Sewing

Sample #2

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A lovely day that began with a goofy mistake. I arrived at the Lunenburg Fire Hall a bit early. It was sunny (although still cool) and as I was waiting for the others to arrive, I decided to walk across the parking lot to the water’s edge to photograph the ships in the harbour, so I got out of the car and locked it – keys still inside! Thanks goodness for CAA. I had the car open again within a half an hour. Fortunately, that wasn’t a sign of how the day would unfold.

We began with Laurie showing and explaining to us a recent art quilt piece – a beach with a family of five, ocean, hills in the background, the seaweed high tide mark… A very lovely image and as usual beautifully executed. No photos, however.

Then we explored some new techniques by “constructing” a small house. It was interesting to see how the building is assembled from many layers. The other women completed the house and stopped there. But I still had a spare background from yesterday, so I added the house, quickly created two evergreen trees and a bush to add some further interest. Then I put in a path (using free motion embroidery to set up paving stones. I began adding “grass” but didn’t get the whole space thread painted (this after all is just a sample). Finally, trimmed the edges and bound the piece – still needs hand sewing on the back.

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Notice also, the mullions in the windows and the edge of the roof which were also thread painted.

So with a bit more work when I get home, Sample #2 is actually a tiny art quilt. (It could use a chimney on the roof, I think and I may add one when I get a chance.)

We spent the rest of the day doing some prep work for the larger pieces we’re each working on. First, Laurie gave me a transparency created from the photo I gave her. I decided, in the end, to try the asparagus field. The transparency is put on an overhead projector, projected on paper tacked to a wall. The main elements are quickly sketched in. Then the tracing process is repeated on large sheet of tracing paper. These two tracings are used as templates and to reference the overall composition as the piece unfolds.

Next comes painting paper with fabric ink which when dry is transferred to a wide strip of poly-cotton fabric to be the sky. The sky is laid out on top of the paper template, and I next spent some time auditioning fabrics for the various elements in the picture.

I will need lots of trees – some will get created using the cobweb lace we learned yesterday. I spent the afternoon creating a tall evergreen tree (I got about half-way through it when it was time to leave, I’ll finish the tree tomorrow.)I used an pale blue organza fabric as the base, since the top of the tree will be against the sky. My free motion stitching is improving rapidly, I’m relieved to say.

So tomorrow, I’ll take a picture of the work in progress so you can understand how it’s unfolding. I also hope to begin constructing the house which will be the focal point of the work. The real challenge is going to be the asparagus field. I have a batik with yellow, peach, soft greens. I intend to overlay that with some golden/orange organza, but I need something more – whether it’s dyed cheesecloth in a suitable range of colour, or whether I will do thread painting on the surface, I’m not sure. I did pick out thread colours that will work and I had brought a metallic thread in the right shades – I’ll have to do some experimenting to see what might work.

Oh, and a couple more pictures of Lunenburg:20130910-195403.jpg

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Sample #1

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This is all kind of like “Karate Kid” the original version where Mr. Miagi is teaching Daniel karate by having him do a variety of tasks – the whole results from assembling the parts. Creating a landscape quilt is like that – many small techniques that get incorporated into a larger whole.

We worked on “cobweb lace” – you cut fabric into rather small pieces (using a pinking rotary cutter blade), lay them on a piece of cling wrap, place a piece of cling wrap over them, hoop the three layers, and free motion stitch on top of that. You remove the cling wrap by placing the piece you’ve just created between two pieces of paper and press with a hot iron.
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What you have is a potential tree. Place one or more of these together you could have a denser tree or a shrub.
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Second technique: zigzag free motion – that gives you a longer stitch because the needle is moving as well as the fabric – great for grass, or tree trunks. My problem is that the sewing machine I brought is a quilting machine and it only does a straight stitch! So I tried it out on one of the other gal’s machines.

Third technique: paint fabric dye on paper, let it dry, then press (paint side down) on a poly-cotton blend fabric – a sky.

So with these three techniques I made my first sample thread painting:
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Not perfect, but pretty good for a first go.

It was a gorgeous Nova Scotia September day, today. I took a few moments after class this afternoon to capture a couple of images of Lunenburg:
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Winter Jacket

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I have finally cut out the winter jacket. The fabric has been sitting in my dining room (I use the dining room table as my cutting table – with a protective cover, of course) for at least six months! Sunday, I finally cut the pieces for the jacket.

I’m making it in a deep wine corduory with the back panel in a tapestry fabric I’ve had for some time, using that fabric for piping on the front of the jacket. For warmth, I’m using Insul-Bright batting – a polyester heat reflective batting – needle punched mylar on one side – to keep rain out, and heat in. I am in the process of adding the batting to the wrong side of each lining piece. I’ll then assemble the lining and attach it to the assembled outer jacket.

I’m making the long version with the banded bottom, to keep my bum warm in winter! The reason for this particular jacket is that it has a total of 10 pockets – outside and inside, with zippers and without. Using the pockets effectively means I don’t have to carry a purse when I wear the jacket.

The Final t-Shirt

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This is the last of the t-Shirts, made from recutting a man’s XL shirt I picked up at Value Village. I constructed it using my serger, but I hadn’t used ball-point needles, just regular universal sharps. On all the other t-Shirts that wasn’t a problem, but it turned out to be on this one! The universal needle, instead of pushing aside the knit stitches of the fabric, cut the cotton fibre – you could see the beginnings of holes along the seams. I had to resew all the seams (less than 1/8th away from the serged seam) on my regular sewing machine using a ball-point needle. The difference in the appearance of the seam is dramatic.

Now the question is, do I want to add embroidered embellishment to some of these t-Shirts?

Heirloom Embroidery

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A number of years ago I learned how to do heirloom embroidery – it uses many different decorative stitches on a fine, light-weight fabric, a voile or batiste. The technique is used to decorate night gowns, fancy dresses for little girls, blouses. It involves inserting lace elements, using pin tucks and tucks, cutwork, and other decorative techniques. There are lots of books written about the technique and you can find many videos on YouTube.

Here is my first sample piece – a lace insert joined down the centre with entredeux, then rows of pin tucks, then rows of scallops and other decorative stitching.
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Sample 2: Ribbon inserts, again joined with entredeux, then hemstitching, tucks, more hemstitching, pin tucks, some decorative stitches and a final row of hemstitching.
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Sample 3: This sample is done as three separate pieces. Again using hemstitching, lace insert, decorative stitches and tucks with some entredeux.
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I intend using all three of these as yokes for nightgowns. My current supply of nightgowns is dwindling (made from a delicate cotton, they do wear out). I need to put nightgowns on my “to do” list.

I created these three samples for a class on heirloom embroidery I taught – I had the women create heirloom samplers like these to use in whatever way they wished.

t-Shirt Makeover II

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I’ve stepped up the t-shirt makeover a notch. I have been buying men’s t-shirts so I can have longer sleeves than women’s shirts have, but I don’t like the crew neck. So I decided to try renovating a couple of the men’s shirts I bought last year. I cut off the ribbing around the neck and since I didn’t have any knit fabric to use for the neck edge I took a couple of fat quarters from my quilting stash and decided to try a bias strip. It worked! The complementary neck edge looks just fine, and it lays flat. After I tried the shirts on I thought it would also be a good idea to put some shape in the sides – they look better slightly fitted. So these two t-shirts have become keepers.

t-Shirt Makeover

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It’s hard finding t-shirt fabric here in Halifax. The color choices are very limited and what’s available is often the wrong weight. So, the other day when I took three large bags of clothing to Value Village (I’d gone through closets and drawers) I took a look at the men’s large t-shirts they had – I found three in solids (red, black, blue). I cut the shirts apart – there was enough fabric there for a t-shirt for me! This is one of them. Final cost – $4. I can’t buy fabric at that price!

Swimsuits

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I have made my own swimsuits for a long time. I do it to get the fit I want, not because it costs me quite a bit less than buying them. I attend aquafit classes three mornings a week and the chlorine in the pool simply eats suits – doesn’t matter whether I’ve made them or bought them. So I continue making suits – the challenge is finding interesting swimsuit fabric. This fabric I bought at Mill Ends in Portland OR during my trip there in June. I have one other fabric from that trip as well as the two new pieces from Spandex House in NYC which I’ve posted about a couple of weeks ago.

Making a swimsuit is easy – I have a pattern I’ve used for years (still fits), I cut out a couple of suits when I’m making them. It takes very little time to sew them together on the serger – the more time consuming part is putting in the elastic around the legs and the neckline. This time I tried something new – I took my pattern and created a bottom from it, then created a top – a tankini two piece suit – I found I had to put elastic around the bottom of the top portion, or the top had a tendency to ride up in the pool. The elastic around the bottom of the suit top solved that problem.

I have another two piece in the works. I’ll post a photo when I get it done this weekend.

Ironing A Shirt

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I just finished ironing a couple of shirts; I manage to do a reasonable job after having watched the video by TM Lewin (a shirt maker in England). Click here if you want to learn how to iron a shirt in just three minutes. You’ll find several useful tips in the video.

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I originally got the link from Pam Erny – a professional shirt-maker who makes wonderful shirts.

I’ve got fabric for several shirts – purchased in New York and Portland – time to think about using some of it.

Kimono Silk II

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The third bolt of kimono silk arrived this morning – it is just like the picture I saw online. It will definitely work well with the pale fabric.

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I just have to finish a second swimsuit, complete the quilt (made with the Kaffe Fassett fabrics), cut out the winter jacket that’s been sitting ony dining room table for four months, then I can begin making something from the kimono silk!