Angelina Fiber

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

Seeing Right Through: Applique with Sheers

| ellenanneeddy
Splash! in process

I know it’s not supposed to be quilter’s fabric. Sorry. I can’t leave it alone. It’s too much fun to play with test tube babies. Over the years I’ve collected a special stash of laces, organzas, chiffons, brocades and just plain weird stuff.

It’s not anything I would piece. But no one would call me a piecer so that’s moot. But it’s wonderful for the things in this world that are, by nature transparent and/or translucent. I’ve talked earlier about finishing sheer edges with a soft edge finish, Sun Rocks, Wind, Water: Elements with Soft Edges.

But there are times you want that edge to show. Edging lace and sheer applique is a way of not only defining the edge of the applique but of controlling the color and controlling exactly how transparent it is.

I’m working on some moonflowers and some snow drops for a quilt called Splash. The quilt features a dark mostly blue background, and I wanted glowing white flowers for the background. Moonflowers are morning glories that bloom only at night. They’re perfect.

It’s also a way of lightening a darker quilt.

I used both lace and organza for my flowers. I do like them to have small differences, so they have their own individuality. Then I placed them with Steam a Seam 2 on a piece of white felt, with some green leaves. Why felt? It’s a spectacular stabilizer, with a layer of Stitch and Tear underneath. Why white? Because it’s all going to show. Whatever color felt I put under the lace will show through and define the color of the finished flowers. Organza will show through the most, lace less so, and Angelina fiber the least.

Knowing that is power. Felt comes in a full Crayola box of colors and it allows me an extra layer of shading in the process. The thread I use will also define the colors and shade things into darks and lights. Here’s a collection of flowers with different backing felt colors.

white over pail blue
angelina fiber
white over pale blue
white over pink
white over white
White on White
white over turquoise

I use a number of pastels as well as different whites to stitch the edges to give depth. As usual, it’s darker where the sun isn’t shining.

shading the flower

I stitched the flowers with a free motion zigzag. Here’s a little video showing how that works.

I did these moonflowers separately from the piece because they’re relatively large and would have distorted the surface. But for the smaller snowdrops, I applied them directly with Steam a Seam ad then stitched on them directly. The cool thing about this is that the background peeks through, like all translucent flowers. It’s a cool effect.

snowdrops directly on the fabric

And it’s a great reason to play with sparkle lace. There should always be a reason for sparkle lace!

Sun, clouds, Water and Rocks: Making elements with Soft edged Appliqué

| ellenanneeddy

When we applique something, we think most about the fabrics used together and how they interact. But the way it’s appliqued, the stitch and threads used make just as big an impact. I’m going to talk for a couple of weeks about applique edges, and how those change the look of our work.

Steam A Seam 2

Soft edge applique is for things that don’t have single color edges. Bubbles. Clouds. Water. Mist. Angelina fiber. Sunlight. And rocks. Why? A hard line of stitching makes them stand out too strongly and makes an ugly line. So all I want to see is the change in fabric. Particularly with sheers and laces. It’s a direct applique technique because it’s glued and stitched directly to the top.

I do most of my applique with Steam A Seam 2. It’s a peanut butter sandwich with two pieces of paper and tacky glue in the center. I can peel off one side of the paper, tack it to my fabric, peel off the other side and then place it on your piece over and over again until I’m happy with the result and I iron it down.

I usually cut c and s shapes. These flow into each other, and they make all kinds of natural light and shadow. You can cut pieces one after another following a similar shape.

Here’s a sun and some clouds. Same shapes basically, but they fill in well. The nice thing about Steam A Seam 2 is that it sticks, but you can reposition it. I’ll put pieces up on my design wall and then play with them until they’re right.

several placements for the sun and clouds

I never really trust glue. Sorry. I just don’t. I’ve seen it too often. You iron it down and it peels back off. Maybe I don’t always iron long enough. But I always stitch it down, just in case. Then I know it’s not going to travel anywhere.

Soft edge applique is done with invisible thread in the top and an unobtrusive color thread in the bobbin. I use a zigzag free motion stitch, at an angle. That gives me the most amount of edge coverage.

I use an invisible thread. But which one? It seems to depend on you and your machine. I’ve had some good luck with YLI Wonder thread, but I need to take my machine speed down to a crawl to use it on the 770 Bernina. Madeira, Superior, and Gutermann have different grades of monofilament nylon and poly that you can try. If one doesn’t work, try another. I use a topstitching #90 needle, and Sewer’s Aid (a thread lubricant). Will it break? Yes, I can promise you that. But it leaves a soft edge to the piece that makes water and clouds look more real. If the breakage is making me crazy, I sew as slowly as your machine can.

Angled free motion zigzag stitch

Free motion zigzag stitching depends on the angle your fabric takes through the machine. The body shading angle is the one that will give you the most coverage, but the angle will change as you go around the piece. All you want to do is lightly zigzag over the edges.

Water, Land, Sky

It works for rocks too. Rocks aren’t soft, but their edges are never one solid color. So just having a soft edge where you see the hand dye makes a much better rock.

And the best part? I can add a whole other layer of water lace to put my frog in the water. How good is that?

Soft edge applique is perfect for natural elements. Next week we’ll talk about hard edge applique.