Free motion Embroidery

The Wrong Bird: Not Settling

| ellenanneeddy

Sometimes it just doesn’t work. most of the time I can see it in my head. Except when I can’t tell until I get it up on the wall.

I was a bit unsure when I drew the bird. But he had great movement. I stitched it out anyway.

Two things happened. It shrank and that was a real problem. How much? I had a notion so I measured. Roughly 8.9 %. Doesn’t sound like much but it didn’t help. I’d used a yellow thread in the mix that didn’t make me happy. And I hated his legs. They just didn’t quite work.

But honestly it was just the wrong bird. Much happier with this drawing. Ignore the lines with squiggles. They are off. It will have to be drawn in reverse for the picture.

Years ago in college I made a stone wear red queen as a portrait of my mother. Trust me. It was appropriate. It blew up in the kiln.

Stubborn is just tenacious in a different dress. I built again and this time it survived the firing. Of course they put all my work after that in the firings where a woman did work that always blew up.

So I have an extra bird I don’t quite know where it goes. And a bird I love drawn ready to go. Not a big problem as these things go.

Sometimes it makes sense to settle. Sometimes it costs your heart and soul. I hope not to get in too big a hurry to hear myself. Or to work until it’s right.

Update:

Here is where that bird finished up. He’s so much better sized for these fish.

This is what happened with the second bird drawing. Boy, am I glad I refused to settle.

The Importance of Backing Up: Looking before You Leap

| ellenanneeddy

There’s nothing like being on a roll with a piece. You’re sewing away. You have one more bit to do, or maybe three or maybe five. It’s a bit questionable but you push through because it’s so good to be done.

By now I should be prescient about that. That’s a ledge with a chasm right by it. And I should know I’m likely to fall. I did that this week.

three fish

I had that green heron quilt ready to go. Got the heron on. Looked at the fish and decided I needed an odd number. Three was a bit empty. So I decided on five.

five fish

Did I look? Actually I did. Did I think? Perhaps that’s the problem. My brain knows that odd numbers work better than even ones. My eye knew the fifth fish just didn’t fit in. I listened to my brain. Not so smart.

Theories don’t always work. If your eye tells you it’s wrong, then it’s wrong. Had I listened I would have saved myself three hours with a mustache trimmer and seam ripper. And a ruined fish.

Design is important. So is color. So is drawing. But in the end, it’s how the piece balances and flows when it’s all done. This is the part you can foul up with everything else right. And the answer is simple. You need to look at it.

Not just put it up and see. Put it where you can really analyze whether it balances and flows and whether there’s stuff.

I’m bad at this. That moment when I get that urge to finish…. it gets me every time I follow it.

So how do we look at a quilt differently?

Old school is to just back away far enough from it to see it. It’s not enough to see it laid on the table. You need to hang it to see it. I used to hang really large pieces off the porch and walked down the alley to really see it.

I’ve also used a a wide angle viewer. These let you view a big quilt in a small space. They are very valuable.

Another old school method is a ruby beholder, or a color evaluator. It’s a red or green piece of plastic where you can see the values in your quilt as opposed to the colors. It’s a huge help.

All of that steps back to a digital camera. And yes, your cell phone will probably do that.

Just get far enough back to photo the whole piece. And then, changed the photo to black and white. You can see the movement, whether something needs to be put over slightly to one side. Whether you’ve just got a hole or it’s too cluttered. Whether something disappears. It will also show you if you’ve got a value problem.

My bird is a bit subtle here. But I don’t think I mind that. He’s hunting after all, so he needs to be.

Leaves in place

It’s always better to do that before you sew things down. You would think I would learn. Experience is the best teacher, and some fools will have no other.

I’ll Be Feathered: Creating Feathers in Thread

| ellenanneeddy
Green heron

Feathers are perfect subjects for thread. Birds too, but there are many kinds of feathers, defined as always by the angle of the zigzag stitch.

I’ve been working on two birds this couple of weeks: a green heron and a goldfinch.

Goldfinch

It starts with a drawing. This is a drawing on Totally Stable. It goes on the back of the sandwich so it’s my pattern.

The head and underbody of the bid are soft overall feathers. These can be made with a back and forth zigzag stitch done side to side. Layer after layer of thread blends the colors.

Underbelly and leg
Head
top section of wings

The upper part of the wing follows the arc of the feather, shaded with the side to side zigzag The feathers are lined with gold and soft yellow to define them.

Pinions

The pinion feather stitching is made with angled stitches down the feather with a curved arc at the end.

The streak

These feathers have a streak of yellow defining the quill.

Quills do

All in all the stitching separates the kinds of feathers. And creates a bird made strictly of thread and stitchery.

The Miracle of Cheesecloth: Not Just for Turkey Anymore

| ellenanneeddy

I love sheers! I love the ability to have my background peak through the sheers to create the connection between background and an object.

But most sheers don’t paint or dye well. They are poly or nylon. They come in bright colors, but they have other problems. You can paint them in pastels. They don’t dye with fiber reactive dyes at all. And if you get your iron temperature wrong, they melt.

But cheesecloth does all that well! It’s all cotton, and woven loosely. And you can iron it on fry and it behaves like cotton.

You know cheesecloth. You just aren’t used to it in the sewing room. It’s an airy woven cotton people used to use to make cheese (hence the name). Or on turkies to keep the breast moist. You may have used it to make Halloween ghosts or Christmas angels.

But dyed, it can be any color in the universe. I include it in a regular dye batch and it dyes like a champ with fiber reactive dyes. And it washes out easily in your regular washer in a nylon lingerie bag.

It makes amazing leaves! The weave in the cheesecloth looks like the cells of the leaves and the stitching defines the color.

My favorite thing to do with cheesecloth is to make mushrooms. Child of the 60s that I am, they are a flora that fascinates me. And they are an excuse for eye popping color

I do make them in batches. I’ll line up a set of mushrooms on a piece of felt, using Steam a Seam 2, pull out my brightest polyester embroidery thread and stitch up batches of mushrooms at a time, that I’ll use in many different quilts. The bright colors and zigzag stitch pop the the colors to a peak intensity. Now, who doesn’t want that?

What I did differently, is I made some smaller ones for pins and patches for my friend, Sherrill Newman who owns the South Shore Market in Porter, Indiana.

I almost never make these available to people except as finished quilts. But she talked me into it. I made a small batch for her store. Some of the left overs I’ve put on sale on Etsy. They have pins backs on them, but if you wished to use them as a patch, it would be a matter of a moment to remove that with a seam ripper.

Hand dyed cheesecloth might just be the sheer you’ve been longing for. Bright, cotton, and beautifully texturized, it makes great flowers, leaves and ‘shrooms.