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Stop Children, What’s that Sound?: A Cautionary Tale about Sewing Machines

| ellenanneeddy

Yesterday I got my 770 Bernina back from the shop. It had been gone for two months.

That sounds like forever, and it kind of was. Blessedly I have backup machines. I welcomed it home with a leftover project I found when I was cleaning through storage bins. I thought we’d both work back up to it.

What happened? Several things, some of which might have happened to anyone. Some of which were strictly my fault.

My 770 is a very smart machine. And it’s experienced. We are now up to 16,000,000 stitches together. And when it feels it’s had enough, it requests a trip to the vet.

Did I listen? I was sure it could stretch for another two weeks. Which stretched easily into two months. That did not help. But that was not the biggest problem

The last time I broke a needle, it shattered. One tiny bit ended up in the back of the housing and shaft. The shock from that pulled it from a circle to an oblong shape. When we tried to put a bobbin in, it threw it across the room. I hadn’t seen that before.

I did consider holy water, but didn’t work either. It took the excellent Emily, mechanic miracle worker of Feed Mill Fabrics and Quilts, some while to get the parts and figure it out. Emily is a treasure.

My point is, somebody really ought to learn from my stupidity. First off I could have followed my own rules. New day, new needle. New project new needle. That doesn’t stop needle breakage but it does cut it down. I had cut some corners.

Secondly, I should have been listening. I do listen to books and music while I sew. But I should have been listening.

I can tell even in a full classroom when someone has a dull needle. And any bad noise should precipitate a full stop. Don’t try to keep going. Stop right there. I should have.

We think about sewing with our eyes and our hands. Visually and tactically. But it’s aural too.

So it’s simple. When you hear a bad noise, stop. Don’t push on. Do not collect $200. Stop right there. And give your machine what it needs.

Me waiting for my machine.

In between, while I was cleaning, I found this very cool unfinished frog. I’m warming up the machine on that, just to become reacquainted.

Emily is the mechanic at Feedmill Fabric and Quilts at Onida, IL, She is indeed a miracle worker and a miracle herself. I trust her with my machine every time. And Beth has an explosion of new fabric in. You should go there.

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Seeing Spots: Some Strategies for Shading around Garnet Stitch

| ellenanneeddy

We worked with garnet stitch to do octopi several weeks ago. That was an all-over garnet stitch that could be shaded across the piece. But what if we want separate spots and smooth shading around them? How do we go about that?

What we need to do is to define the spot clearly, and then shade around it. But shading with one color around the spot negates a color range shade. We need to put in our spots and then shade around them defining different sides of the spot with different colors.

We start dark to light with the darkest threads first. The first color needs an outline stitch done at an angle to define the shape. Then we’ll shade out to the side, and then smooth the line between the outline and the shading.

But after that row, there’s more shading than outlining. When we come to each spot we outline the spot on that side and shade past the edges of it. Then in the next color row, we outline it from the other side and shade it into the earlier colors. The spot is clearly in the color range but it’s defined by the outline around it that fits the shading as it changes.

It’s a cool trick for including spots in a smooth range of colored stitchery.

For more information about shading colors check out The Long and the Short of It: Blending Stitches with the Long Stitch.

Flamingo Legs and Other Troubles: Designing for Smaller Images

| ellenanneeddy

Free motion stitching is versatile. One of the graces of working free motion is the effects you can get with the stitching, just out of the angle your fabric goes through the machine. It’s about filling in space.

I’ve been asked by someone to do a flamingo quilt. I’d been hesitant in general to quilt flamingos because they’re a signature piece for Ann Fahl who won at Paducah with an astonishing work called Flamingo Garden. I haven’t wanted to step on her turf. I hope she won’t see my working on a flamingo in that way

But as soon as I started to look at flamingos, I was hooked. The colors are eye-popping, after all those properly grey birds and they are outright silly. I’m in love.

So I drew up three flamingos bathing. These are much smaller birds. They’re around 18 inches as opposed to 40″. Their impact is different and the coloration on them has to be different. It makes sense. If you’re filling in less space you have to cut out some of what you’ve used to fill in a larger space.

There are several ways to do that. One is to use fewer colors. When I choose colors, I choose the darkest of the base color, then a shader color, a range of the base color dark to light, a shocker, and then the lightest of the base color. That range can be massive. It’s not at all uncommon for me to use 60 colors in an image. But for these little birds, it has to be less. I ended up using about 20 colors

The other way to expand the space is to use a smaller zigzag.

Finally, I used a straight stitch instead of a zigzag stitch for the detail overlayer.

Every piece is different: in size, in coloration, in stitchery. But I’m pleased with these little birds.

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.

Color Therapy: Should Realism Get In The Way OF Great Color?

| ellenanneeddy

I was working on Green Heron Hunting last week and put up several backgrounds on Facebook to choose from. Usually, people’s responses give me great ideas about what is and isn’t working. I put this up to a different group and was pretty much told unilaterally that they were all too wild. What was most distressing was the person who suggested that the black photo wall was the best background for it.

I don’t have words. I asked. It’s my own fault. In fairness, the backgrounds were wild. But not unusual for me. Mostly they were not “realistic” and the bird did have to be placed right to stand out,

This is the one that made the best sense to me

Realism is one of the old art standards. I’m always awed by it. That doesn’t mean I’m good at it. I’m constitutionally incapable of it, I suppose it depends on what your goals are.

Up until the impressionists, we measured art progress in terms of how real it looked. This came to a skidding halt for me after Delicoix and David showed us the French revolution and tables with dead rabbits up close. But another thing happened as well. We had cameras. We had photography. All of a sudden there was realism at the click of a button. Photography is still a measure of skill and eye. But instantly attainable.

The Impressionists opened the door to modern art by saying that we were not tied to realism. They suggested we could use art to explore other ideas, thoughts, and experiences. Art is a language of emotion and passion. It can reach past realism to say what is true in so many other ways.

My art has always been an examination of social systems. It’s allegorical and emotional. It’s about living on each other’s edges. I also am due for cataract surgery soon and that may be affecting my color choices. But I can’t imagine anything duller than a perfectly correct bird in 80 shades of brown. in a brown field.

Besides, color really is an excellent anti-depressant. Nothing brightens my heart more than a new color chart. Or a wild array of color that visually bounces off the wall. Or a new shade of purple thread.

So there’s no harm in a bright red background and a turquoise stream. Or a set of wild toadstools in glory gory shades. Or a bird with purple in its wings.

Now all I need is a knot of toads.

Small work: Just Playing

| ellenanneeddy
1055-22 Blue Blooms

After all those larger pieces, I’ve relaxed into doing some tiny pieces, partially for a rest, and partially for having some new work at the Galesburg Art Center. I’d done a class with some fabric rubbing and had new colors to play with. So I played.

104822 Swirling Leaves
1046-22 Deco Bee
1051-22 Deco Daisy
1054-22 Wind over Water 3
1050-22 Coneflowers
1047-22 Ginko Leaves

It’s not a high-impact run. But it is a place to try out some new things and try out using things in new ways. That’s always fun.

1049-22 Dragonfly Mandella

I’ve also been introduced to a new thread called glide which looks metallic without being metallic. It’s a matter of color matching, but I’m impressed. I love metallic but it always behaves better from the bottom than through the needle.

1057-22 Deco Dragonflies

After this, I’m going to push through to the two next bigger pieces, but I needed a break.

The new pieces will be available on Etsy soon. Or you can look them up on my profile page.

I found the Glide thread at Feed Mill Fabrics and Quilts. They have a nice collection. If you’re missing that metallic look and you want to skip the metallic drama.

Sometimes you just need to play.