Overcoming Fear

Posted on January 3, 2014 by ruthlane under Dyeing, free motion machine stitching

Have you ever had a piece of fabric that you really liked but you couldn’t use it because you were afraid to “ruin” it? This is what happened with this particular piece of snow dyed fabric. It immediately reminded me of flowers and I thought it would be great to machine stitch the flowers. I dyed this piece of fabric nearly a year ago but I still hadn’t done anything with it.

So about 3-4 months ago, I finally got out some tracing paper to figure out where I thought it would be best to stitch.

I put the tracing paper over top and then drew in some flower shapes.

It took two pieces of tracing paper to cover the fabric which will be oriented vertically. Then, I couldn’t seem to go any further with it. I kept hemming and hawing about how I would hang it and how the edges would be done. And didn’t start any stitching. Finally, I decided I would just start stitching. All that back and forth was really because I was afraid to start. I’m not sure why, but I finally just couldn’t stand not doing anything with it and decided I would “just do it”.

I had some already painted fusible that I thought would work for leaves.

I tore up the fusible and placed the leaves. I had my flower pattern nearby so I could put the leaves in the appropriate spots without covering where I wanted to stitch flowers.

And then, since I already had the tracing paper right there, I used it to cover the fusible so that I could iron it on. I figured tracing paper was close enough to parchment paper that it would work. NOT! The fusible just glued itself right on to the tracing paper. Luckily, I hadn’t used all the painted fusible so I didn’t have to start all over again. You would think that this would be enough to stop me in my tracks but I just plowed ahead.

Here’s the entire piece after basting it to stitch and tear. This photo is a little bit more true to color than the ones above.

You can see the basting a little bit better in this photo.

Then I started stitching the flower shapes with free motion embroidery.

The flower shapes were not exactly like the traced ones but I just used the dye patterns to decide on the flower shape as I stitched.

This one I added a bit more stitching to give it a little more shape.

Then I started adding centers to the flowers.

This is my favorite flower so far. Next up is stitching the leaves. Then I have to decide what else I will add. I am thinking about adding some three-dimensional flowers and leaves, making all of these flowers background. And after that I will have to figure out how I will finish the piece. But at least I overcame my fear and got started.

Free Motion Stitching

Posted on November 8, 2013 by ruthlane under free motion machine stitching

I’ve been working on a few more mixed media pieces like this one. I have sketched several Montana wild flowers that I use for inspiration when I free motion stitch them on the machine.

First I fuse a piece of interfacing to the back of a hand dyed piece of fabric. Then I free motion machine stitch the flower. Afterwards, I paint these with Inktense pencils and water. This first one is a mountain pink.

This is a lupine. There is a stray piece of thread to the right side of the photo. Sorry – I never see those until I get the photo on the computer.

This last one is from a sketch I did while I was in LaConner, Wa. So now I need to paint these with gel medium, cut them to size and add them to the wood backgrounds. I’ll show you how they look when they are finished. I did make a few more felted coffee cuffs last week. You can see them on The Purple Pomegranate blog if you’d like.

Mixed Media Piece for Third Quarter Challenge

Posted on September 29, 2013 by ruthlane under artist challenges, free motion machine stitching, mixed media

Over at the Felting and Fiber Studio, Karen had challenged us to make a mixed media piece that included something fiber, something metal and something in the paint variety. This is definitely not the way I usually work but I had started a stitched piece that I thought would work. I showed you the stitched part last week. It was free motion machine stitched on to a painted fabric background. After it was stitched, I colored in the flowers with Inktense pencils and then wet them down with a water brush to simulate water colors.

Then I started working out how I would add metal. I tried a variety of rusty metal washers but I didn’t really like how they looked. It just looked like I was sticking them on there because I had to add metal.

I liked the addition of this rusty metal wire better. I guess it had a more organic feel to it.

Then I painted the fabric with a slightly watered down Golden gel medium. I also painted a couple of layers of the gel medium on the wood too. Once that had dried. I use the gel medium straight from the jar (no water added) to glue the fabric to the wood. You can see that the red fabric bled a little bit onto the green background but that didn’t bother me. It took a couple of days to completely dry,

I then stitched the metal piece down to the fabric to hold it in place. I’m happy with the results and I am planning on doing a series of Montana wildflowers like this piece. I also started a second mixed media piece which I’ll show you soon. Thanks Karen – this was a fun challenge!

More Encaustic and a Little Bit of Stitch

Posted on September 20, 2013 by ruthlane under encaustics, free motion machine stitching

I finally took photos of my encaustic pieces that I made last week. It is hard to get a good photo since they are so shiny.

This one is inspired by the ocean.

This one I used a stencil to add some sparkly powder stuff that I always forget the name. Then I did a shellac burn on top of that. You can see where the shellac burned on the right side. It makes it more textured.

This is one of the parchment paper print transfers. It is actually very black but the photo just wouldn’t show it well.

This one is using branches to make impressions in the wax. I showed you some of the steps in my last post.

This photo actually shows the color better (excuse the glare).

This piece I started a long time ago. It is for the 3rd quarter challenge on the Felting and Fiber Studio. Karen challenged us to do a mixed media piece. I want to add some metal. I thought I might use it to attach the stitched piece to the wood. I had considered putting encaustic wax on the fabric but all of my group advised against it, so I didn’t. Perhaps I will cover it with gel medium to make it stronger. I need to get this finished before the end of September. So I’ll have to make up my mind soon.

Couple of Cards

Posted on May 13, 2013 by ruthlane under fabrics, free motion machine stitching

I finished a few more of the greeting cards that I posted about previously. I get them set up ahead of time but when I start stitching the plan sometimes changes.

I had planned on doing automatic stitching on this card but then I thought that it looked like a tree trunk on the right. So instead, I did some free motion stitching and removed the blue-green silk pieces.

This is the result. I might need to add a bit more dark thread but held up close, as you would a card, it looks fine.

Next I worked on the one on the right. It had some felt but those spare pieces of blue-green silk went so well…

Here’s the end result. I don’t usually baste or fuse down my fabrics on these cards, I just stitch over them. Sometimes things get a bit wonky but that’s OK. I’m working on not having to have everything “perfect”.

Ruth Lane Art

Experimenting with Arts Endless Possibilities

Category Archives: free motion machine stitching