materials

What Rules? Testing Out Old Theories about guilding lilies

| ellenanneeddy
Swirling water, with metallic thread.

Whenever you teach, people want you to give you rules. Directions. Patterns. A safe way to get results.

That’s fair. That’s what they come to class for. What they’d really like is a formula. Add a plus b, divide by six and get your result. I do understand. And underneath it all, I have a list of odd rules as well.

But I do know that they’re odd. They’re based usually on experience. But sometimes they’re annoyingly limiting. And every so often, I test them out. I push the borders, just to see if it’s a superstition I’ve made for myself, or something really helpful. Or if the materials have changed.

This is a process I call gilding the lily. I take a really lovely print or rubbing and accentuate it with thread. I’ve taken to doing it a lot with oil paint stick rubbing.

One of the tricky things is working with metallic, of all sorts. Metallic goes with metallic, right? I used to be quite strict about that.

Until I had something I was embroidering there just wasn’t enough metallic colors for. And then I found my rule was silly. Of course I could dust something with metallic.

So lately I’ve been working with metallic oil stick paint. I’ve been embellishing rubbings with straight stitch and metallic thread, a technique I call Gilding the Lily. Did I have to use metallic thread? I thought so. I thought the poly thread would cover it up too much. I thought it needed the shine.

But I had to work the metallic thread from the top. And metallic thread, even the best metallic thread is touchy in the top of the machine. It goes through the needle 50 times before it lands in your fabric. So I tried it.

How silly of me. I sat down with a pile of rubbings and some beautiful poly neon. The look was different. But lovely. And my rules were so much eye shine.

It’s worth not shutting the doors of creativity because we have a safe sure method, a path we know. Sometimes we simply have to stumble past our safe path to experiment outside those possibilities to something new.

So if I waffled teaching you in class and couldn’t give you a complete formula for a perfect quilt, I hope you understood I’d given you permission to try anything your heart desired. Me too!

9

Seeing Right Through: Applique with Sheers

| ellenanneeddy
Splash! in process

I know it’s not supposed to be quilter’s fabric. Sorry. I can’t leave it alone. It’s too much fun to play with test tube babies. Over the years I’ve collected a special stash of laces, organzas, chiffons, brocades and just plain weird stuff.

It’s not anything I would piece. But no one would call me a piecer so that’s moot. But it’s wonderful for the things in this world that are, by nature transparent and/or translucent. I’ve talked earlier about finishing sheer edges with a soft edge finish, Sun Rocks, Wind, Water: Elements with Soft Edges.

But there are times you want that edge to show. Edging lace and sheer applique is a way of not only defining the edge of the applique but of controlling the color and controlling exactly how transparent it is.

I’m working on some moonflowers and some snow drops for a quilt called Splash. The quilt features a dark mostly blue background, and I wanted glowing white flowers for the background. Moonflowers are morning glories that bloom only at night. They’re perfect.

It’s also a way of lightening a darker quilt.

I used both lace and organza for my flowers. I do like them to have small differences, so they have their own individuality. Then I placed them with Steam a Seam 2 on a piece of white felt, with some green leaves. Why felt? It’s a spectacular stabilizer, with a layer of Stitch and Tear underneath. Why white? Because it’s all going to show. Whatever color felt I put under the lace will show through and define the color of the finished flowers. Organza will show through the most, lace less so, and Angelina fiber the least.

Knowing that is power. Felt comes in a full Crayola box of colors and it allows me an extra layer of shading in the process. The thread I use will also define the colors and shade things into darks and lights. Here’s a collection of flowers with different backing felt colors.

white over pail blue
angelina fiber
white over pale blue
white over pink
white over white
White on White
white over turquoise

I use a number of pastels as well as different whites to stitch the edges to give depth. As usual, it’s darker where the sun isn’t shining.

shading the flower

I stitched the flowers with a free motion zigzag. Here’s a little video showing how that works.

I did these moonflowers separately from the piece because they’re relatively large and would have distorted the surface. But for the smaller snowdrops, I applied them directly with Steam a Seam ad then stitched on them directly. The cool thing about this is that the background peeks through, like all translucent flowers. It’s a cool effect.

snowdrops directly on the fabric

And it’s a great reason to play with sparkle lace. There should always be a reason for sparkle lace!

Thermal Shock: Shocking Color Choices

| ellenanneeddy

One of the hardest things in embroidery work is to get over the match instinct. After years of perfectly matching thread to my project, I’ve had to learn to pick out the highest contrast threads to make an image that really shows up.

In embroidery, contrast is everything. If it all mushes together color-wise then you have a very mushy image indeed. Smooth color exchanges that are analogous and sit next to each other on the color wheel are pretty. But they don’t have much punch. So what you want is color that builds not on similarities but on differences. There are several kind of contrast: color, tone, clarity, and temperature.

Today we’re talking about color ,which is simply the hue. Is it red, blue, or yellow? Or an odd shade of green? It’s not a simple as it looks. There a million reds, blues and yellows and they are not the same.

Thermal shock is about the temperature of a color. Every color, no matter whether it is a cool or warm color, leans either towards having a cool or warm cast. It doesn’t matter if it’s a cool color or a warm color. There are cool yellows, there are hot blues. If all the colors are either cool or warm they’ll flow into each other like analogous colors. But if they’re not? You get thermal shock. Like standing in a cold water sprinkler on a steaming hot day. The effect is kind of visually electric.

Blue and Yellow Don’t Make Green is an excellent book discussing thermal variations and how that creates differing colors.

I wanted this fish to jump off the surface and I’d decided on yellow, to give it some definition from the floral like background. But I wanted it showy. So the colors I picked, cool orange, cool and warm yellows, cool and warm blues left it shimmery and gave it impact.



Of course it helps if you have shocking thread to begin with. This particular florescent is a Madeira polyester 40# called Poly Neon. Neon has a around 800 colors of every hue, but it has a select section that really is neon. I went through my collection of those threads and chose my shockers.

fish scales
Face
Tail

Each scale on this fish has a blue outer ridge, a purple, and 2 yellows. It’s been shaded in gradations to create the underside separately from the top.

The face and tail are a looser gradation that just shades from darkest/brightest to softer shades.

Here’s a video showing how that’s stitched.

I’ve written a lot about color because it matters to me. Building color in threadwork is done shade by shade, one color on top of another. The eye mixes those colors, which keeps them clear and crisp. But when the colors are fire and ice, prepare to be shocked!

Other blogs discussing color

Lighting the Spark

One Thousand Crayons

Why is that Fish Glowing?

Canva has an excellent page on color theory.

You’ll find Blue and Yellow Don’t Make Green on Amazon.

Polyneon Threads are available at Madeira USA

Hard Edge Applique: Redefining the Line

| ellenanneeddy

We talked earlier about soft edge applique. Soft edge is a minimal treatment that simply covers the edge of an applique with monofilament nylon or poly thread with a zigzag stitch. For things like water, air, fire, rocks, mist, suns and moons it’s perfect. Sometimes it’s good for flower petals as well. It’s for anything that doesn’t need a hard defining edge. It creates soft color shifts across the quilt.

But some things need that edge. Bugs, birds, frogs and fish all need that hard definition. Or you can’t really see them at a distance. And it makes a huge difference when you go to photo your piece.

You know I’m a color girl. I’m going to want to use color every time I can. But over the years I have learned, if you want it to stand out, use the black for an outline.

green outline
black outline

I particularly have tried it with bugs. Metallic thread green thread always gets my attention, and I reach for it much in the way you might reach for cherry cordial chocolates. But I’m mildly disappointed with it in the end, because it never gives as defined a space.

basic outline

I’ve been working on this egret, and the my process shots reminded me how important that outline is. Again, I’ve been working on doing a dimensional white bird, so it has a lot of contrast underneath to shade to white on the top.

The bare bones outline define the areas to shade with color. I’ve come to rely on 40 weight Madeira Poly neon. It comes in several blacks, but the definitive one is color #1800. I’m using a free motion zigzag stitch to outline, which is why the width is variable. (See post Zigging Upended for a tutorial on zigzag stitch).

I build color, from dark to light from the outline. For more information about choosing those colors, check out this post: Into White: The Search for White Thread Painting. But it’s coloring within the lines. As you can guess, I’m not so good at that. The threads encroach over the line and things get mushy. So the final act is that reoutline.

Redefining the outline

You can see the difference that second outline makes. All the edges that are fuzzed and mussy are now tightened up and out there.

The outside edges will be defined as I stitch the bird down. But having the inner edges cleaned with an extra edge of stitchery redefines all the lines.

finished egret

When I applique the bird on, again I’ll use my zigzag stitch with black thread. It gives the outline definition and punch and helps separate the bird from the background.

Sun,Clouds, and Water: Making Elements with Soft edged Appliqué

| ellenanneeddy
Background with sheers and lace for water
Sheers and lace for water

When we applique something, we think most about the fabrics used together and how they interact. But the way it’s appliqued, the stitch and threads used make just as big an impact. Applique edge change the look of our work.

Steam A Seam 2

Soft edge applique is for things that don’t have single color edges. Bubbles. Clouds. Water. Mist. Angelina fiber. Sunlight.. Why? A hard line of stitching makes them stand out too strongly and makes an ugly line. So all I want to see is the change in fabric. Particularly with sheers and laces. It’s a direct applique technique because it’s glued and stitched directly to the top.

I do most of my applique with Steam A Seam 2. It’s a peanut butter sandwich with two pieces of paper and tacky glue in the center. I can peel off one side of the paper, tack it to my fabric, peel off the other side and then place it on your piece over and over again until I’m happy with the result and I iron it down.

S shapes
c shapes

I usually cut c and s shapes. These flow into each other, and they make all kinds of natural light and shadow. You can cut pieces one after another following a similar shape.

moon and clouds

Here’s a sun and some clouds. Same shapes basically, but they fill in well. The nice thing about Steam A Seam 2 is that it sticks, but you can reposition it. I’ll put pieces up on my design wall and then play with them until they’re right.

I never really trust glue. Sorry. I just don’t. I’ve seen it too often. You iron it down and it peels back off. Maybe I don’t always iron long enough. But I always stitch it down, just in case. Then I know it’s not going to travel anywhere.

The glue will come through your lace onto your iron. So when you iron lace and sheers, you’ll need a pressing cloth. My favorite is the Applique Pressing Sheet. The glue will melt through on the the pressing sheet.

You can clean it off with a Scotch Brite Zero Scratch Scouring Pad, which will not scratch your pressing cloth.

For stitching, I use an invisible thread. But which one? It seems to depend on you and your machine. I’ve had some good luck with YLI Wonder thread, but I need to take my machine speed down to a crawl to use it on the 770 Bernina. Madeira, Superior, and Aurafil have different grades of monofilament nylon and poly that you can try. If one doesn’t work, try another. I use a topstitching #90 needle, and Sewer’s Aid (a thread lubricant). Will it break? Yes, I can promise you that. But it leaves a soft edge to the piece that makes water and clouds look more real. If the breakage is making me crazy, I sew as slowly as my machine can.

Soft edge applique is done with invisible thread in the top and an unobtrusive color thread in the bobbin. I use a zigzag free motion stitch, at an angle. That gives me the most amount of edge coverage.

Angled free motion zigzag stitch

Soft edge applique is done with invisible thread in the top and an unobtrusive color thread in the bobbin. I use a zigzag free motion stitch, at an angle. That gives me the most amount of edge coverage.

piece pinned up

Free motion zigzag stitching depends on the angle your fabric takes through the machine. The body shading angle is the one that will give you the most coverage, but the angle will change as you go around the piece. All you want to do is lightly zigzag over the edges.

And the best part? I can add a whole other layer of water lace to put my fish in the water. How good is that?

Soft edge applique is perfect for natural elements. Let the sun shine!

Getting fabric Straight: The wonders of starch

| ellenanneeddy

One of the constants of quilting is that the methods of fabric care we enjoy now don’t always work for quilting fabric. Why? Quilts are mostly cotton. Cotton is not perma-press. It can be made so, but it’s hardly cotton after that. It dries at a different temperature, it shrinks, it is more vulnerable to mildew. It does not act like a polyester fabric. And it never will. It’s cotton. It’s a natural fiber that does not ever act like a test tube baby. And it rumples. There are no wrinkles like cotton wrinkles.

So, many of the tools our grandmother’s used to work with cotton still work best. I have a wringer washer and mangle for dyeing fabric. They both are made pretty specifically for cotton and still do the job they were made for.

We talked several weeks ago about cotton and irons. Cotton takes real heat. The old fashioned irons do that.

Here’s the other unspoken bit about cotton. It’s made of fibers that move, shift and don’t stay steady. You can tear fabric straight on the edge and have it still not lie square. There is, however, a secret weapon. Starch.

You know that wonderful crisp feeling that your cotton has off the bolt, when it feels like a thin piece of paper, only fluid. That’s created by starch. Starch is one of several chemicals they use to finish fabric. So is formaldehyde. If you’ve ever walked into a fabric store and smelled a strong chemical smell, that’s probably it. A good prewash removes much of that smell. But it also removes the starch.

We joke about starch in someone’s underwear and complain of too much starch in new clothes, but for quilting, it really helps us out. It means things are more stable and don’t move around. Those moving, shifting, shifty fabrics stay flat and stay straight, making it easier to piece straight seams. I’m told it’s excellent for hand piecing. It keeps the fabric smooth and steady underneath the needle.

I became aware of the starch factor when I began to dye all my fabric. It just didn’t have the same body as unwashed fabric. I experimented with spray starch and found it expensive but helpful. It was also very hard to control how much starch you got. And you often got spots.

Then I found liquid starch. Stay Flo has turned out to be the best I’ve used. It comes in a jug and you mix it to the level you want. I usually use 1/3 cup of Stay Flow to 2/3 cup of water. Roughly. I mix that in a cheap spray bottle.

But here’s the secret weapon. On my last wash out, I put in a cupful of starch in the softener cup of my washer. I also put in a capful of a professional softer called ProSoft or Milsoft. On it’s final rinse, it starches all my fabric evenly. Then I let it hang dry and iron it while damp. Perfection.

Here’s an interesting article from The Spruce with more technical information about sizing and starches.

Starched fabric is so much easier to piece because it doesn’t shift as much.

I’ve been piecing another landscape gradation, and I gave it a final starch before pressing it. It changes how your fabric lies, how it irons, and how it handles under the needle. And you don’t need to stop and smell the formaldehyde. How good is that?

Splitting the sky: The Advantage of Split Light Sources

| ellenanneeddy

I don’t piece well. It’s not my skill. Anything that takes accuracy and careful cutting really isn’t my skill. The new 770 Bernina came with a foot that does make it better, but I don’t normally do large pieced tops. I know better. It’s not pretty when I do.

But there are rare occasions when I piece a split light source top.

Why? Why walk into accuracy land and piecing?

A light source brings you fabric with direction, and a built-in world. That world can be integral by itself. But if you want to filter the light as if it were through haze, woods, or shadow, you can piece two light source fabrics to create that shaded look. There are several approaches, with different effects.

Vertical Piecing

Where the Heart is

Where the Heart Is was pieced from two separate yards of the same blue/orange color range. I lay both pieces together on the cutting board and cut them in gradated strips, 2″, 3″, 4″, etc. Then I sewed them together with the narrowest light of one to the widest side of the other, in gradation. Set in a vertical arrangement, it makes for light flowing through the trees.

Horizontal Piecing with a Frame

Envy

Envy was one horizontal light source yard, split in gradations with a half yard cut in 2″ strips put between. The piecing creates a sense of space. The narrowest strip in the gradation defines the horizon line.

Piecing within Multiple Frames

Sometimes I split the two fabrics with the light at the widest on one side and the dark widest cut so they can carry the light across the piece. Twightlight Time was also double framed with a 2″ and a progressive border. Having a narrower border on the top weights the bottom of the piece.

Piecing Machines

Lately, Don found me a Singer 99 at a yard sale. For those of you not familiar with these darlings, they are a featherweight industrial drop-in bobbin Singer. They only straight stitch, but the stitch is impeccable. They are tougher, and faster and they use bobbins that are still commercially available. I’d never seen one before, but I fell in love instantly. It took a little work and some creative parts searching, but Don got it working for me and it’s perhaps the best piecing machine I’ve ever had. Did I mention Don is my hero?

So I pieced the guinea hen’s background on it.

How do you keep it straight? It’s tricky. If I get them out of order the fabric doesn’t progress correctly through its colors. I make all my cuts, leave the fabric on the cutting board until I can number the pieces all on the back side. Since there are two pieces of fabric cut, I label my fabric, 1a,2a, etc. and 1b, 2b, etc. and chalk in the sequence on the ends so I can always keep them in order.

Expanding Fabric Size

Sometimes there’s just a beautiful fabric that needs to be bigger. That’s been known to happen too.

I needed a background for What the Flock, a grouping of guinea hens. I’m low on fabric and money right now, so I have to make do. I found a purple piece that should make a great meadow, but a yard was just a bit small. So I pieced in another half-yard to expand it. I cut the half yard in 2.5″ widths and graded the yard-long piece in segments of 9″, 8″, 7″, 6″, and 5″,

Seam Rollers

For those of you like me, who hate to run back and forth to the iron, there is a seam roller. You can use this gadget to flatten your seams right where you’re sewing. Roll it over the seam and you’ll have flat, ready-to-sew seams without the iron woman run.

I don’t piece often, but these backgrounds are worth it. I love the shaded light and the action of light of the fabric across the piece.

the irony of ironing: taming exploding fabric drawers

| ellenanneeddy
Sheers and metallic lace make the water for this fish

I have several kinds of fabric stashes. There is a small but excellent stash of hand dyed cotton and cheesecloth, and the stabilizers I use. They need to be kept separate because I’d never find anything again if they were not. But there is a sparkle stash, the living falling wall of sheers. And then there is the fabric with no name. I don’t know what you call it. It’s out of the drunken prom queen collection. Sheers with velour. Twinkle organza, sparkle tulle, printed lame. It was originally fabrics samples for fancy dresses.

Much of it came from the Textile Fabric Outlet, which still is at 2121 21st Street in Chicago. But I’ve bought pieces anywhere I found them in my travels. I hope and pray I have a lifetime supply. I haven’t been there in a long time, but they assure me they still sell samples and remnants.


The fabric gets put into different drawers, according to it’s purpose. I have a collection of plastic drawers where I keep fabric and thread. They’re plastic, light weight and cheap. No one ever said they were decorative or stable. But they hold quite a lot of clutter. They pop together like pop bead necklaces. They also unpop from time to time.

That’s when the drawers explode.

Last week one of the stack of two fell of it’s own accord where I usually sit in the cutting room. Thankfully I was not there. Drawers everywhere. Fabric everywhere. And of course since I get lazy and don’t exactly put things away, it all looks like crumply, rumply wads of indescribable stuff that is hopefully fabric. Who knows?

That, and my machine being still out to be fixed led to at least three days of intensive ironing and sorting. Yes, I know, iron is a four letter word. But this time it really helped me out.

Anthony Jones, a fellow quilter who’s taught at many conferences with me once pointed out the difference between pressing and ironing. Anthony started as a tailor and has gone onto quilting. But his early training was in couture. He told me that ironing is the flattening of fabric. It’s a sliding movement across the fabric. Pressing is ironing in one place to persuade a seam to be on one side or another. Pressing leaves the fabric in one place. Ironing moves the fabric, and sometimes your seam as well. There is a difference.

Well, in this case it took ironing. It turned out I could iron 3 drawers in one day. That sounded like process until I counted up to around 40 drawers. I think I have my non-creative fabric project for low energy days for a long time.

One other word about ironing, it’s all in the fabric content. Anything that is a test tube baby,(nylon, rayon, and polyester) can and will melt. I’ve done it once in demo. It was quite dramatic. For regular cotton ironing I use a Black and Decker Classic iron, a recreation of the 1950s black irons. They use very high heat and generate a lot of steam. For the test tube babies, one of the modern irons that are made for polyester clothes is safer. I no longer use expensive irons. These fit my needs just fine.

I found fabric I’d long forgot. I have small sample bridal and dressy fabric samples that make the best dragonfly wings and bug bodies. And wonderful lace and organzas that make landscapes and sky washes. There were wonders I hadn’t seen in years.

And being someone who never really cleans, folds or puts away except when drawers fall out, I had no idea how much less space it takes up to store folded iron fabric instead of stuffing it in a drawer. Who knew?

My machine is home, 6 drawers are ironed and we will resume the channel to chaotic embroidery until the next disaster occurs.

Into White: The Search for White Thread Painting

| ellenanneeddy

Some things are an experiment. Some things are a quest. Some things are like the holy grail and you keep searching for them interminably.

White is one of those things. When you’re working with thread painting, the easy answer is many shades of grey and then white, or many shades of beige and then white. Both are incredibly boring.

“Why couldn’t you just make it white?“ I hear you say. You could. If you want it to shine out stronger than any other element in the quilt and you don’t care about dimension, you could. Pure white can be like an out of place spotlight in a quilt.

So the quest is, what mix of colors, greys and beiges will make a white that will have good depth, cast and drama. And look like it’s white.

In that quest, I’ve done a step by step photo study on this bird, in hopes to study it.

I’ve talked about zoning and shading before so I won’t flog that in this blog. “Rethinking White” is a post about shading white applique flowers. It’s a bit different than totally building color in thread. Because it’s built on sheers instead of strictly thread. But you may find that a useful difference.

Dimension is made by arranging colors from either dark to light or light to dark. It builds the illusion of shape. The progression of colors creates shade and shadow.

Here is my thread range I chose. It’s a mix of blues, purples, greens greys and beige, laid out dark to light.

I’ve put together some process shots to help explain.

Head Shots

Dimension comes from having a dark, medium and light area in each color zone in your piece. If you can establish dark, medium and light, you can make depth, something that isn’t by nature flat. Then for interest’s sake I added a shocker and a shader color to spark it. Of course the beak and the eye bring it to life.

Changing Cast

The two things you are building are cast and dimension. Cast is the color under the color. Most colors either lead towards the sun or the shade. You get the clearest colors by using only sun or shade colors in an embroidery.

But sometimes clear color isn’t the goal. If you want to come to a neutral shade, you mix both. And try not to go too far from the center. It makes a fabulous blended shade, but it’s hard to accomplish.

The cast on the under feathers was more yellow than the rest of the bird. An over stitched layer of a bluer grey pulls the color closer to center.

White doesn’t have to be boring. Or grey, or beige. With a little thinking and a close eye we can create a blended white with dimension.