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Suggestions Please

Suggestions Please

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I haven’t had much free time to felt or make things lately, but making the collage notebook cover made me realise I could have a sewing project on the go that I could spend 15 minutes on here and there when I feel like taking a break (instead of watching cat videos on youtube!) I still had my felt offcuts to hand so I made myself a glasses case to match the notebook. I needed a sturdy one for the glasses I keep in my bag, so they don’t get damaged by all the other useless stuff I pile in there 🙂

I got some nice fabric from Ikea a few years ago and used some to make a nice lining.

When I was sorting through my spare felt and offcuts, I came across a few pieces of felt that I made earlier in the year to use for stitching practice. You may remember a few of us said we were going to do the Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge? I did try and probably lasted about 10 weeks, but I found the instructions too hard to follow. Ruth kindly looked up videos to help us, but sometimes there wasn’t one available, so I lost interest when I was spending more time looking for understandable instructions than actually doing the stitch. So, now I have 4 spare pieces of felt and thought I would ask everyone for their suggestions what to do with them. These first two are both about 8 x 12 inches


And these two, made from all natural shades of Merino and Bluefaced Leicester are about 10 x 12 inches



I look forward to hearing your suggestions and I will post photos of what I finally decide to do with them 🙂

Print to Stitch Homework

Print to Stitch Homework

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I’ve been busy stitching away on my homework for my stitch class. This session we worked on printing photos on fabric and then adding layers of sheer fabric and stitch to “enhance” the photo. I’ve still got a couple more to go and one hand stitch one that isn’t shown that I’ve been stitching on for almost 8 weeks and I’m still only halfway there.

Blue and Zig Zags

Blue and Zig Zags

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I made another piece of felt just for fun recently, this time using blue shades of merino wool and blue, green and purpley shades of fabrics and fibres.

I really love this part, it’s synthetic fibres from a novelty yarn, but looks like curly wool.

For the last 25 years or so, I’ve been using an old Singer sewing machine. The electrics were too dangerous, so I removed them and worked it by hand. It was slow going and gave me Popeye forearms (or ‘arm’, just the one on the right!) but it worked well enough for what I needed it for. When I started felting and the world of fibres and fabrics opened up, I started to covet other people’s fancy machines, especially ones that could do zig-zag stitch. I did occasionally think about buying myself a new one, but it seemed a bit frivolous to spend money on something just to add zig-zags to things occasionally 🙂 And then a couple of weeks ago, my Mum gave me her machine. I was worried that now I had a fancy machine I wouldn’t even be able to thread it, but it was quite easy really. I started off by practising straight stitches and trying to control the speed-I still can’t do that, it seems my foot only has two speeds, full pelt or excrutiatingly slow. But I managed to add stitching to a nuno sample I’d made. Feeling a bit more confident, I added some shapes from scrap felt, and finally used the zig-zag stitch

I’ve got a big collection of felt off cuts, so I cut a few into strips and made some bookmarks too

I know I need to practise a bit more, especially using zig-zags to do edges, but I’m not as scared of it as I was a week ago! Have you tried anything new recently?

Machine Embroidery History

Machine Embroidery History

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I recently studied a bit about the history of machine embroidery for my stitch class. I found an instruction book from the Singer Sewing Machine Company published in 1911 for doing “Art Embroidery”. It was amazing to see what was being done 100 years ago on a treadle sewing machine.

Recently, Mary Corbet of Needle ‘n Thread wrote a blog post about old embroidery books online because she’s had lots of questions about where to find antique embroidery patterns. So I thought perhaps there might be some interest in the history of machine embroidery. Do read Mary’s post, as she has some excellent links.

This is the book that I made with my local surface design group. Jan showed us several book making techniques and I used some fabric that I had screen printed quite a while ago.

Since I already had the book made, I thought I’d put it to use while researching machine embroidery history. I looked up the origin of the sewing machine and then went searching for other early resources.

Amazingly (to me anyways), I found a Singer manual for “Art Embroidery” that looked very similar to techniques I was learning in class. I found the manual through Internet Archive. It is a digital library with tons of old books that have been scanned and made into PDF files. And it’s free. You can go and search to find many old goodies. Here’s the Singer manual PDF link. If you do any type of machine embroidery, it is worth a look. You will be amazed at what was being stitched in 1911. The instructions are pretty funny to read and vague, but it is quite interesting.

I can’t imagine doing machine embroidery on a treadle machine. The coordination is hard enough with a foot pedal much less having to pump your foot up and down on the treadle at the same time you’re stitching.

We were given three names to research as these were well-known machine embroiderers in England in the early nineteenth century. The first was Rebecca Crompton who started with hand embroidery but then moved on to machine and a combination of both. She was very much into teaching design and moving embroidery away from “craft” towards “art”.

Next was Dorothy Benson. She worked for Singer Sewing Company and made many machine embroidery samples. She wrote a book about machine embroidery and sewed many of Rebecca Crompton’s designs.

Here are a couple of examples of Dorothy’s work that were stitched in the 1940’s. I think these would fit right in with what people are stitching today, don’t you?

The last name I researched was Constance Howard. She was a well known instructor in the UK. She lived to be 90 years old and dyed her hair green long before the trend became popular. She established the department of Embroidery in the Art School at Goldsmith’s College, London when embroidery was completely out of vogue. She was the author of several books including the mammoth task of “Twentieth Century Embroidery” which chronicles the history of embroidery in the UK from mid 19th century to the mid 1980’s.

So even if you aren’t into machine embroidery, take a look at the Internet Archive. I did find “A Treatise on Hat-Making and Felting” published in 1868 that was interesting. There are many books and pamphlets about hand embroidery and other topics that I haven’t explored. It has an easy to use search feature. Do let me know if you find anything fun!

Starting Over

Starting Over

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It’s okay to start over again

knowing what you know and what you don’t know.

Moving on imperfectly,

and being at peace with that decision.

You don’t need a brand new book

 to begin writing a brand new story,

And although it marks a significant point in time,

You don’t need a brand new year to begin living

if you simply make the choice and begin

from the place where you are right now.

This is a book that I made for my stitch class homework. We were supposed to look at others who do contemporary machine embroidery work and this book is based on Cas Holmes work. She uses a variety of repurposed fabrics and layers with machine stitch. I was going to cover a small notebook that a friend challenged me to “re-do” but it didn’t quite work out that way.

I started off with the orange-colored fabric rectangles that I already had cut out to make cards. I backed them with Stitch N Tear and stitched flowers, leaves and bugs with black thread. I free motion machine stitched and didn’t draw ahead of time, just did it by eye.

Then the notebook I was covering was just a bit bigger than the stitched rectangles. So I had to add more fabric. All of the fabric came out of my stash. Some of the lovely bits of silk ribbon came from Karen (thanks kaz!).

The poem was from my friend Carole. She had made a silk screen with the poem and I had tried it out on a scrap piece. It was imperfect letters with some very obscured, to match the poem. I don’t know who the poem is written by but would love to give credit if someone knows. I looked online but couldn’t find it.

Once I had the collaged pieces together, I decided that if I was going to stitch over them to hold them down, I would need a backing fabric. I picked black felt to emphasize the black stitching and to calm down the overall random color scheme.

I was trying to be a bit looser in my design and not try to  make everything perfect. This flower was particularly ugly so I thought the word “imperfectly” fit it perfectly 🙂

I then added a variety of stitching to the background. This is really not my style but it was fun.

I then stitched around the edges of the page with black to hold everything down that hadn’t yet been stitched and to give a more finished look.

Then I went back to cover the spiral notebook and the pages were too thick to fit. But I decided that didn’t really matter too much as the pages were beautiful and I could do a hand sewn binding.

So then I sewed the pages back to back.

Each of the left edges of the book pages then needed to be marked at 1/4″ intervals so that the blanket stitch would come out evenly. If the stitches don’t line up, the binding doesn’t work very well.

Once all the pages are marked, then the left edges were sewn with knotted blanket stitch. The knot is added to increase the strength of the bars on the edge of the page formed by the blanket stitch.

After I stitched all the knotted blanket stitch edges, then I lined up the pages and connected them together with big safety pins.

The binding is then formed by doing raised chain band stitch over the bars of the blanket stitch. If you look back at the first photo you can see the binding.

The first time I did this type of binding, I found it a bit cumbersome but this time went much more quickly and smoothly. I guess my mother was right, “Practice makes perfect”.

Oh but I wasn’t supposed to be perfect!! Note to self, don’t listen to that voice in your head that sounds like your mother.

The Final Pear

The Final Pear

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I have been busily machine stitching to finish my class homework. We are supposed to try out various methods and techniques of machine embroidery. On my personal blog, I posted the first two pears. One was done with granite stitch with instructions from a 1945 Singer sewing machine book. The second was done with mossing stitch learned from an article by Ken Smith.

 

This last pear was done using Carol Shinn’s technique from her book Freestyle  Machine Embroidery. She usually uses a digital photo printed on fabric and then affixes that to a heavy  canvas. The canvas is cut on the bias to prevent excessive distortion. I decided to paint my pear instead of using a photograph. The photo above shows my painted pear. I used acrylic paint for the pear and Dye-Na-Flow paint for the background.

 

I haven’t used her technique for a while and I always forget how much the piece shrinks in one direction. Because all the stitches are done in the same direction, the piece shrinks in the direction of the stitching. This is the first layer of stitching that I did. I stitched vertically. You can see that the pear is getting shorter already.

 

Here’s the finished pear. It hardly even looks like a pear shape it shrunk down so much. I guess I should have stitched horizontally since it was already a bit squatty for a pear. Comparing all three techniques was interesting. Carol Shinn’s technique was actually the shortest stitching time. But obviously you must take the shrinkage factor in to consideration. If you want to see the other two pears, check out my post here.

A Peek Into my Homework Sketchbook

A Peek Into my Homework Sketchbook

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For my class homework this time, I am working on sketching botanicals and then stitching them on various fabric bases with free motion stitching on the sewing machine. Some are supposed to be black and white and some painted after stitching. I thought you might like a  peek into what I’ve been doing.

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Guest Artist

Guest Artist

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Our Second Guest Artist to be featured on the Studio site is Rachelle Gardner, a mixed media artist originally from Kansas City, Missouri, now living in Mission, Kansas, USA

Felting 3, 2, 1
Q-3 Three types of fibre you can’t live without?

Thread, of any kind, which I don’t know counts as a “fiber,” but it’s hard to make lace without it! I also keep a stash of dyed and natural Shetland wool around at all times, as I never know when I’ll need it. The third is admittedly, a toss-up between angora or silk fiber for use in detailing and accents.

Q-2 Two tools you use all the time?

My sewing machine, a new one that was partially funded by the Arts Council in my area, and water soluble stabilizer. I still feel like I’m just scratching the surface of possibilities with this material. 

Q-1 One fibre art technique you love the most? 

I am amazed at what water does to these materials. Both in wet felting and in working with the water soluble stabilizer, the utter transformation that occurs is symbolic to me. It impresses on me vital nature of water; it’s power to sustain us, it’s power to cleanse. It also reminds me of the concept that individual consciousness is like a drop of water in the ocean of universal consciousness. So, in short, I love working with water!

How did you get into fiber arts?

My path to the fibers arts was long, slow, but I think inevitable. When I was in high school, my parents adopted three Shetland sheep, which I, as a teenager, thought was most “uncool.” Eventually, I recognized my mother’s talents as she picked up every bit of the process of raising the animals, shearing, cleaning, dying, spinning, knitting, designing the patterns, over and over again, until it was finally time to say goodbye to the dear creature that provided so much over the years. And I can’t tell you how much time my father spent on fencing! So I eventually began picking up things here and there, and felting was my first interest and attempt at the fiber arts. While I consider myself a mixed media artist, I often work with felt or wool fiber in some way. 

Did you study art at college?

No! My degree is in interior architecture and my first job out of college was working as an apprentice at a small mom-and-pop wood shop building and designing custom furniture. But soon enough, the call of the fine arts drew me back. 

What you working on at the moment?

Right now I am preparing lace samples in preparation for studying at The Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Colorado. There I will learn how to cast large scale fabric sculpture. I’m interested in creating large scale lace sculpture exhibitions in art centers in my city and cities around me. This has been a project long in the making with support from the Anderson Ranch Arts Center, The Arts Council of Metro Kansas City, and hopefully people who love lace as I’m in the last few days of crowd-sourcing project funds through an online fundraising platform. I’d have to say it’s the most involved project I’ve yet to embark on.

What do you like to do when you aren’t creating art?

Yoga is my other main passion and I am a certified and registered yoga teacher. Between my day job, making art, and teaching yoga, whatever time is left is spent with my boyfriend and our 14-year old rescue kitty, Ellie.

Many thanks to Rachelle for taking the time to answer our questions, and share her work and enthusiasm with us 🙂  If you’d like to see more of Rachelle’s work, please visit her website www.rmgardner.com and her blog http://rmgardner.wordpress.com/ .

If you’d like to find out more about Rachelle’s adventurous project turning 2-D lace work into large 3-D sculpture,  visit her Aspen Project website, there’s even the opportunity for you to be involved and help with the costs of the project. Everyone who helps out receives a credit and also a reward of beautiful unique artwork, made individually for each person. But hurry, there’s less than a day left for that.

Handmade Greetings Cards Using Felt

Handmade Greetings Cards Using Felt

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I was talking about making things from spare felt recently. I never throw any pieces of felt away, however ugly or small. Even the tiniest slivers cut from the edges of felt get saved up for re-using, usually between the layers of textured felt. I was looking at some of my smaller pieces and wondered if they’d be any use to my mum who makes her own greetings cards, so I asked on the forum if anyone knew the best way to attach felt or fabrics to card. I got some good advice and when Ruth and Lyn both said the easiest way is to sew them on, I thought I’d give it a go myself.

I spent a good few hours cutting, measuring and scoring card, cutting out felt, choosing colours of thread to use…and then my machine wouldn’t work 🙁 I think I must have done something to it when I tried to sew organza, no amount of cleaning and oiling seemed to help, it just kept making grinding noises and chewing the thread. But, a few days later, it was back to normal! It must have needed the oil to soak in or something.

So, I got all my supplies out again and started sewing away. Before long, I had a nice pile of almost finished felt greetings cards.

When I was asking on the forum about attaching the felt, Lyn also suggested using cards with a double fold, so that the sewing on the back could be hidden. I do have some of these, but they have an aperture, so weren’t any use.

After lots of measuring and dividing and practising, I worked out a good system for scoring the cards so they folded well. I used standard A4 size card, cut in half, so that I had two long strips. On the back side, I measured 98mm in from the left side, and 99mm in from the right, and scored gently. This left the centre panel where the felt would go, approximately 100mm wide.

After working out where the felt would go, I then sewed it into place. You don’t need a fancy machine, mine is an old electric Singer without power 🙂

Once all the felt was attached, I turned the card over and added a couple of strips of double sided sticky tape.

Once the flap is folded over to cover the sewing you have a gorgeous, unique greetings card 🙂

I’ve made a PDF file with more photos and more detailed instructions. If you’d like more info on how to make your own cards, just click the link below

Handmade Greetings cards Using Felt

Do you use fabric, felt or fibres for greetings cards? Do you have any photos or tips you’d like to share?

Making a Small Travel Journal

Making a Small Travel Journal

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By the time you read this post, I will be in New York City. My mom and dad kindly let us use their timeshare condo in downtown Manhattan. My sister and her husband are joining us there and we’ll be there for a week. In preparation for our trip, I thought it would be fun to make a small travel journal to keep memories of the trip in. Since I was making one for me, I thought I’d make one for each of us. I thought it would be interesting to see what each person chose to remember in their book. I’ve made a mini-tutorial of how I put the books together.

The covers were made with some hand-made paper that I made about a month ago with my local surface design group. I didn’t really have plans for the paper when I made it but it was the perfect size for a small book cover. It’s about half the size of an 8 1/2″ x 11” sheet of paper. You could use a piece of hand-made felt, a couple of layers of heavier cotton fused together or a piece of cotton canvas to use as a cover. It needs to have a little weight to it but not be completely stiff.

I then painted some paper with a light wash of acrylic paint and cut the sheets in half. This paper is slightly heavier than computer paper but not by much. I painted some in green, blue and orange. You can choose any color scheme to match your cover.

I painted enough sheets so that I would have 12 half pages per book. I then took three sheets and folded them in half, one inside the other to make the signatures for the book. That’s just a fancy word for the sheets of paper that go together in a group to be sewn into the book. Oops, I forgot one step. Before I folded the signature, I made a fancy center page of the New York City sky line.

Here is the pattern that I drew. I found a photo of the NYC sky line and sketched it out. I then used a ruler to make the lines a little straighter and then used a felt tip marker to make the lines a little darker.

I then traced the pattern on to a piece of freezer paper and ironed the freezer paper to one of the blue pages to use as a stencil. I then sprayed the paper with black spray paint. This is the stencil after it’s been used several times. It worked to use the same stencil four times. The last use didn’t give as clear an edge so if you want a really clear edge each time, make a new freezer paper stencil each time. But I was being lazy and it really didn’t make that much difference in the end result.

Here’s the painted sky line. I did draw in the pointy part of the top of the Empire State Building later with a black Sharpie. Looks more like a castle to me but I guess it looks somewhat like a city skyline.

I just got this new Pfaff sewing machine. My old machine was a cheap Brother machine and it just wasn’t working like I needed for machine embroidery. This machine is really fancy but I really like how it sews so far. I used it to sew my little books.

Previously, I had searched online for maps and photos to use in the books. I thought it would be good to get everyone started and give the books a feeling of being in New York City. I used Google maps for the front covers.

I used a piece of double stick tape to apply the map to the front cover to hold it in place while I was stitching. When you stitch through paper with a sewing machine, you should increase your stitch length. If you put your stitches too close together it tends to tear the paper. I used orange thread and stitched around the outside of the map. This book is put together with all straight seams so you only need basic sewing machine skills. Remember to put the map in the correct position so that when the book is closed, that the map ends up on the front of your book and right side up.

This is the trickiest part. Open one of your signatures and place it on the inside of your book cover. You can see the seam where you stitched the map on the front. Line up the fold with that inside seam about 1/2″ to the right of it. Carefully stitch along the folded line. You can tie the ends of the thread either on the inside or outside. You could leave them long to tie beads or other decorative fibers on the outside if so desired. I tied mine on the inside and cut them short. Keep lining up your signatures alongside the previous one about 1/4″ apart and stitching them into place.

This photo shows the outside cover of the book after two signatures had been sewn. I tried to take a photo of the spine of the book after all the signatures had been sewn but couldn’t get a photo in focus. Sorry.

Here are the four books after having all four signatures sewn in place. I really had fun with these books. I’m not sure if it was because I like making books or if it was finishing a project. I’ve been making so many samples for my class that I never feel like I’ve really made a project. It was nice to have a finished piece.

I then found some painted paper that kind of matched and glued it into the front cover to hide the stitching from the map on the front. I also glued in some of the photos I had found online. This is graffiti on the right hand page.

I also sewed two pieces of paper together to make a pocket. I then glued it into the back cover. We can put tickets or other memorabilia in the pocket.

This photo shows the hosts of The Chew. It’s a cooking show that’s filmed in NYC. My sister got us tickets to be in the studio audience. I’ve never even seen the show but I like cooking shows so it should be fun. I’ll let you know if we’ll be on TV!

A friend of ours got us tickets to go to a Mets baseball game while we’re there. My husband is excited about this. So now we’ll all have a little book that we can journal in, draw sketches, paste photos, tickets and other ephemera about our trip. I’ll post some photos of the completed journal when I get back.

Do you use a journal? Have you made a travel journal before? I’d love to see yours if you have any samples.