I'm still working on my wall hanging; to be specific I'm on the hand embroidery part. It's fun to try different techniques and throw in a few beads here and there.
To combine the hand embroidery with my quest for better precision, I have a couple options: 1. mark on my wall hanging with chalk or water soluble pen or 2. waste canvas. hhmmm...waste canvas? I've never used that before. With my 40% off coupon for the big box store in my hot little hand, I think; 'what the heck'?
I read about this product in Bead Embroidery Stitch Samples by Yasuko Endo. The thought is that by having the rows and columns available to stitch on, I'd have a product like I was used to working with years ago when I'd cross stitch.
I opened the package and found a very stiff product (now I know why it's called canvas!). I cut a piece the right size for the area I wanted to embroider. Around the perimeter I loosely stitched the canvas on. It was a piece of cake to do.
Then it was time to add my embroidery. I chose a nice geometric which would give me a good opportunity to try out the advantage of neat rows and columns. Yasuko recommended making the stitches a bit tighter because the waste canvas will be removed.
See how nice my stitching is? It's much more even than I could have done without the canvas.
Once you're done embroidering, you just need to give it a bit of spritz with water.
Now the strands of the canvas loosen up and can be removed. Oh, about the removal, I was careful to pull the strands out thread by thread. First I pulled out the horizontal threads and then the vertical ones. Using tweezers or something that gives you a good grip on the threads doesn't hurt.
Here's my finished product. You'll see that I forgot to add one vertical stitch, but that'll be easy enough to fix:
It helped me be precise with even spacing. I really enjoyed the ease of using the product and look forward to using it more on my wall hanging. Woo hoo!
I had my first Bernina for 20 years. It was good to me and I was good to it. Then one day I heard about the Bernina Stitch Regulator or BSR as those of us 'in the know' refer to it.
For free motion
quilting, the BSR takes over the speed of the machine to match how
quickly the quilt top is moved under the needle. That means for
those of us who are lacking a bit in coordination (that was politely
stated, wasn't it?), we wouldn't have to worry about coordinating the
pressure on the foot peddle with the movement of the fabric. Ah ha!
What's not to like with that concept.
So
I went online to look at the BSR and found it was not compatible with
my machine (i.e., my Bernina was too old) (once again, politely said).
My Bernina was dependable so it was hard to justify a new machine.
Until...
I went to a Ricky Tims/Alex Anderson/Libby Lehman 2-day program that was hosted by Bernina. Guess what...machines were 25% off. A DEAL! I love deals. Hmmmm, but do I need two machines? Would they take a trade in? YES they would! Okay quick call to my husband to fill him in and off I went to get my new Bernina QE440. (We don't call them 'sewing machines', they are "Bernina".) (La Di Da as Diane Keaton said in Annie Hall.)
So now onto the BSR...It attaches like a presser
foot and has an attachment that hooks up into the machine. When I went
to my first class, I learned to look into the reflection of the
underside of the machine and the attachment goes into the area where there is a green glow.
It's not as hard as it sounds. When women put the bobbin into a Bernina 830, they have to use a mirror with a handle kind of like dentist's use to see where to insert it!
The BSR comes with three different attachments. One is like the darning foot most of us are used to using for free motion quilting, the other is open toed, and the third is a clear round disk. This last one is nice if there are loose threads and I don't want the open toe foot to catch on them. Also, it's easy to see where I've been and where I might want to go next since it's clear.
There are two settings for the BSR. One will stop the needle from going up and down when I stop moving the quilt top. The other setting keeps the needle going up and down even when I stop moving the fabric. I find this setting easier to use. The other one was really jerky. Maybe with more experience I'd be happy with it.
Once the BSR is nestled in the machine, drop the feed dogs, unhook the foot peddle, hit the BSR button and I'm off to the races. Am I great at free motion yet? "No" would be the answer but at least I can concentrate on what I see in front of me and not worry about how fast I'm going with the foot peddle. There is hope for me yet so out comes the quilt sandwich and practice, practice, practice!
With every piece I do, I learn something. Some good. Some not so good. Here I go baring my sole...
Last weekend I worked very diligently on my wall hanging. Step 2 was to add decorative stitching. And in case you didn't know; decorative stitching is super fun.
Here are some of the things I learned:
When planning the design, be careful about sharp curves. In this example I thought they would give some interest, but in reality they were more difficult to maneuver around. Not impossible, but slightly precarious.
Geometrics - - love them! However I
learned, if it has a relatively short repeat, a straighter line works
better than a curvier one.
All
week I've been pondering whether or not I'm going to rip this out (
which would be no small task, may I say). Since I'll be looking at this 5
days a week about 10 hours a day, I think it might aggravate the crap
out of me (at least my obsessive compulsive side). And quite honestly
this hiccup is why I haven't added to the piece at all this week. I'm
stalled because I'm afraid of making the wrong decision. (That's part of
the 'sole baring' part of this post.)
Another thing to keep in mind are the colors. I
think I did a pretty good job distributing the lighter and darker
colors. A color wheel comes in handy. Certain combinations can really
give a piece some punch. Blue and orange are currently my favorite
color pairing. (The term 'complimentary colors' is so appropriate isn't
it?)
Below is my project thus far (sorry about the colors again; I need a bright sunshiny day to get a better photo).
The next step on this is the hand embroidery which is also very fun. I'll take my time with this process because it's so enjoyable that I don't want it to end!
One of the funnest Craftsy classes I've taken was Stupendous Stitching with Carol Ann Waugh. (Yes, I know 'funnest' isn't a word, but I feel it's appropriate and after all this is my post so I'm using it.) (So there!)
Here is the piece that I made:
This piece is about 12"x18" and I enjoyed every step of making it. I knew I wanted to do another one, but what would I do with it? I know!...I'll put one in my office at work. Currently I have a bulletin board covered with fabric so why not make one big enough to cover it? The size: 16"x50". Wow. That's big.
I bought a batik that fades from medium to light blue. Good. I know I can live with that day in and day out (face it; I spend more waking hours at work than anywhere else so I better like love it). So I cut it to the right height, but find it's not wide enough. In my stash there's another batik I love and add it to the ends. One side is a wider strip than the other because symmetry is not my thing. And very importantly; I back the entire piece with fusible interfacing. That is very important whenever you are couching or using decorative stitches. I chose a medium weight fusible because the finished project is going to cover a bulletin board so it needs good body.
Now for the cords and threads! Here I rub my little hands together because I'm a thread junkie. I love all of the colors and things you can do with them. Proof:
I went with the ball of sari silk first. Believe it or not, I found it at Anthropologie while Christmas shopping. Since the piece is so wide, I laid out the silk in a design that I liked and then used a chalk pencil to outline the flow. I thought this would help me since the piece is so big. It also helped ensure that my rounded sections wouldn't have sharp angles.
Next I put on the couching foot. In this case I used a Bernina Foot 21 which is called a Braiding Foot. The cord feeds into the foot and there is a groove underneath so that the foot can flow over the cord.
Now I needed to decide what thread to use. If I used a color, the thread would be visible. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that; it would be a design element. Because the colors in this silk are so gorgeous, I went with monofilament so that the stitches wouldn't be seen.
Next I whipped out a handy dandy quilt sandwich so I could get the width of the zigzag stitch just right before I stitched on my good batik. It needs to zig on the left of the silk and zag on the right i.e., not in the silk. I loosened my tension a bit and was ready to get started.
I rolled up the fabric in my lap and had the ball of silk in my lap as well.
3-2-1 Go! And off I went. Things were going quite well. Just let the feed dogs do their job and pull the fabric along.
Aaaahhhh! What's this; bunching! That shouldn't happen. I cut the thread and tried it again but to no avail. Yep; that's bunching. What the heck is wrong I ask myself. Hmmm I responded. Upon further pondering I discovered the problem. The beautiful silk is so loosely twisted that some of it was going up over where it should be feeding in. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words so take a look:
See what I mean? Now that I knew what the problem was, I could control the feed into the foot and all was well with the world once again.
After that was all sewn on, I chose a couple other cords and decided to stitch them on with the monofilament as well. Here's how it looks after all of the couching (the color is hard to photograph, so sorry about that).
That's it for Part I. Next comes the addition of decorative stitches. This is fun because I get to use some more of my thread stash (more rubbing together of my little hands). I'll be sure to share so stay tuned!
I am a color junkie. There I said it. Color energizes me and keeps me alert and upbeat. I'm not the only one. I had a manager who always wore a red suit when she was scheduled for a big meeting. The color gave her self confidence and strength. It wasn't until years later that I really understood the fabulous side effects of color. Here's the book that gave me my "ah ha!" moment: Collaborative Quilting by Freddy Moran & Gwen Marston.
Their love of color is so evident in this book. Besides, look at Freddy's studio (what's not to love!):
In this book, Freddy and Gwen encourage experimentation with color and design by pushing the envelope. The book shows standard blocks with new appeal and interest in a large part due to their open mindedness and love of color.
Here are some of their Color and Design Guidelines:
1. Find your personal neutral (Freddy's is red!)
2. Ten colors don't work - 100 do
3. Don't lose sight of the joy
4. What others think about your art is of no importance
5. It's not how similar you are, it's how different you are that makes you stand out from others
6. Your chances of making a remarkable good quilt are increased when you take chances.
7. Quilts with energy and surprise are more likely to delight the viewer
8. Most important of all - make it
The book is full of inspiration and the quilts that Freddy and Gwen have made. In the back, there are "Quilt Recipes" that show how they designed each block:
If you love color like I do, this book is a must. Check it out!
