More Machine Embroidery

I’ve been steadily working on completing my homework for my stitch class. I am supposed to be trying out different methods of machine embroidery, some historical and others from contemporary machine embroiderers.

 I decided I would try different methods but use the same subject. Then I could see which one I liked best.. This first one is granite stitch using directions from a Singer instruction manual from the 1940’s. This is the underlayer of stitching. I had a really hard time going in circles. It was a bit jerky.

 This is the finished pear. Looking at it now, I think the shadows on the bottom are a bit dark. But that just might be because there are no corresponding shadows on the ground section. I just embroidered the pear and not the background. I got a lot of distortion of the background which is a heavy weight Pellon.

 This is my second attempt. I used heavy weight Pellon again but used the mossing stitching as described by Australian Ken Smith. I find this stitch easier but maybe because this is the one that I’ve practiced the most. Again, this is the underlayer of colors.

 The colors seem to mix better with this method. But the center of this one doesn’t have much variation either.

 This last one is on canvas. I am going to use Carol Shinn’s technique. She stitched on canvas cut on the bias and either uses a photograph transferred on to fabric or paints the image first. This is the painted image on white canvas. I decided it needed a background color since the other two had background colors.

 So I painted the background with Dye-Na-Flow. Here’s the finished painting after heat setting the paint. Now I need to stitch it. But I can only do so much of this type of work at once. Perhaps tomorrow.

I had extra paint so I painted a couple of pieces of fabric and then scrunched it up and left it outside to dry. It looks like mountain ranges from above.
Next weekend I am hosting a felting retreat. We’re going out to a rustic lodge by a lake and felting all weekend. I am planning on washing some wool, doing some drum carding and hopefully getting something felted as well. I’ll let you know how it goes!

5 thoughts on “More Machine Embroidery

  1. When I do heavy threadpainting, I do it on the peltex and then cut it out and mount it on the background. So much better than trying to keep the distortion in check. All your pears look great.

  2. Good advice from Judy (above). The two pieces of fabric that you scrunched up and left to dry look like billowing silk to me – fabulous!I like the granite stitch pear best – looking forward to seeing your Carol Shinn technique. You're going to need a new pair of eyes by the time you've finished – it must be very tiring.

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