Stitched Seed Heads

Posted on December 2, 2016 by ruthlane under class, free motion machine stitching

This morning I had a real adventure moving really heavy ski lift chairs from place to place. I was planning on this only taking a couple of hours but it lasted more than half the day. I am working on a fund-raiser where the ski lift chairs are being turned into benches and then made into masterpieces by various local artists. I am not sure how much they weigh but they are over 7 foot long and quite awkward. Luckily, I had lots of helpers. Needless to say, I didn’t get much fiber art done today.

I am still writing my next online class and this is one of my samples. This is stitched on heavy interfacing instead of felt but it’s just for practice. I stitched this last week but I added some Dye-Na-Flow paint today. The painted background really makes it look more interesting. The paint is still wet in this photo so I’m not sure how it will turn out since I wet the interfacing down before painting. That allows the paint to move much more freely. And it will probably be a bit lighter in color when dry.

And then I was playing around a bit with cropping to see if I liked it better with less of the stems showing. What do you think?

Free Motion Stitching On Felt

Posted on November 18, 2016 by ruthlane under class, free motion machine stitching

Still busy working away on my next online class. I’ve been writing, editing photos and making samples.

I stitched some leaves on this multi colored felt. It was printed on the back but wasn’t the best so I thought it would be great for these leaves.

I cut them out and now I’m thinking of what I will do with them. Just happened to have a few acorns to add!

This flower was nuno felted. I think it still needs a few beads in the center if I’m going to use it with this leaf. How would you use felt leaves?

Layering Synthetic Fabric

Posted on May 8, 2015 by ruthlane under free motion machine stitching

We had our local art group meeting today. I forgot to take any photos while we were there but I did get a few photos of my piece. I didn’t finish it while I was there. I brought it home and stitched it at home. And I still have some “burning” left to do. That’s why you use synthetics, so they’ll melt.

You start with a base of acrylic felt, then add small pieces of synthetic fabric in layers. Then you cover with tulle and stitch it all together.

All the stitching was done with free motion embroidery on the sewing machine. The next step is to take a soldering iron and burn out the holes in between the stitching. You can see examples of the technique by Susan Lenz here. She is well known for this technique. Hers are certainly a lot more intricate than mine will be. I’ll show you the finished piece once I get through burning the holes.

A Few Odds and Ends

Posted on May 23, 2014 by ruthlane under free motion machine stitching, mixed media

I have been working on my online class making samples and writing up the course. But I do have a few things that I can show you.

Mixed Media Painting “Fragments”

I have nearly finished a couple of the mixed media paintings that I started quite a while ago. This is one of the ones that was plaster on burlap, cracked and then painted. I glued it to a wooden “canvas” and covered it with Dorland’s wax medium.

Mixed Media Painting “Amorphous Circle”

This one I had thought was finished and then decided I should sand it to take off some of the paint. I didn’t like the result at all. So I added some oil paint (from paint sticks) in darker blue. It still needs a few coats of wax medium after the oil paint dries for a few days.

Stitched Felt Cord

I had seen on Facebook that Lisa Klakulak of Strongfelt was machine stitching on felt cords so I thought I’d give it a go. I had an orange felt cord that I made a couple of years ago. There was already blue thread in the sewing machine so I started free motion stitching. It was a bit of a pain and I should have stitched more but I wasn’t really enjoying the process.

Machine stitching on felt cord

This photo shows you the rest of the cord and the stitched cord below it. The stitching flattens the cord right out and really stiffens it.

Bracelet from felted cord that has been machine stitched.

I put a bit of velcro on each end and made it into a bracelet. It’s unlikely I’ll wear it but it was an interesting experiment.

More Notebook Covers

Posted on April 11, 2014 by ruthlane under free motion machine stitching, surface design

I finished up a couple of more notebook covers this week. I used another piece of my soy wax batik fabric which was big enough to make two covers. I quilted the fabric and then stitched the cover together with more of the “hand written” fabric for the inside.

Here’s one of the covers.

And this is the second one. I decided to use just white thread and not add another color.

I finally got these to fit almost exactly. The trick for me was adding 3/8″ seam allowance and stitching a 1/4″ seam.

So three down and two to go. The one that was too big and the one that was to small, don’t count 🙂

And here they are all together. I hope that they sell well because they are pretty simple to put together and I have a lot more fabric to use up. If you want to hear about our break down screen printing session, check out my post over at The Felting and Fiber Studio tomorrow.

Ruth Lane Art

Experimenting with Arts Endless Possibilities

Category Archives: free motion machine stitching