More Free Motion Stitching

View near Mud Lake - Machine stitched

We had a great time at our quilting retreat and I spent almost the whole weekend working on this piece.  I was determined to master free motion work so I just stitched away all weekend (aside from eating the wonderful meals we took turns preparing, drinking wine and talking....).   I will post pictures of the retreat next week.   I was pretty satisfied with the results of my machine labours and have continued since my return home to work on more pieces which I will post later this week.   I learned about changing needles often, I tried to get my head around all the different needles for different processes, still struggling to learn about threads and tensions etc etc.   I must say that it is great to be able to complete a piece in a weekend.  I can't do that with hand stitching.   However,  I still feel a lot more relaxed after an evening of hand stitching.  I think there's a lot more swearing that goes on (and talking to inanimate objects ie the machine!) when I am machine stitching.   But I am trying to remain calm even when the stitches bunch up behind the work and the machine begins its ominous clunking noises.    I stop, check my threading, check the tension, look to see if there is anything caught in the machine - then, if all else fails, I stop and have a cup of tea.:)

Inspiration near Mud Lake

Here is the photo that inspired this piece.    We have a lovely area down near the Ottawa River with a small pond called Mud Lake which is a haven for many kinds of birds and waterfowl.  This was taken on the river side.

On my way home from the quilt retreat, I stopped in at Loblaws to pick up a few things.  When I came out, this is the sight that greeted me.  Luckily I had my camera with me and quickly took some shots.  What a spectacular sunset!   Sadly a couple of days later it seems I missed a magnificent aurora borealis.   Ah well another time....

Urban Sunsets

Practicing Free Motion

I was determined that, before the year was over I would tackle my sewing machine and practice free motion/threadwork.   Never mind that I haven't even learned the basics of machine sewing,  what I really needed to learn was how to embroider on my landscapes with my sewing machine.   I have been having some pain in my fingers, wrist and shoulder from all that hand stitching and need to give it a break, although I am reluctant to lose the 'label' as exclusively a hand stitcher.  After doodling on pieces of felt for a couple of hours, I decided to jump right in.   I figured it would be easiest to try stitching on some ready made flowers before trying to create my own so I cut and fused flowers onto a background (I actually used craft bond as if I was making them into art cards).  And here are the results of number 1 and number 2 sample.  The stitching is pretty basic but I had fun learning to follow the veins in the petals and leaves, trying to control my speed and the direction of my stitching. I had no trouble with stitches, thread or needles. I even tried a zigzag stitch.

 Since I do a lot of grasses, trees, bushes and water, I next drew a pattern with mountains, grasses and a stream running through it inspired by some of my photos, and went to work.   I used solvy stabilizer and a hoop for this one.  I like using the hoop to move the fabric even though it can be cumbersome and I needed to re set the piece inside the hoop several times.   I really stitched the heck out of it and had fun trying different threads (like the multicoloured one that I used for the section below the trees.   I finished by hand stitching individual grasses and bushes.  I had actually found sketches of various grasses in a photography book about the prairies and tried to emulate some of them.  I also looked at various embroidery stitches in my handy stitch book but ended up inventing my own simple stitches.   So here is the finished product.

 I have prepared a few more fused pieces because this weekend I am going to a quilting retreat and will bravely try to machine stitch in the presence of 11 women who are experienced machine quilters.  Yikes!   The first piece is from a theme that I used before in a hand stitched piece called The Tenerife Challenge.   I'm using it again because the photo has these lovely long grasses in the foreground, bushes, water, trees and mountains.  It's all ready to start stitching.

 Then I prepared a piece inspired from a photo I took at Mud Lake with lots of trees, rocks, water, bushes and cattails.  I sketched in some of the areas that I want to stitch with white pencil.

I have a couple of other pieces ready to work on (one of underwater rocks and another swamp piece) as well as my hand stitched colour challenge piece so I'll have lots to do this weekend (besides eat and drink wine).

Two observations - When I was reading about machine stitching, free motion and thread painting I got pretty scared about thread!   Top thread, bobbin thread, fine thread, heavy thread, silk, metallics, cotton, poly, invisible.......tension...needles......how will I ever learn all this?    So I said to myself, this is an experiment and I tried every thread that I could get my hands on, even metallics and fine silk.....and most of them worked!!  Once I learned how to re set the tension and how to read my errors ie too tight or too loose, I was off to the races - literally.    I learned why you need a finer needle with finer threads (to avoid big holes in fabric) and why you need to loosen tension (bobbin threads showing through on my pale beige fabric).   So my advice to anyone starting out is to not be too afraid of it.   Early on I had a few thread pile ups but soon learned how to control that.   It was fun - but pretty intense.

The second thing -  On several of these pieces I used Elaine Quehl's multi coloured hand dyed fabric and boy, does it make the scene pop, especially if you don't stick to blue for sky, green for grass, etc etc.  I love colour and find that hand dyes and batiks can give a piece extra pizzazz.  I am inspired by other art quilters' use of colour.  One example is Gloria Loughman's luscious pieces (see her book 'Luminous Landscapes').

I'd better get packing.  Maybe I'll have something to post on my return.

Fibre Art Show at the Stittsville Library

The following is a press release from Out of the Box.   Yesterday we set up our "From a Book" fibre art show at the Stittsville Public Library and it looks great!  Please check out my Exhibitions page for a flyer with more photos of the work displayed.

"From a Book" Art Show

The Out-of the-Box fibre artists invite you to visit the Stittsville Branch of the Ottawa Public Library (OPL) in the month of November to view their "From a Book" show.  Inspired by stories, characters, titles, words, places and shapes found in books, the fibre artists have used a variety of techniques and materials to produce a delightful and diverse art show.  Books that inspired this show include classic literature, mysteries, science fiction, natural science, children's books, and even Roget's Thesaurus. Quilting, beading, felting, embroidery, mixed media, sculpture, and surface design are among the techniques showcased. 

Out-of-the-Box is a group of fibre artists who are passionate about creating innovative, thought-provoking fibre art, and promoting that art in the community.  This is their second show at the Stittsville Branch.  For more information, visit their website (www.out-of-the-box.org) or that of the Ottawa Public Library (www.biblioottawalibrary.ca).  The Stittsville Branch is located at 1637 Stittsville Main Street.

New Challenges and Celebrations

We were spared the worst of the hurricane but my feelings are with all the people who have lost loved ones, have been left homeless, without electricity, and have a big clean up ahead of them.  You are in our thoughts.

The last of the fall colours

  I have pretty much finished my first rug hooking project.  I just need to add a few highlights, tone down some of the areas, and fill in some spaces that can only be seen from the back.  This one was done all in wool yarns.   I am now anxious to gather up enough strips of fabric to try a bigger one on my large frame.

 And here is a peek at the challenge piece I am doing with my fibre arts group.   We chose either orange (tomato red) or blue and the piece needs to be at least 20% of that colour.  My inspiration is a photo of tiny red orange mushrooms that I took in Cape Breton a couple of years ago.  Here it is before I started to stitch.  I have since added some dyed cheesecloth, stitched leaves, and will also add some tiny pebbles as I go along.  I plan to do a lot of hand stitching on this one.

I have also started to paint a background for a larger stitched piece which will be a swamp when it is finished.  I hope to do some free motion stitching on this but I need to practice first.  I went out today and bought a new hoop and some stabilizer to get me started.

Background for a swamp - painted with setacolours and caran d'ache crayons and pencil crayons

Last weekend I celebrated a birthday!    Birthdays have a different meaning these days.  They seem to come so quickly.  I was just getting used to the big one that came last year and now I am one past the big one.  Yuck!  Nevertheless I celebrated with three of my friends and we ate lasagna, drank wine, and read our cards - which ended up turning into more of a brainstorming problem solving discussion about each of our 'questions', along with a lot of laughter.  One friend said she had a sore tummy from laughing so hard all evening.

Here I am showing off my handiwork

And here are my three friends at work in the kitchen

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and I realize that I am truly blessed to have good friends in my life!

My New Rug Hooking Frames and Thoughts on Rug Making

Rug Hooking Frame made by Yvon Michaud of Cheticamp, NS

I have been fascinated by East Coast Rug Hooking since I discovered the books written by Deanne Fitzpatrick who tells stories with her colourful hooked rugs.   Many of her rugs describe growing up in Newfoundland and the history and customs of the people (she is located in Nova Scotia now).  The accompanying narratives add more depth and emotion to the stories in her rugs.    I am drawn to new ways to tell stories with art and to the simplicity (you only have to learn one stitch) yet complexity (capturing a design with that one stitch) of rug hooking.   Deanne has online courses available and I am hoping to take one.   Closer to home, rug hooker Loretta Moore teaches classes and workshops as well and I am thinking about signing up for one of hers as well.  

When I was in Newfoundland my friend  showed me the beautiful hooked wall hangings she has done and took me to the shop of a rug hooker and teacher.  I returned by myself to watch people busy at work hooking rugs for an upcoming event.

 A few years later I visited both Les Trois Pignons museum and Jean's Gift shop near Cheticamp and saw what possibilities exist for creating beautiful rugs and wall hangings.   I was 'hooked'.  

Museum had some amazing detailed historical pieces of Prime Ministers, Presidents and scenes from history

More museum pieces - What detail and colour!

More of our Heritage

The Museum has loads of fascinating details about the history of rug hooking in the Cheticamp area

I started gathering wool yarn wherever I went because much of the work I first saw in Newfoundland was hooked with yarn rather than strips of wool fabric.   I bought a hook and using a picture frame as a base, I started to hook.  But I found the frame difficult to work with as the work sagged and came loose from the frame etc.  so my first piece gathered dust on a shelf.


In September when I was in Cape Breton, I again visited Les Trois Pignons and saw some nice tabletop frames and a beautiful floor model that they were using for demos.   I got the name of the maker because I was flying home soon after and contacted him from Ontario for more information.  I ended up purchasing both this floor model and the tabletop one.

The gears keep the work nice and taut

It was easy to assemble

My cat checking out my new tabletop rug hooking frame

 
 They are exactly what I was looking for!!   These traditional Cheticamp style frames are highly regarded by rug hookers.   Yvon Michaud of Cheticamp is the maker of these particular frames.  His prices are very reasonable, and the frames are well made of kiln dried maple.  He was prompt and answered all my questions.  The shipping was not expensive, the frames arrived quickly, were well packed, and I was able to assemble both frames easily by myself.   I also purchased another hook from him.   I would highly recommend his work and if anyone is interested I would be happy to give you his contact information.

I have attached the small piece I was working on to the tabletop frame (which I purchased for its portability) and it works well.  The piece is sewn to the two canvas strips and held at the sides with the cup hooks (string on one side because it is such a small piece).   Both rollers can be adjusted for tension and the work stays taut never saggy.  My technique is still pretty rudimentary and I won't show you the back of the piece...

I am in the process of designing a piece which I will do on my larger frame.   There is lots of great info online, videos on you tube and lists of wool supplies as well.    But the first thing I did (because I want to start working with wool strips) is to go to the thrift shops and purchase old wool clothing, wash and dry them, and disassemble them into pieces to be cut into strips.

Three blazers and a wool scarf ready for use

A wool and silk blazer and wool camel coat - still to be disassembled

This fuschia coat was a real find for me - love that colour

 It is a bit of work (I'm thankful for my seam ripper) but less expensive than buying yardage.   Another great thing to have is a cutting machine to cut the strips but they are expensive so I'll have to make do with my rotary cutter.

I was surprised at the emotions that came up as I was taking apart these second hand clothes.   I thought a lot about the people whose hands sewed these coats especially when coming upon inner stitching/basting obviously done by hand.   The linings and interlinings, padding etc that goes into the construction of a coat or jacket gave me such respect for the workers who do the work and I wondered about the conditions they work in and the pay they received.   I also felt a little guilty taking apart their work when people could still be wearing these clothes.  However the thrift shop had reduced them for sale and I reasoned that they wanted to make room for newer stock.  Perhaps I was saving them from the landfill.  I also thought about the people who had worn those clothes.  I have worn second hand clothing before but the act of handling and unstitching the clothes seemed to give rise to a more intimate connection with the makers and wearers.   I wonder if others have ever experienced these feelings.   Quite unanticipated!

I'm also starting a few other quilting projects - including a colour wheel challenge, some water themed pieces, and goddess dolls.  More about that later.   What a long post this is!

Revisions to Beading Challenge and Labelling my 'Book'

Sometimes it pays to look at a piece for a couple of weeks before submitting it to a show.  After finishing my peacock piece it really bothered me that the beadwork filled in all the spaces.  I wanted the centre to pop and felt that it just wasn't isolated enough.   So I bravely removed all the beads around the peacock so there would be some black space and moved them closer to the bird itself.  I think it is an improvement.   Here is the new and improved bird titled "With Eyes Like Diamonds in the Sky"

With Eyes Like Diamonds in the Sky

And here is the original - with too many beads!

You can vote on which one you prefer but it just might make me feel bad because I am submitting the new and improved version today so it will be too late for any more changes :)

I am also submitting my 'From a Book' piece today and wanted to show you my label.  I would have liked to see a rainbow in the piece since Somewhere Over the Rainbow is one of my favourite songs, but it just didn't work out.   So I printed a rainbow on the label using an old cropped photo I had taken in Cape Breton.   I don't have a fancy editing program so I just opened the photo in 'Paint' mode on my Windows 7 photo program, added text and printed it out on my inkjet fabric sheets (EQ Printables).  Here it is attached to the back of my 'book'.

Next time I will post photos of my new rug hooking frames that arrived Friday.  I am so excited!