Thread Play

Libby Lehman’s book Thread Play is an inspiration, and I have enjoyed learning several techniques of hers. The traditional patchwork background is embellished with machine embroidery, ribbons, transparent spaces, satin stitch and appliqué, all machine, and all freehand – perfect for me to have some fun.
I drew a squiggle onto freezer paper, and then drew curves meeting at the squiggle. I numbered the curves, and cut this out of freezer paper, and ton a pieced background that I had left over from another project.

Using a cream thread I stitched around the freezer paper and then removed the paper. This stitching provided a guide line for the free motion zigzag in cream and brown thread. I highlighted the curves in yellow. A simple technique, and one I love.

Very Important though, USE A HOOP and stabilise the background with tearaway before stitching!Moving the hoop along the work is a hassle, but it keeps everything nice and taut. Wanted to try a thicker quilting line, so settled on a zigzag width1, length 0.75, and used the edge of the clear embroidery foot as a guide.

Mary Transom Tulips

Went to Mary’s class with Rainbow Quilters, which was raw edge appliqué, something I have dabbled in, but could be much better at.
Important: Reverse the design your have drawn, and trace onto fusible webbing the reserved image.
Baking paper is such a versatile product, and handy for fusing the cut shapes together into tulips.

I cut out a total of nine tulips, but decided on just a few for my projects. I have put the others aside for now.

When pressing the tulips onto the background fabric, hot steam and hold for 10 seconds, really secures them well for the machine embroidery.

I enjoyed this project as a colour study, and auditioning the fabrics for the backgrounds really helped me understand the relationships between the colours.

Making a small organza butterfly out of a left over ribbon, and wash away stabiliser, completed the composition for the yellow tulips. Small beads in the middle of the tulips completed the projects

Tawhiri-matea “Wind”

I want to try and capture the essence of the wind blowing . Tawhirematea is the god of wind, so I will need to include a moko (tattoo) onto my wind. I visited the Rotorua Museum, and made notes and sketches from the Te Awara collection (local Maori tribe) of different faces and mokos.
After happy with a sketch made by combining several of the moko techniques, I scanned this into the computer.

In Publisher, I expanded the sketch, and then had to “flip’ it vertically. When I printed it onto stabiliser it was the reverse to how it will look on the quilt.
Reverse bobbin couching with following the printed drawing is easy. I drew in some more swirls in the forehead, and some more hair curls to give myself a guide while sewing. It was neat to flip the stabilised fabric over and see the sewn result.
I echo quilted using a variegated blue and white thread. White metallic thread was embroidered in the eyes.

Accidental Landscapes

Had a go at Karen Eckmeier’s "Accidental Landscapes". Very easy to do, and effective on a small scale. The hardest part was cutting the strips of fabric free hand with the rotary cutter, something I had never done before. I also found “hills” more useful in putting the landscape together, than “valleys”.

Using the same fabrics, but changing the order, I made 2 landscapes. I chose purple for the mountains, and Angelina fibres for the snow. The nikau and flax are free motion embroidered with the sewing machine.

Next time I will do this on wash away stabiliser and handsew them to the landscape. Fluffy novelty yarn completed the flax.

By changing the mix of the strips of fabric, a different feel is created in the landscapes, even though the same fabrics are used.

A quick and easy technique that is simple to create, but not mind challenging enough for me to repeat unless I need a small gift quickly for a visitor.

Cold

As it is very chilly, my theme this week is “cold” Not sure how to go about portraying this, so jotted down some ideas. Cold as ice, chilled to the bone, frozen, ice, blue with cold, cold nose, cold hands, chilly, brrrr..!, frigid, raw, bitter cold, cold cutting wind, icicles, frost, hail, glacier, mountain, ski-ing, snowmen.

On a pale gray fabric, small marbles were rubber banded to create a dyeing opportunity. With blue textile ink, I wrote “Shiver” with very diluted ink, then I went over it again, with less diluted ink, the ink spread across the damp fabric, and reminded me of ice on water. I have not tried zigzag free motion stitching, so want to try it on this project.

I limited the colour palette to blue, I was surprise how many tones and hues of blue I had in my threads. It was fun free motion zigzagging ,but I definitely need more practise. I flipped the fabric over and reverse bobbin embroidery with some variegated blue crochet cotton in the bobbin.

With silver metallic thread, and reduced the zigzag to 2, highlighted the word “Shiver”.
I like the layers of thread and how the eye travel across, moving from the bright blue to the white, and back to the bright blue again.

Blizzard

Winter has hit us with snow in the South Island, and frosts and cold fingers in Rotorua. White on white, snowflake and icicles. Using a striped white on white fabric, I cut different lengths and staggered the joins. I wanted to duplicate the fractured frozen ice on a pond, but in reality, it just looks like steps to me.
I cut a small snowflake from folded paper and cut it out. I then cut out the spotted white taffeta into the snowflake shape.
Some white wool unravelled and some taffeta threads pulled from the scraps were used as icicles, the light reflecting off different angles and textures.

A fine white tulle was machine quilted over the snowflake and icicles. Silver metallic thread and a darning plate in the machine, I tried some machine embroidery around the snowflake.
3 strand embroidery thread created icicles in feather stitch, but they look more like branches covered in ice. Daisy chain stitch and straight stitch made more snowflakes. I also outlined details of the snowflake and used glass seed beads and sequins to make the snowflake magical. More beads highlighted the snowflake.

Next time I would facture the white striped fabric more randomly, like ice on a pond. I would also put more threads and other embellishments under the tulle.

Poppies

“Are they what I think they are?”
For several months now, I have been considering using the outside green wrapper, which I think is polypropylene, on the packs of “naturals range” of Libra pads. It reminds me of the tyvek building wrap which is strong and doesn’t rip.
After laying the wrappers from one packet out onto the painting sheet, I painted them with yellow and red textile ink, and mixed up the leftovers for orange. The stuff soaked up the colour fantastically, even though it began as a pale green base.
While I had the ink out, I painted some cupcake liners red and yellow, then decided they needed a “center, so a dab of black or purple paint plopped into the centre of each pleated circle.
When the wrappers were dry I cut them into 1.5 cm strips and wove them to create a background. They cut well and there is no fraying. The leftovers I melts together to create a nest mixture. Texture and all that.
The cupcake liners also hold the colour and creases well, and remind me of poppies, so they started my piece. Silver paint stik was used to stencil poppy leaves around the outside. I also cut some poppy leaves from an unpainted green wrapper. Using the melted “nest” and the green leaves, completed the composition.
Quilted in red thread around the sliver leaves, and stitched the green cut out leaves with green variegated thread.
The poppies needed more, so I popped some yellow seed beads in the centre.
Surprisingly, the products worked well, and I will use both of them again.