I work a lot with embroidered appliques. These are embroidered separate pieces I can apply to the surface of my piece. Because they’re separate, they don’t distort the piece as much, and they can be moved endlessly until you stitch them down.
I discovered several working hacks for applique rescue doing this. A 2-foot lily pad takes up way too much space to have as a double layer. It’s just too bulky, and I wanted to stitch frogs to the lily pads which would have made a very dense surface.. I’d heard about cutting out behind appliques, but I hadn’t tried it before. It worked quite well. I was able to stitch down my frogs without an extra layer of felt, stabilizer, embroidery, and hand dye. I was worried about the integrity of the piece, but once it was stitched and trimmed, it was quite stable.
This works if you’re sure of what you have designed. What if you stitch it down and change your mind? Artists call this pentimenti. The artist chooses something and changes their mind. On a painting, it would be a layer underneath with different images. On fiber art, it’s a series of small holes where you ripped something out.
This was a week of set backs. I’ve been working on finishing the purple heron. When I get towards the end, I sometimes make decisions I regret.
This happened with my purple heron this week. I was working with some larger lily pads than I usually do, and I put them in first before the heron. In between the heron and the lily pads were the butterflies. When I finally got the heron stitched in, the butterfly was way too close and personal.
Removing an applique is a drastic thing to do. It’s been stitched down with a free-motion zigzag stitch that is quite dense. I’ve done it with a mustache trimmer. I also love my surgical scalpels. That’s what I used here. You can cut through the stitch on the backside. I have a layer of protective felt and stabilizer between that and the front.
But be prepared for holes. I hoped the needle holes would shrink when I steamed the piece. Not enough.
Here’s another rescue. A roll of tape can remove a lot of excess thread after ripping out.
Not to worry about the holes. I got out some left-over spirals and placed them in a design where the hole was. What hole? After that, I replaced my butterfly in a better spot.
Here it is fixed. I need to stipple in the water next.
,Does it happen to me? Of course, it does. Rather regularly. But it isn’t what goes wrong with a piece of art that defines it. It’s what you do after to fix it.
This is under the heading of sneaky secret tricks. I rarely use an applique foot for applique. Instead, I use my darning foot and cover the raw edge in a free-motion stitch.
Why? Mostly because I rarely use a straight edge in my work, except for borders. I’m a curvy girl and I think in terms of curves.
I wanted a curvy vine for my butterflies to fly over and for the flowers to nestle into. layered on another piece of green hand dye, stitched out my vine in a straight stitch, and cut away all the excess. It’s best to get rid of all the extra fabric you can. I use pelican scissors to trim as close as I can get to the seam. Pelican scissors have an odd bend that lets you cut right on the edge.
Then I picked a light, dark and medium set of threads for the edge. Vines have two sides, and one can be done light and the other dark. If it’s a complicated vine, it may take a wider range. You want colors that could be the same if they were in a darker or lighter environment.
Stitching the top and bottom line of the vine in different colors gives it a visual distinction that makes it look dimensional. And because it’s free motion, the line is fluid and follows the curve more graciously.
Here’s my piece, almost ready to back and bind. Free motion applique is just what a curvy girl ordered.
This week brought me two sewing machines at the shop. That doesn’t stop production, but it does structure what I work on. My 770 bounced out of adjustment when I hit a lump of too-thick thread, and my 630 is not seeing the thread up top and won’t sew. So what is left is my 220.
Make no mistake! I love my 220. It’s a three-quarter-head Bernina that is my go-to classroom machine. It has limited stitches, but all I want out of life is really zigzag and straight. And it has the heart and guts of a Bernina. Perhaps because it’s smaller, I tend to be protective of it. I do hate having only one production machine in-house because if something else happens….You guessed it. An addict is always an addict. I guess at least free-motion stitching isn’t fattening.
So I’m stitching small component pieces right now. I’ve been working on white butterflies for a while, with several different plans for them.
I wanted some white butterflies, particularly for the purple heron quilt. It needed brightening. But white is always difficult, because it’s usually just too bright. And flat white has no shading in it. So how do you build shading in white? You’re left either working in pastels or greys to try to get a dynamic between light and dark.
Of course, using a too-wide range of pastels creates a color that looks like a nursery toy. And grey is basically boring.
So here, my solution was to start with a periwinkle blue, use silver, and then iridescent white thread to top it off. The blue shades the darkest parts, the silver is a nice in-between, and the iridescent white sparks off the lightest areas. It’s always a good plan to shade dark to light, with at least three colors.
But while I was working on the white parts, I realized I wanted to fill the eye spots and edges differently. I put in a darker edge and either a lighter side of the same shade, or a brighter spot in the center. Rather than see that as shading, I think of it more as blending color.
You can’t do this without enough colors, and the colors on metallics are always more limited, but the Madeira Supertwists were designed with a darker and lighter shade of each color. I outlined with a darker shade and filled in with the lighter. The effect is a more dimensional space.
I have several quilts in mind for these butterflies. Next, more new ladybugs! Shading with black threads.
Sometimes I think I should call my blog Studio for Real. I probably make the same bumbles and false starts as anyone else. I do try to show them to you for several reasons. It’s good for you to see that perfect is an abstract that doesn’t exist. That anything worth doing is worth doing badly. And that everything is basically an experiment. It’s Wednesday at the Micky Mouse Club. Anything can happen.
I’ve been working on the purple heron for a while When I put in the white lotuses, I wanted more. More of that white sparkle. So I started some white metallic butterflies.
I had some leftover felt squares and I used them for stabilization. But they weren’t all the same color. I didn’t want to put a layer of hand-dye into the sandwich so I didn’t.
Three quarters through the butterfly I turned it over to photo it. It was ugly. Irredemably ugly. I’d stitched my colors from periwinkle, sage green, silver, to crystaline white. Was it that really pale green that did it? How did it get grungy?
That happens a fair amount. Particularly when a piece is half done. A lot of times it gets better as you go on. Or put the eyes in.
It is better cut out. But compared to the ones on teal or white felt? No contest!
It’s official. I’ve found an officially ugy color. That soft sage green is only good for fish and frog tummies. I won’t use it with something I want sparkly white.
But it’s also deeply affected by the bright green background behind it. My backgrounds make a big difference, particularly if I don’t add in a layer of hand dye. That dark green did me no favors.
Next I decided just to see what the difference would be, to make up some butterflies in Poly Neon with white felt. I thought I might need more brightness.
Surprise! I’ll use these brighter butterflies, but not in this quilt. The metallic ones are more subtle. I wouldn’t have bet on choosing subtle, but this time it’s right.
Do I always thrash around about decisions? No, not unless I do. We all need the time in our art journey to try things out, to take false steps, and to turn, turn again until we come round right.
Late this September I was diagnosed with a leaky heart valve, an aneurysm, and a capillary blockage. Since then I’ve been waiting for the doctors to make up their minds.
It’s serious. It’s very serious. And the doctors seem to need to talk about it very seriously for the next month and a half to figure out what to do first. I’m very frustrated by having to hurry up and wait. They tell me the diagnosis is early enough that we can take some time to decide.
In a way, that’s a good thing. I’ve found myself in a grief process connected with this, and it’s given me time to get past my disbelief, shock, rage, and depression associated with it.
It also gave me some time to sell some quilts to have the funds to take care of whatever else isn’t in Medicare or insurance. For those of you who have purchased quilts to help me, I don’t have words to thank you enough. I feel much more secure and safe because of you.
For the moment, it seems like nothing is going to happen before Thanksgiving. Christmas we’re still figuring out.
So in the middle of that, I’m doing the one thing I know how to do best. I’m working on new quilts, and new techniques. I’m focusing on new work. And I’m grateful for the love and support you’ve all shown me. Especially Don.
I’ll keep you posted. It’s all happening eventually. And until then, it’s all right now.
Whenever you do any kind of representative art, you end up needing to do your research. Does the frog have three toes or two? Does it matter?
Sometimes it really does. Sometimes it really doesn’t. But it’s always more impressive to get your details right.
I do water lilies a lot. Lotus, not so much. And I’m really not sure why. But for this quilt. I want lotus, with their big stand-up pads and their flowers standing proudly on their stems. I need the vertical motion of them.
So I went looking for pictures. When I did, I found lotuses and waterlilies side by side in the search for lotuses. So what is the difference?
I decided it was in the way the petals curved inward, Instead of having a petal shaded differently on each side, I shaded them so that the shadow was in the middle of the curve.
Each quilt gives me an opportunity to explore the shapes, colors, and shadings.. We look as artists for formulas that we can use. But in the end, it’s all observation set in the colors we play with. And a dance of choices, individual but built on all the choices before.
I love minnows! My dad used to bring me home minnows when he’d been fishing, so I could watch them. They aren’t exactly like fish visually. They have parts that are solid, but they also have fins and underbits that are really translucent. How do you do that in thread?
I used to not pay much attention to the kinds of metallic threads I used. I mixed them all together by color and that was that. But lately, I’ve been paying more attention. Metallic thread is not only shiny. It comes in different kinds of transparency.
Why would that matter? A more transparent crystal thread gives a translucency to your embroidery. It’s not quite see-through. Most wound metallic threads are not at all see-through. But the flecked metallic threads can be to some extent.
Most metallic threads are not. They are a strictly shiny surface that reflects, in both ways, the solidity of metal.
Metalic-colored threads have the shine, but they are not see-through either.
Crystal metallics are different. They have a translucency that translates into your stitching as being see-through.
With some careful planning, the bodies of the minnows are mostly solid, but the mixture of metallic silver and iridescent white crystal makes for transparent-looking fins.
It’s a trick, but it’s a cool trick.
These minnows will be in Shadow on the Shore. I’m not sure how many minnows we’ll use, but there’s always room for leftovers.
Most of my quilts are about me exploring ideas and forms. Within that, I indulge myself quite a lot. My interest is creating images in thread, and landscapes in dye. And I pursue it endlessly.
But not all my quilts are for me or for show. There’s a small number of quilts I make for others: for their particular delight, for healing, for an expression of who they are as well as what I do.
Don might be the hardest person to buy presents for in the world, unless you are ok on buying someone a river of underwear and socks. He can’t or won’t ( I can’t tell) tell you what he would like for a present.
And there is a need for presents. Not just for the recipient but a need to let someone know that they mean the world to you. That needs to be marked in some way tangible and real.
So you send a card. Of some sort. I hate working in paper. It’s unforgiving and fragile. So I make him small quilts each year that would be cards if they weren’t quilts.
A quilt for someone else is about them. It’s your relationship with them. These include the kids (and if you are wondering that would be the three dogs and two cats). And because they are for fun, and not about the wheel of produced art, they include all kinds of fabrics and silliness, which is a kind of silliness I really don’t let into my art pieces. It’s just for him.
When we make something especially just for one person, it reflects who we are with them and who they are with us. It’s a gift not only of the hands but the head and the heart.
I sat down yesterday and mixed the colors for dyeing. It felt like I was sitting in a circle of old friends. Scarlet, sitting next to Fuschia who had just made friends with a new color Dragonfruit, and was waving across the color wheel to the Lemon/lime.
I’m dyeing fabric today in preparation for surgery. If I’m going to have to go through heart surgery, there better be a really big pony after all the poop. So a pile of fresh fabric waiting for me is sensible. It fills the time while I’m waiting and it leaves me with a lovely pile of fabric to dream about until I can sew again. It’s good preparation I think. And a good way to fill the waiting time.
I started dyeing fabric at thirteen. I found a book in the library that blew me out of the water, with it’s papercut illustrations. The Emperor and the Kite, by Jane Yoland used paper in variegated colors that resembled the hand dye I still do. I wanted to work with the technique and it never occured to me to dye or paint paper. I dyed fabric with Rit.
This all happened in the kitchen sink and my father who was the major cook in the house had opinions about it. My father was almost non-verbal, but he looked like I’d kicked his puppy when he saw the kitchen after I was done. He unblocked the sink, scrubbed it down and said nothing. He always understood the passion around projects. He had his own, and he often helped with mine.
But it set something in me. I don’t really want colors that stand apart from each other .I want them to mingle and to dance within the fabric itself. I’ve been dyeing fabric in some form ever since.
Colors are about relationships. They have relationships with each other that depend on how they are formulated. I am not a dye master. Or someone who can responsibly measure dye and mix it reliably. I dump dye into a cup. I buy a bevy of colors and use them knowing how they relate to each other.
“Knowing the definition of a word is a pinpoint on a map. It tells you where you are. It doesn’t tell you how to get where you want to go. It’s the rawest of beginnings.
In the same way, color theory feels like the the dreariest driest subject in the catalog of art education. We look at the wheel and say the canticle, red and blue make purple, red and yellow make orange…. It feels like a recitation from kindergarten. And sadder still, it’s not always true. We’ve all mixed yellow and blue to get the most grizzly browns. It feels like finding out about Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. A nice story for children but not really true.
Part of what we’re missing with that is the reality that it’s a theory. It works, simply when it does work and when it doesn’t, we need to explore why. Color theory doesn’t account for imperfect color. Color me surprised. Another thing that is imperfect in a imperfect world.
The most interesting distinction with mixing color for me is the contrast in thermal energy. Each color in its imperfections leans a bit towards the yellow sunny side, or the greenish shady side. If you mix all sun colors or a shade colors, the combinations are clear and bright. If you mix sun and shade, you get earth colors.
So if I place Lavender and Orchid together, as sun colors they blend into each other. If I add Lilac, a shade color, the combination browns out a bit. Still light purple but with a browned quality. If I add a sun color like Clear yellow, it will stay clear. Lemon yellow with its shade qualities will brown it out.
The real question is not where we are on the map but where can we go. What color theory really describes is the relationships between colors. Within the color wheel, the spots within that wheel define the same kinds of relationships between different colors. Those relationships go back to that primary list of monochromatic, complementary, and analogous color themes that seem so very dull. Because they define the tension between colors.
For dyeing, you have to know the name and know the color. They all lean one direction or another. There are no perfect primaries, secondaries or tertiaries. If you know which way they lean, you can predict the effect. But you never know exactly what the dye on fabric will do. And it’s never the same. Each piece of fabric is unique.
The distance between colors, creates the pull across the wheel. The closer they are to each other, the least pull. The least tension. The least excitement.
The farthest distance any color combination has is directly across from each other, as complements. Those are combinations that tug and pull and electrify us. Colors right on top of each other are smooth and slide into each other.
It’s not one combination. It’s a circle of combinations that create the same feeling. We can move the circle endlessly and get the same energetic result.”
Which is why it’s such a good thing I know these colors as my friends. I know who the mix with and who they fight with and what it will look like after they have a party together.
I’m spending two days dancing with color to pour myself into that joy, instead of the apprehension about the surgery. After all, color is really an antidepressant. And I’ll have a lovely pile of new fabric to play with after I’m back and healed.
