Author: jmn

Fern 3 – Done

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OK, here’s the 4th panel completed with piping and binding/frame. I’m getting better at squaring the corners with the mitre meeting the point (some of the appearance of “skew” is my picture-taking skill with the iPhone – quite difficult actually to balance the position of the phone)

Fern 3

So that leaves just one fern panel left to complete. I’ve stitched the piping on, next comes the frame/border, then the muslin backing. I’ve got to run a couple of errands now, then I’ll sit down and finish that last one.

Next on to the “On Deck”:

On Deck – 2008

My plan is to lighten the overall colour, remove the boats, and position the woman on the right. I captured the photo on a Caribbean cruise I took in 2008 – gracious, that’s ten years ago, now. The ship anchored for the day so people could enjoy the Cayo Levantado Beach off the coast of the Dominican Republic. I stayed on board and happened to see this scene  which reminded me of an Alex Colville image.

Fern 5 – Finished

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Completed this panel yesterday – with piping and border/frame.

Fern 5

A friend looking at it commented that it reminded her of an underwater scene. I guess it does. Not intentionally done – I was just juxtaposing scraps of fabric and adding small bits of appliqué and embroidery to make a pleasing whole.

Two more to finish – my goal for today.

I finished this panel two days ago – with the addition of a couple of sequins and beads to complete it.

Fern 1

Hawaiian Flowers

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I finished thread painting the Hawaiian Flowers (Plumaria, Anturium, Epiphyllium) yesterday. Today I framed the piece using an off-white piping made from raw silk and a batik fabric border.

Hawaiian Flowers

I’m happy with the thread painting. What I now can see is I should have backed the blue raw silk with some kind of stabilizer like “sewer’s dream” to keep it from stretching. The thread painting has kept the appliqué flat, but the blue background is problematic and at this point there is nothing I can do about it. [I will have to take apart the piece set up on the natural coloured raw silk separating the silk from the batting, fusing sewer’s dream to the back of the silk, then reattach the batting so that the silk will remain more stable when the thread painting is done.]

Hawaiian Flowers – Detail of Epiphyllium

The modified embroidery stitch I chose for the stamen anthers worked out nicely and the colour brightens the whole panel.

I learned quite a bit from doing this piece. Now to apply it to the second one (which I’m putting aside for the moment until I finish framing the Fern pieces.

First of the Abstract Wall Art Pieces Completed

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Fern 4

I finished this piece yesterday, including the hand sewing – the border corners, the opening at the bottom where I turned the piece inside-out, the sleeve for hanging on the back.

At first I wasn’t sure I liked how it turned out, but the more I looked at it (and the unfinished panels on the cutting table) the more it grew on me. The raw silk piping brings closure to the pieced panel and the border fabric definitely declares that the piece is pink.

I’ve done the prep work on the other four panels – I’ve created and trimmed the piping, cut batting strips to fuse to the border edges so I can enlarge the panel (that’s because I trimmed the panel thinking I would only apply the backing with a hidden binding), cut backing muslin, and chosen border fabric for each. Hope to get to them later this afternoon.

 

New Turquoise Socks – Finished

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Finished last evening. Completed the previous new pair on May 14 – however, between working on that pair and this pair I reconstructed two pair of worn socks. So the time frame is consistent – about two weeks (25 hours) to knit a  pair of socks.

Turquoise Socks

I found the colour combination satisfying to work with. I don’t think I have another ball in the yarn stash that will knit into this pattern (the previous pair was the same as this just with different colours).

Have to say, I’ve set this pair aside – they might go into my sock drawer. I have a couple of turquoise wool sweaters they’d look good with….

Abstracts From Scraps – III

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A fifth (and for now final) Abstract From Scraps piece — this one assembled from turquoise-ish scraps. I really have kept quite a few small scraps of fabric, boxes of them (all coloured coded: red/yellow/orange scraps, blue/green/purple scraps…). This is definitely a good way to use up a few of them.

Fern 5

I’m enjoying the process of selecting bits of fabric, piecing them (trying to use each fabric just once – although there are a few repeats where I decided to splice two fabrics in more than one spot), building a 10″ x 12.75″ block, then added a few appliqués, finally setting up and stitching out an embroidery.

For some reason, the “fern” seems to have worked quite well as a focal point for these pieces. I could see flowers, or other leaf shapes working quite well, too.

Anyway, this is it for now – although a grey/neutrals panel is kind of whispering to me. However, for hanging purposes 5 is probably a better number than 6, but maybe after I’ve finished the bark cloth appliqués I may come back to this idea and pursue it a bit further. Maybe….

Fern 1

Fern 2

Fern 3

Fern 4

Abstracts From Scraps – II

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Just finished – the pink background wall art panel with appliqué and machine embroidery.

Fern 4

I added in a bit more pale fabric to lighten the whole, reconstructed the embroidery so it would be different from the previous two. All of the panels still need a signature which I’ll get to tomorrow. For now, that’s it. I did look at the turquoise fabrics but I haven’t pulled any from the boxes yet. I will probably do a fifth to fill out the set.

Abstracts From Scraps

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Last week I started work on an idea I had for creating abstract wall art from fabric scraps. I pulled small pieces from the red/yellow scrap box, pieced them, added in a few soft blues/greens to complete the block (~10″ x 12″), added a few bits of appliqué, fused, then stitched them into place, added an offset machine embroidery of a fern.

Fern 1

The second piece uses predominantly blues with a bit of purple/green, three appliqué circles and, again, a machine embroidered fern.

Fern 2

The third piece uses green batik scraps with a few appliqué circles and a fern machine embroidery in the bottom left.

Fern 3

Those three are completed – now I need to decide whether to finish them with a quilt binding, or an invisible binding, and a backing fabric (probably natural muslin, of which I have quite a bit in a drawer).

I’m about to assemble a fourth piece in shades of pink with a few other accent colours. I can see from the photo I need to interject a few more light elements, particularly in the lower right, to make this background work. Again, there will be some small bits of appliqué and another “fern” embroidery to complete the work.

Fern 4 – in progress

I may still do a fifth using turquoise scraps….

[These wall art pieces are an extension of something I started with a single piece a year ago “Dots” – where I pieced scraps, then added a bit of appliqué. This time I seem to be focusing on colour as an organizing principle.]

I also want to do a few pieces which I refer to as “faces” –

A Very Sad Face

Baboon

The Scream

Definitely A Cat

For these pieces I plan to print the images on fabric, create a background, carefully cut out the essential “face” elements, appliqué them in place and thread paint the background a bit. I see these as relatively small pieces — ~9″ x 12″.

I’m still working, as well, on the bark cloth floral cut-outs. I hope to make progress today on the flowers. One thing I’ve learned (I guess I really knew it but didn’t act on it) is I need to have a similarly coloured bobbin thread to have the thread painting come out successfully! Otherwise, when I use a white embroidery bobbin thread, it shows and I’ve been forced to carefully darken the stitching with permanent markers. I finally made the switch when I did the “fern” pieces above. I took the time to set up quite a few bobbins filled with different coloured rayon thread so the embroidery and thread painting looks like I want it to without bits of white showing.

Thread Painting

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I started thread painting the bark cloth cutout flowers and leaves the other day. It goes surprisingly quickly and yet it seems to take a lot of time. The first thing I did was stitch the edges of the fused cutout using a modified blanket stitch (w: 1.5mm) with a smoke coloured monofilament thread in the needle (a white rayon embroidery thread in the bobbin). As I’m thread painting, I’m stitching over the cutout edges with embroidery thread to obscure the loose warp/weft threads that are peeking out.

One leaf is done, parts of the larger leaf begun and the dark thread on the anthurium has been stitched – lots more to go. Next will be the brighter green elements on the larger leaf and the “grey” elements will be some shades of bright green, not sure what precisely, yet.

Thread Painting The Bark Cloth Flowers & Leaves

I’m using the embroidery thread doubled – two close shades – both threads through the single needle eye. It’s working well, I’m not having any tension difficulty. I’m not trying to cover the fabric with stitching – just enough to provide some texture and sheen.

Here’s where my collection of fine permanent markers is proving handy – I filled in the grey on the dark leaf with a bright green which livens up the whole. I will do the same on the larger leaf.

Thread Painting – Detail

This piece is a test run for the larger one with the natural raw silk background. The graceful movement of the printed design is making the thread painting straightforward – the flowing lines are easy to replicate, even though I have both the feed dogs and the Pfaff IDT engaged! (I’m doing that to maintain a consistent stitch length – I don’t come close to an even stitch length with free motion sewing). Using the needle down position, the presser foot lifts a wee bit when I stop which allows me to freely manoeuvre the fabric as I sew. So the long flowing lines are happening without difficulty.

Time to get back to work on the larger leaf.

Second Leaf – Finished

This is the second leaf stitched and tinted using the permanent markers – much more lively colour than original “grey”.

Next – the anthurium.

 

Pink Flowers – Finished

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I just put the finishing touches on this wall art piece – Pink Flowers. In the photo it looks a bit out of kilter, but I that’s an artifact of where I was standing when I took the photo – the piece is 15.5″ wide x 18″ in height.

Pink Flowers

I did quite a lot of stitching using rayon embroidery thread – two colours at a time through the one eye of the machine needle which gives a tiny bit of depth to the colour of the stitches. I elected not to stitch in the background – mainly because I had no idea what sort of design would have augmented the piece rather than detract from the flowers. The piping is there to heighten the colours in the flowers, and the printed border/frame extends the “texture” of the background.

Stitching Detail

Now on the next one using the fussy-cut flowers from the bark cloth. The fabric colours are somewhat subdued – I’m planning on using strong bright shades of rayon embroidery thread for the thread painting.