Month: November 2022

Shimmer: Defining the Background

| ellenanneeddy

I have two quilts I’m finishing right now that you’ve been watching me work on. The threads I choose make all the difference in their background effects. Shinier threads will create a shimmer, a wet or wild area. Less shiny threads are more indicative of air or ground. I’m treating them with different threads and patterns to create a specific effect in each case.

For a very wet look, I’ll use Sliver and other flat threads. These really shine across the surface. I prefer them for either starry nights or for water.

The other thread I’m using is Madeira’s bug body thread, FS2/20. This amazing thread has a black core that gives it a very different texture. Zigzagged it does look like bugs. As a stipple it has a sharp look without the intense shine.

I consider both these threads incredibly beautiful and essential. But I use them very differently. Because they create an incredibly different texture. Why is that important? The texture defines the area for our eyes. Shiny thread will create that wet feeling. A sharp undefined metallic does excellent air or dirt, all defined in our thread choices, with no more work to it than that.

Green Heron Hunting is set with water, air, leaf, and ground elements. The air and the ground are very similar. I don’t want a soft look. It’s fall, so I want it to be crisp and textured. So I chose Sliver for my stream. But the ground area with the frogs and the leaf tree tops are stippled zigzag with the FS2/20. There’s a glint of metallic, but it’s different from the high sheen of the water and the eye separates them immediately.

For the air, I chose a driving straight stipple pattern to suggest wind. But I put in a repetitive garnet stitch in it to make it look more driven.

For Fishy Business, the background is all water. So I used Sliver-type threads exclusively. The very shimmery background contrasts highly with the completely poly-embroidered fish. They both shine, but in very different ways.

Your thread choices and stipple patterns define the background. Contrast is the key. If your background and images contrast each other, they will stay visually separate, and help your eye to see the separation.

If you’d like more information on stippling and threads, check out. Skimming the Surface: Bobbin Work as Stippling.

Leafmeal Lie: Making snippet scrap Leaves

| ellenanneeddy

I don’t follow trends well. If it interests me it interests me. If it doesn’t, it’s background noise. So the snippet thing just went right past me. It’s an interesting technique, but it didn’t work with what I was doing.

So I was working on Green Heron Hunting and I needed to do something different with the leaves. I’ve often used green sheers with stitching to create folliage.

snips arranged on Steam a Seam 2

But I wanted fall leaves. Small fall leaves. I didn’t want them to be detailed. Just bits of color. So for this, the snippet thing made sense. I sat down with a pile of hand dyed scraps, and cut some bits. I cut a cloud shape of Steam a Seam 2. I arranged the bits on to the Steam a Seam 2 backing and pressed them on high heat with a non-stick pressing cloth.

The trick with a pile of snippes is stitching them down without them getting caught in the darning foot or having them go all over. I’ve seen snippets done with tulle over them to control the bits. Personally, I don’t like the look. I can always see the tulle. It looks either too dark or too light and it spoils the effect for me. So i decided to stitch them down with a top layer of dissolvable stabilizer, to keep things from getting tangled.

Dissolvable stabilizers have been around for a while. They are a film made from cornstarch and dissolve in water. They have a lot of commercial uses for computerized embroidery, but they also work well for free-motion embroidery. I don’t know that they stabilize so much as they keep the machine feet from getting tangled in the thread and bits of fabric. Originally they showed up in the 80s as Brama Bags, a dissolvable laundry bag for hospitals, where they were concerned about contagion from people’s laundry. It’s only gotten better since then. There are lots of different brands. The difference is in how thick the film is and how easily it dissolves. I like Aqua Film, which is now called StitcH2O, by OESD. But there are also Solvey, and Badgemaster and new ones come out all the time. What you are looking for is a film that’s steady enough to stitch over without being too thick. Thick ones take forever to dissolve.

That made a tree top I could iron onto the piece itself. But I never trust glue. It sometimes just comes loose. So it needs to be stitched over. And all those little bits of fabric, even glued, are going to go everywhere. So this is where I used my Aqua Film. I pinned over a sheet of the film, and stitched it with a zigzag stitch and a metallic green/brown Metallic thread called FS2-20.

After all that stitching, I trimmed away any extra stabilizer.

I put it up on my photo wall, got out a spray bottle, and spritzed the stabilizer. It’s not instant. You need to get it really wet. But it dissolves. I put a fan on the piece and it was dry the next day. The color darkened a bit, but I’m still happy with the result.

So these trees work for me. The frogs and heron are so busy, there needed to be similar excitement going on up top.

I’ve also used dissolvable topping film for a technique I call globbing, where you stitch down a glob of thread onto a quilt. Just put the thread where you want it, pin the stabilizer on top, and stitch in circles until it’s significantly attached. They work well for stitching over delicate things like Angelina Fiber, where, again your pressure foot is likely to get caught. You can read about it in Another Fine Mess: Globbing, What’s on Your Floor

Pattern Tweaking: Making things move

| ellenanneeddy

I love my big embroidered appliques. I can get such great detail and texture out of that technique. But it has a downside. It’s days and days of embroidery.

Not that I mind that. I find that fascinating! It builds color and if it’s color, well, I can be lost for days. But it’s terribly disappointing if I find after I’ve embroidered something that my pattern just wasn’t what I needed. If I ignore the fact that it’s off, I can spend 30-40 hours only to have an embroidery that disappoints me.

I draw my own patterns. Tracing someone else’s art leads to very flat imagery, legal issues, and huge size limits, so I always draw. But I don’t always get what I want at first. And I don’t always know what is wrong with it.

So every drawing sits on the photo wall for a while. I may not know why it’s off, but after 20 minutes I know that it’s off. It sits until I know. Then I go back to the drawing-room, as it were.

This frog is a good enough frog. But he has all the movement of a pet rock. I put him up and immediately knew changes would have to be made. The first change, for all drawings, is to flip them horizontally. The drawing goes in the back and the embroidery shows from the front. So it needs to be flipped.

In this frog’s case, we needed more help. So I treated him like a paper doll. I cut out his legs and arms so I could move them at different angles.

My drawing paper is Totally Stable, an iron-on removable light stabilizer that takes drawing well and traces easily. it also can be ironed back together after you find the position you want.

I moved his back leg at a further angle, moved his farm back so his weight was on it, and stretched the other arm out so it was reaching. Then I used my drawing to enlarge my pattern since it will shrink with the stitching.

I’m much happier with this. We’ll see how it stitches up.

For more information about adjusting patterns, see Drawing on Distortion. For patterns of mine, you are welcome to work with for noncommercial work, check out Patterns for Embroidery, a pattern book I prepared for free motion.

Hang ’em High: How To Make a rod Pocket without Hand Stitching

| ellenanneeddy

Every quilt you want to hang will need to have a rod pocket. The tradition is that you sew a tube and hand sew it on, I will never live that long. I hate to hand sew. It certainly would feel like I’d lived too long if I had to sew rod pockets that way.

Enter the wonderful world of glue. I’m a fond friend of Steam-a Seam for applique. But it has a version that comes in strips that makes a snap out of making a rod pocket.

Now we all know not to trust glue. It can, and will come loose at the most miserable times. I always stitch it down eventually for safety’s sake. But there are seams that take stress and seams that don’t. For a seam that has nothing pulling on it, you can fuse it and forget it. And a rod pocket has 2 hems and a seam that does not bear weight or take stress.

Each rod pocket is a rectangle that needs to be hemmed at the short sides and joined into a tube. It’s easy to do that with a strip of Steam a Seam 2.

It can be done in two pockets if you want a break in the center for a hanging hook.

What size should it be? Depends on your rods and depends on the size of your quilt. But I always go a bit wider than I think is needed. 6-8″ for something small. For a larger quilt, a 12″ pocket isn’t too big. If I cut the length of the rod pocket to the size of the quilt, by the time I fold over the two hems, it’s a perfect size to hold a rod without the rod peeking out.

I’ve put Steam a Seam 2 down both ends of the rod pockets and ironed the two hems. Then I’ve fold ed the rod pocket into thirds. I put Steam a Seam 2 on the folded up edge, and folded the other flap to meet. Iron it down and you have your rod pocket.

So now you have your pocket, without a stitch in it.

The rod pocket holds up the weight of the quilt, so it does need stitching to hold. But we can put it into place and baste it with the Steam a Seam 2 to prepare it for stitching.

I always stitch a rod pocket down, but I glue them first. I put two lines of Steam a Seam 2 down the length of the rod pocket. I center them on the back of the quilt on top and iron them down.

Then I put monofilament nylon or poly into both the top and bottom of my machine and set my stitch on a hemming stitch. I’ll need the hemming foot as well. It rides right along the edge of the pocket.

Set the hemming stitch just a bit wider than it sets for a regular hem. Stitch down one edge and then the other.

Will it show? Not very much. You might find the line of stitching where the hemming stitch is, but I guarantee you’ll have to look hard for it. Job done. Not a hand needle in sight.

For more information about Steam A Seam 2 check out Sun, Clouds, Water, and Rocks. You’ll find Steam a Seam 2 in 1/2″ strips at Amazon or at your local quilt store.