textile artist

Building the Story: The Designing of a Quilt

| ellenanneeddy

There are people who tell me they can plan a quilt. They make drawings. They decide what they’re going to do. And that’s what they do.

Personally, I’m in awe. I can design until I’m blue. Somewhere in the middle, the quilt lets me know what it needs. And I need to follow that down whatever road it leads me down.

I fell in love with this mockingbird image. But it’s off my map a bit. Once I got it embroidered, I realized it was strictly a desert bird.

I don’t do desserts. I’m a water creature. I live in moonlight and water. But this is a bird full of sun and fire.

So I went looking for a background. I happened to have some purple behind the piece of orange I put up. And it had the bright green aura of cactus in it. The purple added a night and day element.

I needed to decide on plants. If I were to do anything it had to be cactus.

You can tell the fact that I don’t think in terms of deserts when I tell you I had nothing to make cactus and desert from. I had to dye more greens.

Which is when I found these wonderful pictures of owls in cactus.

So now I’m making owl heads. I need to do them before I make the cactus so I can make holes and fit them in.

One decision leads to another. I can’t make one until I’ve made that. Then new questions get asked and new things get included. If I think I’m in charge, I’m delusional.

But I believe in my art. I believe in what it demands. I am its servant. And I am willing to listen to what it would like me to do next.

Applique Rescue: Hacks on Fixing Appliques

| ellenanneeddy

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.

Leaf Mantises Too: More exploration

| ellenanneeddy

After several weeks of playing with leaf mantises, I have discovered several things. First off: a warning! They are addictive. At least they’re not fattening.

Secondly, I need more leaves. Lots and lots and lots of leaves. All the shops are seasonally xmasy, so that means rummage sales, and Yours to Create. Too many is not enough.

They work better if you stitch the leaves and connecting parts separately. I like the running garnet stitch better than a fully connected zigzag.

The head as a leaf doesn’t always work. I don’t know that I’d do that every time. But an embroidered one works just fine.

Straight stitch works best on leaves. Contrasting thread is your friend here.

I hope you get the time to pick something you want to play with and work it out. The exploration and the journey are all the fun.

Free motion Applique: following the Curve

| ellenanneeddy

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.

Health Update, 12-10-23

| ellenanneeddy

Well, the doctors have finally decided. Sometime within the next week or two, I’ll be receiving a stent that should correct the heart blockage. Once that stabilizes, in 3-6 months, they’ll do the open heart surgery for the aneurysm and the leaky valve.

I’m grateful for doctors who are thoughtful and not given to a gung-ho philosophy toward surgery. And I’m grateful for the time to process this internally. I’ve gone through most of the grief process, and we do grieve when our bodies fail us. I believe I will be grieving also for the loss of butter and steak. That will take a while.

And I’m grateful to live in a time when medicine offers these options. Both my parents, my uncle, and one of my grandparents died of heart issues. We live in a different world, now, thank God.

Mostly, I’m grateful for the care and love you’ve all poured on me. I have no words but thank you. We’ll keep you posted on dates.

Butterflies: Shading and Blending

| ellenanneeddy

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.

Why is This Butterfly Ugly? Color VS background

| ellenanneeddy

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.

Medical Update 3: Hurry up and wait, Will you?

| ellenanneeddy

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.

Can I Kelp It? Couching Unusual Yarns

| ellenanneeddy

I needed some kelp for the bottom of this shore scene. I wanted something textural and yet not dense.

There aren’t a lot of great pictures of kelp. But I found these in an art nouveau book of botanicals. It twists. And it’s long and narrow with crinkled edges.

As a lucky find, there was this strange yarn at the rescue mission sale. Both of these are loopy yarns. They were in vogue several years ago for scarfs. They have loops woven in that will make great kelp. The color also fits into the scheme, blending with the heron.

It can be spread apart to look like kelp. That’s a difficulty all its own. You can spread yarn apart, but there aren’t enough fingers to hold it that way and free motion over it. You also can’t free-motion it without it being caught in the darning foot.

So I took a two-pronged approach, I knotted the yarn where I wanted it to spread,

I couched it in place with a regular presser foot, so that I could control the width of the yarn.

I covered it with a Dissolvable stabilizer. Then I stitched it all down with the darning foot where I wanted the kelp to be. I wet down the stabilizer to make it go away.

Some yarns need special care. Don’t be afraid to use several approaches to get what you want. In the end, all that matters is the result.