Category Archives: free motion machine stitching

Little Snippets of Work

Posted on by under fabrics, free motion machine stitching

I’ve been trying to get back on track since I’ve gotten home. I am still trying to do at least 5 minutes of creative work every day but I’m having a hard time somehow. I have lots of things I want to get done but sometimes the list feels a bit overwhelming. So I’m just doing a little bit at a time and hopefully, I’ll get back into the groove soon.

Being You CardI finished one of the greeting cards that I laid out last Friday with my art group. I decided to add a background fabric and then just used one of the programmed stitches on my machine to stitch it down. I used fusible to attach the words and to attach the fabric to the card.

Being You CardHere’s the card ready to be written in and sent off to someone. I really like using hand-made greeting cards. They don’t take very long and people are always impressed. It’s nice to give a little bit of your time and thought to a card instead of just buying it from one of the box stores.

Card ComponentsHere are the ingredients for the next one. The white piece to the right is stitch and tear interfacing. It gives enough of a backing to prevent the stitching from buckling the fabric. If you do a lot of free motion stitching, you might need two layers of interfacing. I’m thinking about doing free motion stitching on this card. Perhaps following some of the organic lines.

Matching ThreadThen I just choose which color thread I want to use and it’s time for stitching. I usually keep these cards fairly simple and practice a bit on making a balanced composition.

 

 

 

Adding Whip Stitch

Posted on by under free motion machine stitching

I decided on the machine applique stitch that it needed some heavier lines. I considered cable stitch but wanted something that really looked organic. So I tried some whip stitch. I loosened up the bobbin so the bobbin thread comes to the top. To do this stitch, you need to move the fabric slowly but put on the gas on the stitch pedal.

 I used the dark purple thread as I thought it needed more dark lines.

Here you can see how far up off the fabric that the whip stitch comes. I’m happier with this now, but I”m still not sure it is finished. What do you think?

Madly Stitching

Posted on by under free motion machine stitching

 I’m off to Level 2 Stitch Class next week and I haven’t quite gotten all my homework done yet. So today I have been chained to my sewing machine, stitching away. These are the first two pages of a book I’m making in the style of Cas Holmes. 

The book is about starting over and not worrying about if everything is perfect but just going forward from where you are right now. So I am celebrating my imperfections and actually it was very freeing not worrying about every little stitch. I had a plan for the binding but it didn’t work out so now I think I will do it by hand with a blanket stitch and raised chain band. Of course I have plenty of time to do that, NOT.

More Machine Embroidery

Posted on by under free motion machine stitching, level 2 stitch class
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!