Felting and Fiber Studio

I seem to have a fascination with gadgets that I can attach to my sewing machine. Recently I purchased a Flower Stitch foot as well as a Punch Tool. I haven’t taken the Punch Tool out of the box yet but did manage to take some time out to play with the Flower Stitch foot.

I watched a Facebook video of Dale Rollerson/The Thread Studio using the Flower Stitch foot. I love Dale’s videos. If I ever get to Perth, Australia I would love to meet up with her. Probably never happen but one never knows!

https://www.thethreadstudio.com/catalogue/notions/notions4.htm

She sells the Flower Stitch Foot on her website plus a booklet she wrote called Let’s Play with the Flower Stitcher. I’ve been searching the internet to try to find this booklet within the US but so far no such luck has come my way. Postage on the booklet from Australia would cost more than the booklet itself. Sigh…. maybe one day I will run across it and not have to pay so much postage.

There are several of the Flower Stitch Foot devices being sold in the US, however. I purchased mine from The Colorful World of Sewing. They are based in New York state. Here is a link to how the foot looks.

https://www.thecolorfulworldofsewing.com/products/bernina-flower-stitch-foot?_pos=5&_psq=flower+stitch+foot&_ss=e&_v=1.0

They had some good information on their website and said that there were adaptations to my Bernina’s machine shank that would allow me to use this foot. The Flower Stitch Foot and the adaptor price seemed reasonable to me as most of my Bernina presser feet are $100 on up. I went ahead and ordered it.

The first thing I did was make a sampler on some cotton fabric with a stabilizer backing fabric. I played with all my basic stitches and was quite surprised with the results in circular form.

This 10″ x 10″ sampler was done using the largest setting. The setting range on the foot runs from about 1/4” to 3/4” or 6mm-18mm.  I usually stitched around the circles 3 times. As I got into the stitches from #20 to #40, things started getting a little wonky if I went around more than one time. Maybe I was using too large a piece of fabric? Unfortunately, I had to get back to some other projects I was needing to finish up, so the foot sat in its little box for several months. I left this sampler out next to my sewing machine though so I could think about where I wanted to go with it once I could get back to it.

What attracted my interest in using this foot for my future projects was the ability to use wash away stabilizer. I want to be able to make separate circles that I could put here and there within the body of a project I am working on. I was concerned however, with how the stitches would hold together once the stabilizer was washed away, so I decided to put a layer of tulle with the wash away stabilizer. I put the two layers into a hoop and got ready to try the foot again. I’d already put the Flower Stitch foot onto my machine, which is quite fiddly to attach. Then I realized I can’t get the hoop under the foot. Not enough clearance like my regular feet give me. That is an inconvenient feature! I have to take the foot off each time I have to take the hoop away from the sewing machine. And I also have to be careful that there is enough clearance for the foot to move the fabric and hoop around and not come into contact with the hoop so it messes up its flow. I think my little Flower Foot is telling me it doesn’t like hoops!

Here is the first sample before washing the stabilizer out and after. Threads used for this one were a mix of rayon and polyester. I played with doing the larger circle in one type of stitch, then doing a smaller circle using another type of stitch inside. Sometimes I would try the small size first, then the larger size. The foot definitely has a mind of its own!

The addition of the tulle helped keep the stitches in place. One problem I am noticing is that multiple stitch rotations and the thickness the thread is creating is causing the foot to shift so the circle is no longer lining up with itself. I may have to play a bit with my presser bar tension to see if I can keep this from happening because I prefer having the circles more prominent.

Next, I thought I would try using cotton fabric with some thin quilting batting. And I used cotton threads because I wanted to add an acrylic paint wash over the stitches. I wasn’t fond of the brown threads so I switched to grey. This fabric combo seemed to work better as far as keeping the circles in a circle but I still had problems. Again, I think it is because of going around 2 or 3 rotations. I didn’t use a hoop with this one. You can see how the grey flowers are a bit wonky on the 3^rd rotation.

Here is the front and back after applying the acrylic wash.

I think I like the back better than the front but I really like how the grey cotton threads took the paint. This method could be interesting using white cotton thread with color washes.

Next, I tried some chiffon scarf fabric with the wash away in a hoop. I was attempting to replicate a flower someone had made on a YouTube video. Have to say, I failed spectacularly on this one! I didn’t have enough room in the hoop to make the flower center and have enough fabric around it to use for the petals.  Later I will try this process without a hoop. Maybe I’ll have to use two layers of wash away with the chiffon. And maybe two or more layers of chiffon would also work. I’ll try to find and review that YouTube video and see what fabric they used to make their flower.

Next, I got brave and put two layers of wash away in my largest hoop which is a 10 ½” x 11”. I’ve been successfully using this large hoop for my other machine embroidery projects and wondered if it would give the foot more room to stay away from the hoop edge as well as give me more space to add more circles. For this sample I wanted to try out some other threads I have in my stash. I especially wanted to try out some variegated thread and use three different size circle settings. I was still having problems if I went around more than one time. BUT…I was kind of liking how it made things wonky. Who wants perfect circles anyway, right?

I think my big hoop is too much for the foot to try to move around and perhaps that is why the circles went wonky. That plus I was having a hard time keeping the screw tight that holds the circle size in place.  I had to get my screw driver out versus hand tightening it. I think the hoop may have been causing this to happen too. Too much bouncing going on as the foot tried to pivot the fabric and the hoop around the circle. I think I am asking too much of my little foot.

I found some thread that I definitely don’t like to work with. It’s pretty, but it kept breaking and then did this to me…. froze my whole machine up, needle down. Ugh!

Look at how wonky most of these are!

Since I didn’t add tulle or chiffon to the two wash away layers, I was going to have to attach each circle to something to keep it from falling apart when I rinsed it. I decided to just do some freehand machine circles to get everything connected. One nice thing about using wash away is that you can cut things apart once it dries because it gets kind of stiff, so some of these could become individual circles.

It’s been interesting and fun playing with the Flower Stitch foot!  I still have some ideas I want to try out, like trying to figure out how to do multiple stitch rounds and not have it go off kilter and making a sampler of each stitch in the different sizes available. Mainly I want to be able to create these shapes as individual circle pieces so I can incorporate them into my art quilts or my collages. I definitely need more practice with it!

I love my toys!

Happy creating and best wishes to you all in 2026!

Tesi Vaara

In my last post Two Coats Colder I told you about my attendance at a tapestry design and weaving workshop run by professional tapestry weaver Bobbie Cox.  The report of that workshop, along with that of the workshop I attended shortly afterwards,  appeared in the March 2003 edition of The Journal for Weavers Spinners & Dyers, and I repeated the report on the first workshop in my post.

At the end of that post I promised to tell you about the second workshop, so here’s the rest of the published report:

“Sydling St Nicholas, A Bit Warmer than Peter Tavy, But Not Much.”

“Two weeks after Peter Tavy, I attended a two day Miniature Tapestries workshop run by another resident of Devon – Pat Johns, but this time in Dorset.  Our Guild had arranged for Pat to talk to us at the April Guild Meeting about the Tapestries she had been commissioned to weave for a Synagogue in Washington DC.  This really whetted our appetites, although, having been given details of the size of the Synagogue tapestries (larger than Pat’s living room in which they were woven) we were pleased that we were only attempting miniatures.

“The workshop took place at another Village Hall, over the two days following the Guild meeting.  There were fifteen of us, and (I think) only one beginner (me).

“Pat’s approach to warping was to use frames fitted with rows of nails at either end and to wind a continuous double warp from one end of the frame to the other round the nails, starting and ending with a fixed loop.  The warp was then tensioned by taking up the slack from each section of downward travelling thread until the last section was reached.  The slack on this was taken up by moving the end loop around one or two extra nails until the thread was taut.  A strip of hard nylon parcel banding was then woven into the bottom of the warp and pressed down so that it sat against the nails and provided a base for the heading.  A length of warp string was also woven through on the opposite shed and tied at each side of the frame.

“The double warp was made up of two colours, an ordinary white cotton thread and a cotton thread of the colour of our choice.  The heading consisted of four rows of twining (as in basketry) using the same thread as that used for the coloured warp.  This made a very neat start.

“We were then sent off to look at Pat’s vast array of weft threads in all sorts of fibres and all sorts of colours, from which we were to take our pick.  We were not given a specific subject or theme, but were to take our inspiration from the available threads.  There were also various books to look at and Pat’s folder of notes and samples.

“Also available for us to look at were Pat’s three miniatures of an apple in various stages of being eaten.  One unusual effect demonstrated in these was the coloured section of the double warp – red – being allowed to remain on the surface of the work, adding to the shading of the rosiness of the apple.  This illustrated to us why Pat had suggested that one thread of our double warps should be coloured, so that we could incorporate it into the design if we wished  by leaving it unwoven.

“Pat’s other reason for using a double warp was to facilitate, the smooth transition of curves in her work, curves being notoriously difficult in any weaving.  The idea was to split the warp where necessary so that a curve could increase by half a warp at a time.   This method is also helpful when negotiating diagonals which are more vertical than 45º.

“Pat showed us how various effects could be obtained by using different formal tapestry techniques in conjunction with the use of colour and handed out some very useful notes.  She also gave us some hints on finishing and hanging – although none of us got anywhere near that stage at the workshop.  Pat insisted that each of us should take sufficient threads from her store to enable us to finish our pieces at home, and packed us off tired but happy at the end of our second day.

“Judging by the noise that we were making most of the time, everyone enjoyed the experience.  Indeed I believe that we were making more noise than the pre-school children who occupied the main hall on the morning of our second day, I certainly don’t remember hearing them at all over our din!

“Pat Johns and Bobbie Cox both have individual and distinctive styles.  Bobbie’s work incorporates lots of straight lines – vertical, horizontal and diagonal – with hard and stark colours.  It makes great use of symbolism.  Pat’s work contains many curves and flowing lines with softer colours and, quite often, lettering.  Her work is much more representational than Bobbie’s.

“Both are excellent teachers.  Despite their different approaches to their subjects, they both take the view that if what you do in your work (even if it breaks orthodox rules) works for you,  it is right.  If you want  to do something that they think may not work, neither of them will say “you must not do it”; they will both say “try it and see what happens”.  The best way to learn is to make your own mistakes.

“I am privileged to have been able to attend  classes with both Bobbie Cox and Pat Johns.”

As I mentioned in the previous post, I didn’t own a camera at this time so I don’t have much in the way of pictures of this workshop for you.  However I have found a photo of the tapestry which I started at Pat’s workshop and, unusually for me, finished at home.  The subject was a beech tree which had just come into bud in the spring, which I had seen while attending a completely different workshop at Sydling St Nicholas Village Hall.  I had managed to beg a friend to take a photograph of this tree and I have photographed the photograph, so it’s not as clear as it might have been.  Here’s the photograph and the tapestry.

Just to fill in a bit of space I will quote from the chap who’s regular posts on You Tube my husband watches avidly.  The presenter always finishes up with “Here’s something to put a smile on your face”:

I was indoors sheltering from a really heavy downpour one afternoon.  I peered out of the window to see if the sky might be lightening a bit.  It wasn’t, but this is what I did see.

I was horrified, frozen to the spot, just staring at this poor bird.  I thought I was going to have to go out and try to catch this obviously injured pigeon and take it to our vet.

And then while I was watching I saw this:

Bet you’ve never seen a pigeon taking a shower before.  I couldn’t believe my eyes.  There was this pigeon standing/squatting in a puddle with one wing in the air.  Then I saw it preening a bit and then it changed wings – we’re obviously not the only beings who wash under our arms!

Let me take this opportunity to wish everyone a wonderful, peaceful Holiday and New Year.