stabilzers

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

Getting fabric Straight: The wonders of starch

| ellenanneeddy

One of the constants of quilting is that the methods of fabric care we enjoy now don’t always work for quilting fabric. Why? Quilts are mostly cotton. Cotton is not perma-press. It can be made so, but it’s hardly cotton after that. It dries at a different temperature, it shrinks, it is more vulnerable to mildew. It does not act like a polyester fabric. And it never will. It’s cotton. It’s a natural fiber that does not ever act like a test tube baby. And it rumples. There are no wrinkles like cotton wrinkles.

So, many of the tools our grandmother’s used to work with cotton still work best. I have a wringer washer and mangle for dyeing fabric. They both are made pretty specifically for cotton and still do the job they were made for.

We talked several weeks ago about cotton and irons. Cotton takes real heat. The old fashioned irons do that.

Here’s the other unspoken bit about cotton. It’s made of fibers that move, shift and don’t stay steady. You can tear fabric straight on the edge and have it still not lie square. There is, however, a secret weapon. Starch.

You know that wonderful crisp feeling that your cotton has off the bolt, when it feels like a thin piece of paper, only fluid. That’s created by starch. Starch is one of several chemicals they use to finish fabric. So is formaldehyde. If you’ve ever walked into a fabric store and smelled a strong chemical smell, that’s probably it. A good prewash removes much of that smell. But it also removes the starch.

We joke about starch in someone’s underwear and complain of too much starch in new clothes, but for quilting, it really helps us out. It means things are more stable and don’t move around. Those moving, shifting, shifty fabrics stay flat and stay straight, making it easier to piece straight seams. I’m told it’s excellent for hand piecing. It keeps the fabric smooth and steady underneath the needle.

I became aware of the starch factor when I began to dye all my fabric. It just didn’t have the same body as unwashed fabric. I experimented with spray starch and found it expensive but helpful. It was also very hard to control how much starch you got. And you often got spots.

Then I found liquid starch. Stay Flo has turned out to be the best I’ve used. It comes in a jug and you mix it to the level you want. I usually use 1/3 cup of Stay Flow to 2/3 cup of water. Roughly. I mix that in a cheap spray bottle.

But here’s the secret weapon. On my last wash out, I put in a cupful of starch in the softener cup of my washer. I also put in a capful of a professional softer called ProSoft or Milsoft. On it’s final rinse, it starches all my fabric evenly. Then I let it hang dry and iron it while damp. Perfection.

Here’s an interesting article from The Spruce with more technical information about sizing and starches.

Starched fabric is so much easier to piece because it doesn’t shift as much.

I’ve been piecing another landscape gradation, and I gave it a final starch before pressing it. It changes how your fabric lies, how it irons, and how it handles under the needle. And you don’t need to stop and smell the formaldehyde. How good is that?

Drawing on Distortion: Give it a Kiss, Because It’s Going to Pucker Up

| ellenanneeddy

One of the issues with free motion embroidery is that it always puckers up. You always have some distortion. The worst is that the distortion is uneven and unpredictable. Sometimes it pulls the piece out of shape or makes it unrecognizable. Free motion objects take a lot of time. It’s heart breaking to have them distort past usability. It’s best to adjust for that from the start.

There’s some time honored ways to deal with distortion. First make the embroidery off the surface of the quilt. It can be applied afterwards with minimal distortion. I will be talking about separate embroideries in this article, although the information works for both off and on the quilt surface.

Stabilizers help a lot. Small embroideries under 2″ use three stabilizers all together. The drawing itself is on Totally Stable. It’s a lightweight stabilizer that irons on and is removeable. Stitch and Tear is the next layer. It’s a stiff tear away Pellon. Then I use a layer of acrylic felt that absorbs much of the stitching. I prefer the thinner versions. I attach the stitch and tear and felt with 505 spray. For anything larger, I use a layer of hand dyed fabric as the top layer.

Do remember that the drawing on the back will face the opposite side on the front. I know, I know. Think of it as looking through a slide backwards.

Now it gets confusing. My drawing layer is on the back. I’m going to turn it upside down to stitch. I’m not going to call them top and bottom. The sandwich has a front and the back. For stitching purposes the front is on the bottom and the back is on top. Got it?

I am using two hoops. Sharon Schamber’s red weighted halo hoop is my very favorite. It has a weighted core and a rubber coating. It grips and the weight supplies support.

Now it’s all up to the drawing. We can’t accurately predict the distortion but we can take some good guesses. To do that we need to look at the zigzag stitch

The zigzag stitch pulls across the stitch. The more layers of stitching, the more distortion. For a larger piece, you need to draw to adjust for that distortion. Mostly that means that things need to be a lot wider and bit longer. But you need to analyze the drawing to see where the distortion is likely to be bad.

So if you’re doing a straight zigzag stitch down the legs, it will shrink in the width. You’ll want to make it a bit wider there so it doesn’t become pencil thin.

Bird feathers end with a band of stitching around the end of the feather. Again, making the feathers longer and a bit too wide gives your a bit of extra space there will help eliminate the shrinkage effect.

original image
adjusted image
new traced image

I’ve elongated the wings and body on the kingfisher. I wasn’t able to get it completely embroidered to show you, but you can see the shrinking on the feather and the wings

back side of bird mostly embroidered
front side of bird mostly embroidered

It’s not a science. But you can hedge your bets for your best look. Keep watching my face book page to see how this bird looks finished.

What happens if you guess wrong? Several things. Sometimes that wrong guess works better than a correct guess. Sometimes I cut into an embroidery and anchor it with stitching to address the error. One thing is certain. Perfect happens somewhere else. I’m content with beautiful.

Another Fine Mess: Globbing: What’s on Your Floor?

| ellenanneeddy

‘

Dragonflyl Mountain

What’s on my studio floor? Thread! I collect large wads of thread ends. It’s just what happens when you’re embroidering by machine. It’s everywhere, but it pools it places on the floor. It is pretty It seems like a waste, but like most things, it doesn’t have to be.

Threads

Let’s be clear about this. You can save all your thread ends, if you want. But they aren’t all the same. The threads you sewed your jeans with are probably not going to be pretty in an art quilt, unless you want a pretty rough looking texture. I save thread ends that are either poly or rayon, or more wonderfully thick#8 metallic like Candelight, Razzel Dazzel or Glamour. Or Sliver like threads. For me, this is all about the shine.

Nesting Ladies

What does that do for your quilt? It makes a floor of it’s own. Nature is messy. There’s all kinds of bits of things, on the forest floor, or at the bottom of a pond. A nice blob of thread looks a lot like that. It puts in a bottom without a hard line.

So you have this wonderful glob of thread. It’s pretty. You want it on your quilt. How are you going to stick it on?

Angelina moon

You can glue it. Steam a Seam will hold it down. You can trap in angelina fiber. It’s a beautiful addition to a moon.

You still have to stitch it down. If you try to just stitch it down with a darning foot, it will trap your foot and make you crazy. It makes me crazy.

My best answer is to put something over it. Some folk use tulle. It dulls the colors. I prefer using a corn starch film, like Aquafilm or Solvy. I pin it over the glob, and stitch it down. When you’re finished, spritz it with water until it disappears. Problem solved.

Hunters Moon 2

Globbing makes a beautiful addition to a quilt. And it uses up all that pretty thread.

Rethinking Stabilizers: What’s on the Inside?

| ellenanneeddy
Clematis Moon in Process

Free motion embroidery has been the most exciting tool I’ve ever had. But it has it’s secrets. Yes, it’s about thread, and stitch quality and hoops. But the secret heart of free motion embroidery is what’s inside. Stabilizer creates the best foundation.

These moths are embroidered on felt, Stitch and Tear, and Totally Stable. The images are all thread.

I’ve been revisiting the stabilizers I use for Free Motion Applique. The stabilizer sandwich I used to use consisted of Totally Stable, hand dyed fabric, and a tight hoop.

I also used to do most of my embroidery on my piece. Lately I make more and more of my elements separately.

I’ve also started embroidering just on felt, leaving the hand dye fabric out of the sandwich.

Why have I changed?

Because stabilizers change, And because I want different things from my work. I’ve seen my work be more incrusted and wanted it to be a bit lighter, less distorted. Separate embroideries allow me to cure by cutting. I can cut off the bits that are distorted by too much stitching.

I’ve also changed my layering.

I’ve lately come to an appreciation of felt. When felt was made of wool, it was an exquisite fabric. When they made it of rayon and poly, not so much. It pulled apart when you looked at it. Now that it’s made of acryllic, it’s strong, embroiderable and unravellable. It can be stitched to the very edge and cut to the very edge. I now use felt instead of batt.

These flowers were made of sheers stuck on with Steam a Seam 2 and backed with felt and Stitch and Tear. No Totally Stabile, because my fabric makes my pattern for me.

But I also use it in my appliques. If I’m using a sheer for the basis of the applique, I use felt and Stitch and Tear as a stabilizer. If I am just making an applique of stitching, I use a pattern made from Totally Stable, a paper like stabilizer with a freezer paper that can be ironed down, stuck on, and then removed.

Leaving the names alone, what am I looking for in a stabilizer?

I’m looking for several abilities and responses in my stabilizers:
Does it iron on?
Does the glue texture show through?
Does the color show through?
Does it make a good drawing surface for a pattern?
Can I remove it afterwards?
Does it tear away or must I cut it away?
How stiff is it once it’s stitched?
Can I cover the edging cleaning with stitchery?

Those are some of the questions that help me decide whether a stabilizer will work for me.

Will I always use what I use now? I doubt it. Right now it’s giving me more stitchery with less weight. Stabilizers will change and I’ll roll with the changes.

The Dirty D Word: Dyslexia Rocks!

| ellenanneeddy
Envy

f

Everything worth doing is worth doing badly. I wish I drew well. I don’t. But what I don’t lack in skill, I own in stubbornness. I am willing to keep doing something badly a very long time if I wish to do something well.

I’ve been revisiting my drawing skills as I’ve been starting new work. I’ve needed a fish in the next piece and spent some time this week. It sent me back to my books and my drawing board to struggle with the dirty d word again.

My drawing surface is an iron on pull off pellon product called Totally Stable. It shows up at sewing stores everywhere. The iron on part is like a freezer paper with a softer drawable, tear-away hand.

light pencil sketch

I wish it were possible to just draw free motion. I can sketch but it helps if there’s a drawing to start from. The hardest thing for me is that I can’t draw smooth lines. I rough things out, and then scratch all over them and then I trace and retrace over and over again. Is that wrong?

rougj outline sketch

It may be but it doesn’t matter much. It’s just the best I can do. I’m deeply dyslexic. It’s not a problem, it’s just a condition. Really, it’s it’s own gift. A different way of looking at things.

When I moved my studio over, I found some french curves I’d bought a while back. I didn’t quite get the use of them. I kept trying to. I just couldn’t quite get it. I didn’t see how the shapes fit around the drawings. Dyslexic.

I have a light table. It helps to have illumination. Even from beneath.

fitting the template to the curve

So I got out my rulers and took my drawings and smoothed them. I turned the plastic templates over and over around the lines and found they did fit in if I was working just in small areas at a time. Using the curves, I outlined the drawing cleaning it, smoothing it out. At first I thought I was cheating. And then I realized I wouldn’t have blinked if I was using a ruler for straight lines instead of soft curves,

It fell apart when I went to do his scales. I didn’t have a template that fit that. So I have shaky scales.

Then I realized he was heading the wrong way. More dyslexia. But this is the good part. The directions just are different for me. I mix them up but I can get there in a heartbeat.

I pulled out my light table, flopped over my drawing and traced it the other direction.

I don’t do this for myself, but for the blog, I zoned the drawing in color, so you can see where I’m going. The fish up above is the same kind of bass, but in another quilt. Just so you can get the idea.

Of course the question is whether smoothed out drawings are better? Is there something stronger in a rough edge. Or have I just made my drawing more defined? I need to sew it out to know.

For you, I hope you grab any tool you need without embarrassment or shame and use it to do what you dream. It’s not cheating. It’s working with what we’ve got.