Continuing Color Studies

Posted on November 22, 2019 by ruthlane under Color, hand stitching, Level 3 Art and Design, machine stitching

I have worked on more color studies for my Level 3 Stitch class this week. I try to have several ready to go for machine stitching and for hand stitching. Then when I get a spare moment, I am ready to stitch.

This one is full of machine stitching. I had a bit of difficulty with cable stitch on my machine. I found that the extra bobbin case I had wasn’t working. Luckily, I had another one and the second one worked fine. Once I figured that out, the cable stitch went much better.

And here’s another machine stitched one with cable stitch but it looks so different, doesn’t it?

Here is one reason that I don’t normally try to stitch straight lines with hand stitch. My lines never end up very straight.

This one has a bit more texture with the cheesecloth.

This one was fun too with loads of chain stitching. Most of these colors are way out of my usual choices but it is interesting to see who they work together.

Hope you have a great weekend.

Hand Stitched Color

Posted on November 15, 2019 by ruthlane under Color, Level 3 Stitch

I promised that I would show you some of the hand stitched color collages I have been working on.

I am trying to do different stitched and techniques with each collage.

Some are more textured than others.

And I am using a variety of hand dyed fabric and threads. I did more dyeing today, one of these days I will show you the dyed fabric.

More Color Collages

Posted on November 8, 2019 by ruthlane under collage, Color, Level 3 Stitch

I have been working through a variety of color schemes as well as dyeing more fabric in colors that I don’t have as many choices. I did get some different fabric from Dharma Trading that I hadn’t used before. I dyed some of that this morning and I will show you that next week. Here are a few collages that I have finished.

This one is primary colors, red, yellow and blue. It’s free motion machine stitched over tulle on white fabric background.

This one is green and red. You can’t see much of the red in this photo but it’s there. Love the textures on this one. The pieces are machine stitched to the background.

This is a more complex color scheme of red violet, blue violet, yellow orange and yellow green. The more colors that you add, the tougher these are. This one is also machine stitched. I am doing some hand stitched ones too, so stay tuned.

Thanks for stopping by and have a good weekend.

Red, Blue Green and Yellow Green Collage

Posted on November 1, 2019 by ruthlane under collage, Color, free motion machine stitching, Level 3 Stitch

I attended my first session of Level 3 Stitch at Gail Harker Creative Studies Center last week. We started with dyeing a variety of fabric and threads in a bright color wheel and then a neutralized color wheel. Then we got started on a variety of fabric and stitch pieces that I am calling collages.

We are working our way through a variety of color schemes using both hand and machine stitch. But mainly the exercises are about color and how to put different color schemes together.

This is the red, blue green and yellow green color scheme. The piece on the left was free motion machine stitched and the one on the right with stripes is just regular straight stitch. Then the idea was to cut them up and put them back together. I decided to use two different pieces to give a bit more contrast.

So I cut the pieces up into strips and sewed them back together.

Then they were cut again and sewed again. Looking better! Next up was to put all the pieces into one bigger piece.

And here’s the end result. This was fun to do and I do like the effect. You definitely look more at the colors then any particular design. I will be showing you a lot of these in the coming months; little color studies in fabric and stitch.

Discharging Fabric with Paste and Bleach

Posted on October 18, 2019 by ruthlane under surface design

My local art group met last week and we did some discharging on fabric in my garage. Luckily, we have a new heater in the garage because it has gotten pretty cold here.

We set up with a variety of resists and mixed bleach with water for dipping and for spraying. I don’t have any photos of the dipped cloth but Paula made a really nice shibori piece wrapped around a piece of PVC pipe. Everyone had different kinds of black and colored fabric and some worked great while others not as well. We had to increase our bleach amount in the spray bottles to get good results.

Here are a couple of pieces of cloth that have items placed on the cloth and then were spayed with bleach water.

We used stencils and screens with thickened bleach and discharge paste as well. The silk scarf on the right is mine. It took forever to do and the results were so so. Not really worth the effort.

Here’s Deb spraying her green piece with the keys. After the pieces are bleached as much as you want, then you put them into a solution of Bleach Stop and water to soak. After that you rinse in clean water. Afterwards, it is best to wash the fabric in the washing machine. Hopefully, I will be able to show more of the results after our next meeting.