Fighting the Print: Art, and Other People’s Fabric

I am a stitch junkie. Almost nothing is a exciting to me as stitchery. Nothing is as cool as new thread. And I’m a magpie. Make mine extra shiny please.

I fell in love with solid colors in the 80s when I started really focusing on stitching. I went to hand dye when I needed more excitement (and I always need that!) I didn’t want anything to distract me from the stitchery

And when it comes to prints, I’m so torn. You either play with a print or you argue with them. I love them. But they can struggle with the stitchery. Unless you use them well, you end up with them fighting each other. And finally, using most people’s prints in art is a bit like wearing someone else’s underpants. You know it really belongs to someone else and that feels very wrong. So most of the time, I buy prints for my aprons and quilt with my own hand dye.

This is a story about changing technology and breaking your own rules.

I get seduced. There are some prints that just are too good to leave alone. I connect with them and they just slide under my “don’t quilt with other people’s fabric” rule.

This is a little fabric card I made for Don for his birthday. Don looked so much like this owl when he was sleepy, that I quilted it with Madiera Supertwist Metallic.

Supertwist is a beautiful thread. It twinkles. Like all metallics, it breaks a lot. A #90 topstitching needle helps and so does Sewer’s Aid. but at bottom you’re going to break a lot of thread. But it has a really nice see through quality that doesn’t distort or distract from a print.

I fell in love some time ago with paint stick rubbings.

This very pretty piece of handdye fabric was rubbed with paint sticks and rubbing plates

and then embellished with charms, ribbons roses and yarn.

I’m conflicted about the rubbing plates being someone else’s designs, but again, I can be seduced. I love rubbed fabric!

What I wanted was to follow the rubbed design with the stitchery. I was so unsure how to use the rubbed designs until I found this cone holder from Superior Threads that reduces the thread breakage almost to nothing. Beautiful metallic thread exactly embellishing the print for rubbed fabric.

Superior Thread Holder, available at Amazon

I still have a lot of reservations about other people’s designs. But sometimes I just have to play with them. I’ve done a small series of these pieces that I’m calling Artifacts, because they’re found bit’s of other people’s design included in my own. With them, I’ve allowed couching, found charms and ribbon flowers. But I do think they’re fun, and it’s good to break your rules every so often to be sure they’re rules that matter.