Chapter 4 – Decorate with Stitchery

So with the fabric and yarn prepared it was time to stitch –huzzah!  I’m a big fan of running stitch.  I remember back to my level 2 C&G where I made a couple of kanthas.  So I decided to begin with spirals of running stitch.

Image 1:

Image 2 – couching, running stitch and blanket stitch with different yarns:

Image 3 – couching sparkly yarn on a monoprinted fabric:

I have two sewing machines both of which get the hump whenever I try to free machine on them.  They become a bit like a dog wearing a medical cone collar when I put a darning plate on them (I can’t drop the feed dogs).  They become moody and refuse to do what you want.  I picked the less stroppy machine and managed to talk it into at least trying.

Image 4:

Image 5:

You might have spotted that I don’t have a foot.  My machine didn’t come with one and the instructions for free machining in the manual don’t comment on the safety aspect at all!  It took all my concentration but I (mostly) managed to keep hold of the hoop with both hands and not get a pierced finger.  I have done free machining so I realise going faster is better but as you can see from the stitching here I took it slowly as otherwise the machine says “woah!  no way!”.  The results are pretty rubbish but I rejoiced that the machine vaguely did it.

Image 6:

Image 7 – a few spiral attempts.  They started out well but degraded as time wore on:

Image 8 – I secretly like the bobbin thread looping through.  I did try all sorts of tension combinations (and checked the bobbin tension) but alas I always ended up with loopy bits after a while.  I embrace the loopy.  Sometimes you have to):

Image 9 – the next one started out quite well (or so I thought):

Image 10 – But when I turned over it wasn’t so splendid.  I quite like like the loopy bits though!:

Image 11 – I carried on regardless (but won’t show the back as it was a dreadful mess and the needle kept getting caught and at one point got stuck in the darning plate!):

I had a conversation with Siân at the summer school about machine embroidery.  I know that I enjoyed it when I’ve done it previously (on a lovely workhorse machine!) but my machines make it a painful experience I try to avoid wherever possible. 

Having said that…. my main machine took to cording like a duck to water!  More about that next.

Chapter 3 – Yarn Dyeing

Along with dyeing fabric I also dyed some yarns too.

(As an aside I have the TV on in the background as I type this post and Neighbours just came on.  What have they done to the theme tune?  It’s terrible!  Just saying).

Image 1 - Some natural yarns drying in the sunshine.  These ones were dyed using the microwave method:

 

Image 2 - Some more yarns drying in the sunshine.  These ones I found in a yarn stash box so didn’t microwave them in case they were man-made.  Instead I soaked them in the dye for about an hour or so giving the pots an occasional swoosh around:

 

Image 3 – here’s my final ‘stash’ of fabrics, yarns and buttons ready for stitchery (there’s more green fabric than is visible - honest):

 

I had some left over dye and decided to see what happens to melon and other seeds if I introduced them.

Image 4 – seeds having a soak in the dye:

 

Image 5 – I left the seeds in the dye for hours and then eventually washed them off.  I’m really pleased with the results and they have a lovely sound when you swish them around (they had that sound before they were dyed but anyway):

 

So now onto Chapter 4.  And here’s a sneaky peek for Sian!

Sneaky Peek !:

 

Sneaky Peek 2:

Chapter 3 – Monoprinting on Dyed Fabric

I got out my trusty picture frame that gets used a lot for monoprinting and investigated my acrylic paint section.  I have hundreds of those little tubes but I have recently seen the benefit of getting some big mamma tubes.  Anyhoo I decided to work with what I have (Must. Stop. Spending. Money.) and mixed a colour with a little fabric medium and a tiny weeny bit of water (to make it more fluid but not so much to make it seep through the fabric in a sloshy mess).

Image 1 – glass plate ready to apply fabric to:

 

Image 2 – fabric after three prints:

 

Image 3 – This time I lay down a thin layer of paint and then swirled in it with the corner of a credit card (the paint isn’t as dark as it looks in the image):

 

Image 4 – And again (the paint is lighter than the photo depicts):

 

Image 5 – Another one with lines painted on the glass:

 

Image 6 – And again (the paint is lime green I promise):

 

Image 7 – Having a play:

 

Image 8 – Thicker paint this time (as it was more fluid in tube it was easier to paint without having to do anything much to it):

 

Image 9 – Double printing:

I wanted to share with you a print that I took at the Distant Stitch Summer School this year where I used acrylic paint which had already had textile medium mixed in (the paint was creamy and delight to work with).

Image 10 – I have painted onto the underside of a glass cutting plate (a kitchen accessory) as the top side is not smooth.  There are vague spirals in the pattern so I can justify adding the photo here!:

 

Image 11 – the print on white fabric (it’s very vibrant):

Chapter 3 – Fabric Dyeing

I bought some Dylon hand dye this morning from Wilkonsons.  I almost got carried away and bought four different sachets but remembered my black dye disaster from the last Module so erred on the side of caution and just got ‘Tulip Red’ and ‘Tropical Green’ to see how I get on.

Image 1 – Dylon Dye:

I looked on the Dylon website for more information and discovered in the FAQs that you can microwave dye using Dylon!  Eh?  Do what?  MICROWAVE?!  This excited me because it somehow sounds quicker…  A few more google searches and I found instructions on how to do this!  Amazing!  Instructions and due credit here:  http://www.jennierayment.com/?q=node/5

I experimented and got some amazing results.  Although my fabrics are more crazy cerise pink than tulip red I like that am going to stick with them.

There aren’t any fabric shops in my hometown (ahhh!) so I sourced a 100% cotton bed set and chopped that up for fabric.  I then proceeded to dye dye and more dye.  With the weather being so hot my fabric dried really quickly.

Image 2 – Until I was more confident I made up little batches (although did find it sometimes difficult to get everything dissolved):

Image 3 – A square of fabric tied up:

Image 4 – I wore gloves to begin with but soon got fed up with them.  So now I have red and green hands!

Image 5 – Another square of fabric, tied and with dye sploshed on

Image 6 – In the beginning I did some straight forward dyeing to see how it all worked.  The red turned out more like cerise pink but it’s very striking:

Image 7 – I like how the stitching remained white (it must be synthetic thread):

Image 8 – Another tied one:

Image 9 – Tie dye!

Image 10 -  A mixed colour tie dye:

Image 11 – And another

Image 12 – A very striking tie dye:

Image 13:

Image 14:-

Image 15:

Chapter 3 – Beads

Chapter 3 is a bit meaty so I’m going to report back in bits!  So me being me I ignored everything else and went straight to the beads bit first.  You see I have a ‘thing’ for beads.  And sequins.  But especially beads (and buttons).  I have this habit of going into charity shops and buying cheap necklaces simply to chop up.  In fact I did the very same on Thursday and bought a lovely necklace with three different strings of red beads on it for £1.  I do this a lot really.  It’s a compulsion.  Lately I’ve had to put a ban on stepping foot in a charity shop because I keep buying things I don’t need.  I am vaguely impressed with my own self-restraint!

So as a result of previous charity shop rummaging I have quite a collection of beads and so forth in curious shapes.  I began by looking through it for green and red beads and then other interestingly shaped ones (that I would be happy to sacrifice under a layer of paint!).  It was quite difficult really because I kept getting side-tracked with a lot of “oooooooh what a lovely string of beads” followed by "no no I can’t paint that” and so forth.  In the end I initially ended up with:

Image 1 – Beads

In my tutorial with Sian at the Summer School we discussed other types of bead which explains the keys.  I have other ideas but think I’ve got enough to be getting on with (one must draw the line somewhere!).

I also discovered in my hunt for green and red ‘things’ that I have an excess of green beads and sequins!  I suspect I’ll be doing a lot with them.

Image 2 – Boxed beads and sequins

With quite a lot of the non-boxed beads being neither red nor green I then got out some paint that has this plastic quality to it.  I don’t know what it is but I bought it from Sainsbury’s many years ago in the kid’s art section.  It’s really great stuff actually.  I put a blob of red in one pot and a blob of green in another, popped in the ‘things’, put on the lid and shook like I was doing some kind of crazy dance.  As you do.  I poured the beads out on acetate sheets so that they would be easy to peel off when they were dry.

Image 3 – wet beads on acetate

Image 4 – The paint coats unevenly and leaves patterns on some of the beads

I painted these a few days ago and now have a box of red beads and a box of green beads.  They sit there taunting me because I can’t play with them for a few chapters yet.  I keep considering skipping forward and then coming back but I’m exercising restraint. For a change.