Oil paint stick rubbing

Living Large: Strategies for Dealing with Large Quilts

| ellenanneeddy

I almost never do bed quilts. I did them when I was younger and watched them die as I used them. It was too depressing. I occasionally will do a baby quilt or a comfort quilt for someone dealing with illness. Mostly I do art.

And since art doesn’t have to be big, I don’t often make something bed-size to put on the wall. Except when I do,

This heron couldn’t be done smaller. At least I couldn’t do it smaller. He’s 60″ x 52″. He’s pretty much the size of God’s underpants.

There are some strategies for dealing with overlarge quilts. The first three are, don’t. But if you’ve decided it must be large, there are several things you can do that will help.

Strategies for Large Quilts

Break it into components. For myself, that means the embroideries. I do them separately and then apply them when the top is ready. But it might be working in rows or in segments. Different quilts will suggest different approaches.

Use larger details. Scaling up the design means there’s less work in it. Sometimes extensive detail just looks ditsy on a larger piece.

Buy extra sewing machine needles. Larger quilts require more tugging and pulling and that will break needles. Promise.

If you have a machine with a wider arm, this is the moment. The arm of your machine is the space between the needle and the mechanical right end. A lot of manufacturers make machines with a longer arm. That’s extra room to shove the quilt through the machine. It can be very helpful.

Use a design wall where you can walk away and really see your design. A design wall should be big enough to accommodate your work and in a big enough space where you can walk away and really look at it. For more information about making and using a design wall, here’s a blog post on it: Studio Essentials: The Glories of the Design Wall.

The other helper is what we used to call bicycle clamps. Roll your quilt, clamp them with these clamps and then you can maneuver it easier.

I don’t do large quilts often. But they do really make a punchline in a gallery show. So this heron is promised to a show at the Peoria Art Guild in September. We should have him crowing by then.

”

FS2/20: The Thread That Looks Like Beading

| ellenanneeddy

Most of my work centers around threads, so I fuss about them quite a bit. Most threads divide into their components: metallic, rayon, cotton, and polyester. Fs 2/20 is a bit different. It has a black core the metallics are wrapped around and when it’s used in zigzag embroidery looks like little beads.

Madeira Threads Metallic Thread Color Chart FS 2/20

These lizards were stitched as bobbin work, out of FS 2/20. The eyes are sliver.

\

In contrast, these butterflies were all out of Supertwist Madiera metallic, with FS 2/20 bodies. Again, shiny Sliver eyes.

Why does all that matter? Because those three kinds of thread offer a totally separate look that makes the objects embroidered in them automatically different from each other. Your eye sorts for shiny first. That means that first, it sees the shiny eyes, then the supertwist butterflies, and finally the rich beaded looking lizards. Now, how cool is that?

FS 2/20 is not an easy thread to find. To my knowledge, you need to get it from Madeira. But I do think it’s one of the most beautiful threads I know of. They also have Poly Neon and Supertwist and a bevy of embroidery stabilizers.

For more information about using different kinds of thread, check out Shimmer: Defining the Background.

Small work: Just Playing

| ellenanneeddy
1055-22 Blue Blooms

After all those larger pieces, I’ve relaxed into doing some tiny pieces, partially for a rest, and partially for having some new work at the Galesburg Art Center. I’d done a class with some fabric rubbing and had new colors to play with. So I played.

104822 Swirling Leaves
1046-22 Deco Bee
1051-22 Deco Daisy
1054-22 Wind over Water 3
1050-22 Coneflowers
1047-22 Ginko Leaves

It’s not a high-impact run. But it is a place to try out some new things and try out using things in new ways. That’s always fun.

1049-22 Dragonfly Mandella

I’ve also been introduced to a new thread called glide which looks metallic without being metallic. It’s a matter of color matching, but I’m impressed. I love metallic but it always behaves better from the bottom than through the needle.

1057-22 Deco Dragonflies

After this, I’m going to push through to the two next bigger pieces, but I needed a break.

The new pieces will be available on Etsy soon. Or you can look them up on my profile page.

I found the Glide thread at Feed Mill Fabrics and Quilts. They have a nice collection. If you’re missing that metallic look and you want to skip the metallic drama.

Sometimes you just need to play.

Take Away Demo Classes at Feed Mill Fabric and Quilting!

| ellenanneeddy

    I’ll be at Feed Mill Fabrics and Quilts in Oneida, IL Friday and Saturday with demos,take away classes and a trunk load of quilts and fabrics to show you!

    Mary Walck and I filmed from Feed Mill Fabric and Quilts

    We’ll be offering two fabulous demos Friday Sept. 29th and Saturday Oct. 1st.

    Watch the demo and do it yourself. It’s easy, fun and fabulous! From 11:00 am to 300. Drop in any time, watch the demo and make your own.

    Texturized Treasures:
    Oil Paint Stick Rubbing on Fabric

    Sept 30,2022 11:00 AM to 3 :00 PM

    Texturized Treasures: Oil Paint Stick Rubbing
    Create your own texturized fabric with rubbing plates and oil paint sticks. hand dyed cotton. So easy, so fun and so fabulous!

    $7.00 fee each person

    Gilding the Lily: Christmas Ornaments

    October 1, 2022

    Gilding the Lily Ornaments

    Take those marvelous Christmas prints and gild them with free motion stitchery to make a fabulous Christmas Ornament

    $5.00 fee each person

    11AM to 3PM each day at Classroom Building Join us For All the FUN!!😃😃😃

    Feed Mill Fabrics and Quilting is in Oneida, IL right on Route 34.

    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

    FENCED IN: Making Fences

    | ellenanneeddy

    Most artists have something they do specially. The secret to that is that special focus usually camouflages that which they are not good at. I’m no different. I can’t sew a straight line to save myself. So I don’t. I do nature images where straight lines aren’t a problem. I don’t do well on straight line piecing either.

    Except that that is a limit. And I hate limits. So every so often I push past that and try no matter how bad I am at it.

    I’ve been working on a garden series called bird feeders. The premise is that every good garden feeds and cares for everything that lives within that garden. And some things just don’t grow without support. Which means a fence. Of course I’m not talking about clean new straight fences. What fun is that?

    I’m not good at fences. You should be able to piece a good fence. But I’m really not good at piecing. These are three things I’ve tried instead of that.

    Years ago, I did a child’s book called Tigrey Leads the Parade. It was about my dog who ran away daily as an art form. Since it involved escaping from the yard, it involved a lot of fences. This is a fence, embroidered with #5 pearl cotton on a tea towel.

    Tigrey Leads the Parade

    I love these stitched fences. But they were tiny. When I wanted something bigger, I tried something with an oil paint stick rubbing. I found a border edging at Menards and rubbed the fence texture on to my background fabric.

    Bird Feeder: Sunflower

    I consider this a mixed success. I like the fact that the fence looks crooked and old. But the distortion, even with straight stitching and stabilizer was pretty ferocious. Were I to do it again, I’d use another layer of Stitch and Tear.

    So when I went to do the next piece I had some left over gray pieces I’d used as sidewalk. I used them to make the fence. The wood grain stipple helps it, I think,

    They didn’t quite work as realistically, but I think they made a good fence. And good fences, as Mr. Frost knows makes good neighbors. And better quilts.

    Do I have it down yet? I don’t think so, but I think I’m closer. If we don’t push past our limits, the limits are real. No one wants that, right?

    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.