Not every fake fern will do. You need one that’s fabric rather than plastic. They usually come with a plastic support glued to the middle of the fern. That peels right off.
Your left with a lovely fern. They can be bent in any direction to fit right into your piece.
I’ve been working on this spoonbill quilt for some while now and I’m almost done. But my trees had bare bottoms. Ferns to the rescue!
I’ll show you how to stitch the ferns down next week. I could try to trace the edges, but they’re bound to do the shimmy under the needle. So instead, I’ll add a layer of cornstarch clear topping (Solvy) pinned over the top and stitch through that. The topping makes everything lie flat. If you use monofilament nylon, the stitching is invisible. When it’s all stitched down, you spritz the topping with water and it dissolves.
I sat down yesterday and mixed the colors for dyeing. It felt like I was sitting in a circle of old friends. Scarlet, sitting next to Fuschia who had just made friends with a new color Dragonfruit, and was waving across the color wheel to the Lemon/lime.
I’m dyeing fabric today in preparation for surgery. If I’m going to have to go through heart surgery, there better be a really big pony after all the poop. So a pile of fresh fabric waiting for me is sensible. It fills the time while I’m waiting and it leaves me with a lovely pile of fabric to dream about until I can sew again. It’s good preparation I think. And a good way to fill the waiting time.
I started dyeing fabric at thirteen. I found a book in the library that blew me out of the water, with it’s papercut illustrations. The Emperor and the Kite, by Jane Yoland used paper in variegated colors that resembled the hand dye I still do. I wanted to work with the technique and it never occured to me to dye or paint paper. I dyed fabric with Rit.
This all happened in the kitchen sink and my father who was the major cook in the house had opinions about it. My father was almost non-verbal, but he looked like I’d kicked his puppy when he saw the kitchen after I was done. He unblocked the sink, scrubbed it down and said nothing. He always understood the passion around projects. He had his own, and he often helped with mine.
But it set something in me. I don’t really want colors that stand apart from each other .I want them to mingle and to dance within the fabric itself. I’ve been dyeing fabric in some form ever since.
Colors are about relationships. They have relationships with each other that depend on how they are formulated. I am not a dye master. Or someone who can responsibly measure dye and mix it reliably. I dump dye into a cup. I buy a bevy of colors and use them knowing how they relate to each other.
“Knowing the definition of a word is a pinpoint on a map. It tells you where you are. It doesn’t tell you how to get where you want to go. It’s the rawest of beginnings.
In the same way, color theory feels like the the dreariest driest subject in the catalog of art education. We look at the wheel and say the canticle, red and blue make purple, red and yellow make orange…. It feels like a recitation from kindergarten. And sadder still, it’s not always true. We’ve all mixed yellow and blue to get the most grizzly browns. It feels like finding out about Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. A nice story for children but not really true.
Part of what we’re missing with that is the reality that it’s a theory. It works, simply when it does work and when it doesn’t, we need to explore why. Color theory doesn’t account for imperfect color. Color me surprised. Another thing that is imperfect in a imperfect world.
The most interesting distinction with mixing color for me is the contrast in thermal energy. Each color in its imperfections leans a bit towards the yellow sunny side, or the greenish shady side. If you mix all sun colors or a shade colors, the combinations are clear and bright. If you mix sun and shade, you get earth colors.
So if I place Lavender and Orchid together, as sun colors they blend into each other. If I add Lilac, a shade color, the combination browns out a bit. Still light purple but with a browned quality. If I add a sun color like Clear yellow, it will stay clear. Lemon yellow with its shade qualities will brown it out.
The real question is not where we are on the map but where can we go. What color theory really describes is the relationships between colors. Within the color wheel, the spots within that wheel define the same kinds of relationships between different colors. Those relationships go back to that primary list of monochromatic, complementary, and analogous color themes that seem so very dull. Because they define the tension between colors.
For dyeing, you have to know the name and know the color. They all lean one direction or another. There are no perfect primaries, secondaries or tertiaries. If you know which way they lean, you can predict the effect. But you never know exactly what the dye on fabric will do. And it’s never the same. Each piece of fabric is unique.
The distance between colors, creates the pull across the wheel. The closer they are to each other, the least pull. The least tension. The least excitement.
The farthest distance any color combination has is directly across from each other, as complements. Those are combinations that tug and pull and electrify us. Colors right on top of each other are smooth and slide into each other.
It’s not one combination. It’s a circle of combinations that create the same feeling. We can move the circle endlessly and get the same energetic result.”
Which is why it’s such a good thing I know these colors as my friends. I know who the mix with and who they fight with and what it will look like after they have a party together.
I’m spending two days dancing with color to pour myself into that joy, instead of the apprehension about the surgery. After all, color is really an antidepressant. And I’ll have a lovely pile of new fabric to play with after I’m back and healed.
I’ve just finished Little Blues! I’m delighted with this quilt. It took me a while to get it finished off. In that process, on a whim I added some red silk flowers to the background.
Why red? Why not orange or blue or white? I did try those. But red was it.
I really think it’s worth the while to put up your color decisions on a color wheel. Just how you can see how they relate.
The color wheel gets a bad rap. It’s old fashioned, it’s boring, we all know how colors are made, it’s incomprehensible…. It’s still the best way I know to show the relationships between colors. It shows how colors are created. But most importantly, it shows how they react to each other.
The farther colors are apart from each other, the more tension there is between them. And like every good soap opera, more tension means more excitement.
At which point, you need to ask, where is this quilt going? If it’s in a baby’s bedroom, you might want to keep the tension and excitement to a minimum. But for a gallery? Bring on the excitement!
I was surprised when I put the colors up on the wheel. I didn’t realize how far around the wheel I had gone. But as you can see, the red zings across from the green. I don’t have much in there, but it wakes up a piece that has that sleepy analogous color thing going on without it. Not much. Just a handful of red silk flowers.
I consider using the whole color wheel a visual trick of sorts. It wins awards, and it’s showy, but color needs to be the focus of a piece for that to work well. But this almost full-color wheel is rich, satisfying, and just red enough to get attention.
I’ve talked before about using old-fashioned appliances for dyeing. They are hidden gems for dyers! They are made especially for cotton and other plant fibers and work brilliantly in processing cotton.
Now that I’m no longer constantly on the road, I don’t dye as much as I used to. I used to dye around 50 yards of fabric a month. Now I dye around 20 per three months. It’s usually for my own use now, although I make some available in my Etsy shop, and you can always call me up and pick out the fabric you’d like on Zoom or Messenger.
But 50 yards or 20, that’s a lot of fabric to wrangle around. I’ve written about mangles. They are awesome ironing tools. But the other ancient appliance I depend on is a wringer washer.
Am I washing out with it? Ah, no. Cotton has to be soaked in solution and then wrung out. I don’t quite have the space even in a full kitchen dye space to wrangle 20 yards in the sink. Enter, the wringer washer. It will hold ample washing soda solution and fabric, and then wring your fabric out for you.
Unfortunately, like most appliances from the 40s and 50s, they’re a little old and cranky by now. When my beloved Maytag started to smoke, it was old enough to put in for social security as well as vote. We went hunting another wringer washer.
It’s not as easy as it sounds. Most of the ones out there have retired to being lawn ornaments. We found one that looked like it was in good shape except for the rust and the fact that it wasn’t moving when we plugged it in. A parts machine, as Don put it.
It seemed like an easy thing to fix. Maytag made the same wringer washer for around 40 years. These washers were 20 years apart, but almost identical. But we needed to meld them into Frankenwasher! A it of this, a bit of that, put together.
We come to our heros of this adventure. I called around Galesburg, looking for someone who might help us with the frankenwasher project. I got a resounding no. No one had wringer washers. No one knew how to fix a wringer washer. No one would want one, would they?
Until I called Dillons Appliance. I love mom and pop stores. I got Sam who knew is father, Jack, used to work on them.. Jack talked his grandson, Jackson through it. And Jackson, who is a brilliant young mechanic, learned from his grandfather how to fix a wringer washer. IT LIVES!
So the moral of the story is don’t let anyone tell you no. All they are telling you is that they can’t help. Keep going till you find someone who says yes.
And find the really good mom and pop businesses that do say yes, because they are treasures, not only because they are willing to help, but because they have wells of knowledge others may have forgotten, and are there for you.
Do check out Dillons if you need an appliance in Galesburg. Frank and Frankson are my heros.
343 S Chambers St. Galesburg, IL 61401. · (309) 343-0476.
The other hero of all of this is Don, who is willing to drive all over the countryside searching for ancient appliances and his friend Joe who has moved more appliances with Don than I can count. Did I tell you I’m a lucky girl?
The Thread Magic Stitch Vocabulary Book went up yesterday on Kindle and is now available! I’ve been sharing my chapters with you so you can get a taste. This is the classroom book that shows you most of the technique
es I use for my work.
I will be teaching the class, Thread Magic Stitch Vocabulary Book for the Gems of the Praire Guild in Peoria on May 4th with a lecture on May 3rd.
This is my first guild gig in about 10 years. There are a lot of reasons for that, and I don’t know that I’m back to a gig I have to travel for yet. But I am so excited to be back in a classroom, and I’ve found there are so many techniques that have changed or modified over that period of time. And so many more things I can do with those techniques..
So I did this booklet, especially for this class. But it should stand alone as a set of exercises you can use to build your skills and stretch your abilities. There is a full toolbox of free motion techniques you can include in your work with just a little practice.
You can see several chapters up on earlier blog posts.
Skills covered Free motion straight stitch Free motion zigzag Bobbin work Hard edge applique Soft edge applique Working with Angelina Fiber Working with dyed cheesecloth Couching Adding silk flowers and leaves Globbing
I tried to write a book that would cover a lot of information in a small space. I’m hoping you find it useful. You can order the Kindle Stitch Vocabulary Book right now. The print book will be out at the end of the month, and it’s part of your kit if you are taking the class.
I’m so excited to be sharing this material with you and to be out teaching again with the best people in the world. Quilters!
