Coral Sea

Picked up some shells and rocks during my four week road trip of the South Island. This week I am continuing to try and stretch my creative abilities and use these “found” objects in my work.

On calico to create “sand”, I frottage with Shiva paint stiks in copper, gold and white to give texture like sand to the calico. When dry, freehand cut the calico with the rotary cutter and ironed under the top curved edge a là Karen Eckmeier. A scrap gold organza ribbon squeezed into the frottage calico adds a little shine. Maybe I should have done one darker copper and put it closer to the water.
Quilted the “sand” with gold metallic thread to a turquoise background. Laid a purple/green fuzzy yarn onto the background and twirled this into fronds. Blue and silver yarn was laid out randomly and intertwined with the fuzzy yarn. It looked like coral and seaweed to me.

Using Press ‘n’ Seal to secure the yarn to the fabric, and machine button hole stitch to couch the yarns into place. I stabilised the fabric with tearaway.

Sewing over the Press ‘n’ Seal was surprisingly easy. The most difficult part was removing the plastic afterwards, tweezers helped in the small tricky bits.

Some dark green and blue fabric scraps were then ripped into small strips and twirled and twisted to give a seaweed look.
I hand sewed these down, using seed beads in strategic places.
Felt the water need current, sot used variegated crochet thread, and running stitch to give the impression of the water moving.
Fish, where are the fish? Metallic lycra scraps cut into right facing and left facing miniature fish. Stuck these down with glue stick to secure. When dry, a small yellow bead secured the “eye”.

Poked holes in the shells picked up a Anakiwi, Marlborough, and Rabbit Island, Nelson. Positioned these shells amongst the seaweed and fish. Invisible thread to secure. Welbond was used to secure small stones and pebbles, and then invisible thread to secure.
Machine quilted the top, just to add current and movement.

Nelson

This week I( want to try and stretch my creative abilities and use some “found” objects picked up during my four week road trip of the South Island.
Using some pink knit fabric, I quilted in a random “swirl pattern between the slashed sections. This raised the slashes.

Wove some pink varigated novelty yarn through the slashes. Wove 3, but decided 4 looked better.

Secured 3 kowhai pods, by couching between the pod nodules with bright pink thread. Used some other seeds I picked up, they remind me of butterflies. These were secured with Weldbond, and when dry, a few winds of metallic thread around the middle, to catch the light.

I enjoyed the simplicity of this project.

Triangles

Still fascinated with Libby Lehman “Thread play” so I am going to try out her “pot luck” appliqué, or 2 or more layered appliqué.
Triangles were drawn onto freezer paper, and arranged onto the leftover pieced background. I have decided to put in black, dark blue, turquoise and red triangles.
The dark blue fabric was pinned behind the background fabric. After sewing small straight stitches around the freezer paper triangle, removed the freezer paper, and then cut the top fabric away, to reveal the blue triangle underneath. I repeated this process with the other triangles, cutting away to reveal the new colour beneath.
Time for some fun. Free motion zigzag around each triangle like rays of the sun. I used contrasting threads to give a feel for a colour study. Metallic and rayon threads on to were used to add another dimension.
An orange transparent triangle was created with free motion stitching, with stabiliser on the back.

I tried to create a twin need right angled line zigzagging through the centre, but I cannot turn the corners well, so it is not as sharp as what I would like.

Changed the thread to flouro pink and cerise and made pink “bullets” around the triangles, and some randomly overlapping the triangles.
I also tried to quilt using a geometric meander, but it was difficult for me to get sharp corners.

More Thread Play

Still reading Libby Lehman’s book and want to try more of her techniques.
I cut 3 circles from freezer paper and ironed them onto the left over background fabric. Everything is stabilised with Tearaway, and pooped into a hoop. Dark blue thread outlined each circle and then the freezer paper patterns were removed.

Free motion zigzagged on 2 quarters of the circles. Changed colour and stitched the other quarters, trying to stitch dense at the edges and more open towards the middle.

Using the twin needle and the widest width and shortest length – chose orange thread and red thread. I really like the effect of a ribbon curving through the worked. Changed the threads to dark and light green and curved a line through the orange/red ribbon. Changed the threads again! To dark / light blue and curved that around too. Had to reduce the tension a little (3.5). Changed to a single thread needle, and with variegated brown/orange/yellow meandered this to join up with the red ribbon. Important to use the hoop to prevent tunnelling on the satin stitch.

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.