The Accidental Embroiderer

Untitled design (35)_imgupscaler.ai_Sharpen_2K
Menu

The gilded salmon

MiaUncategorisedLeave a comment

And while we’re on the subject of using metallic foil in different kinds of ancient and ethnic designs, here’s a salmon done in the style of the native Americans of the Pacific Northwest. Before I decided to stitch it with the gilt foil, I had problems getting the colours right, but once I added the mottled green-gold metal foil on the back, the design started to work, and then all I had to do was to echo the colours in the rest of the stitching. As usual, the colour of the foil hasn't scanned very accurately but you can still get the general idea

Alaskasalmon
The gilded salmon in the style of the Pacific Northwest

 

The gilded serpent

MiaCeltic and Pictish designsLeave a comment

I don’t seem to be able to give up the idea of using metallic gilding foil in embroidery. When it works, it looks wonderful, and gives an effect that nothing else quite matches. On the other hand, it can be a technical nightmare to work with, flaking off from the fabric when you least expect it. I keep telling myself to forget it and get on with other things, but I keep being drawn back to it. In some designs, such as re-creations of Celtic and Pictish art, it gives the effect of old gold that works like nothing else to gives these ancient designs a feeling of antiquity and mystery

I’ve come a long way in working out the technical details of how best to apply the gold to the fabric, and although even now it doesn’t always work, the results are better than they used to be. Here’s an example of red-gold gilt foil used where it has a real effect – on a Pictish design taken from one of the ancient carved stones near where we live. As usual, the effect of the metallic gold doesn’t really come through on the scan, but it looks wonderful on the original

 

Serp
A Pictish serpent from Aberdeenshire, appliqued with gilded fabric

The zentangle bird

MiaZentangle style1 Comment

Judging by the searches people do before reaching this blog, zentangle designs are very popular, and a lot of people look at the zentangle embroideries I've done in the past. I’ve always liked the whole idea of space-filling stylised designs, and so to keep those zentangle searchers happy, here’s a bird in the same style.

 

Zenbird

The zentangle bird

These elaborate designs are NOT easy to digitise. Normally I can digitise a drawing in an afternoon, or at most in a day. But this bird took nearly a week to finish, and has nearly 60,000 stitches, which is a lot more than anything else I’ve ever done. However it is a pretty large design and takes a lot of stitches

Aficionados of the zentangle style will probably be able to point out several reasons why this isn’t a genuine zentangle, but it was never intended to be a “pure” example of the style. For a start, I suppose a real zentangle is in black and white, not colour, and the designs don’t usually relate much to the subject. But I like the blotchy effect of the painted felt background in this one, and the contrast between the red and the green, and the leafy effect of the background stitching. I might do another design like this, but not for a while. This one took so much work that I think I’ll relax and do something a bit simpler before I try it again

Snipe (or maybe a woodcock)

MiaFabric paintingLeave a comment

I’m still getting to grips with the new features on the Innovis-I, but I’ve also been using it to stitch out some designs that I did while I had no machine. Here’s one that I think worked out well. It shows the effect that hand-painted fabric can give to an otherwise simple design. I used a blotchy painted fabric for this snipe’s wings, and although you can’t really see the details of the painting under all the stitching, it still gives a dense, intricate feel to the surface. I think it looks a little like tweed – very appropriate for a Highland snipe! (or maybe a woodcock – I can’t quite decide)

The background is also painted – it's difficult to get very sharp painted images on felt but in this case the blotchy background looks OK. It will look better when it's mounted, so that the boundaries of the field are pulled a bit closer to the bird

Snipe
Highland snipe/woodcock

…and back again with Cherri’s turtle and fish quilt

MiaEmbroidery for quilts1 Comment

I’m still recovering a bit from the events of last week. The dealer rang to tell me that he was returning my repaired Innovis machine, but when it arrived it seemed to be in a different box from the one I'd sent it in. No problem, I thought – he’s just re-packed it. But when I opened the immense box I found, not my old Innovis 4000, but a new Innovis-I. Within minutes I was on the phone to the dealer to complain, but he assured me that it was the right machine. Eventually I figured out that my totally fantastic husband had arranged for the Innovis-I to be sent to me as a birthday surprise. Well, it certainly was that!

DSC03110a
 The magnificent new machine

 

Anyway, although I haven’t been able to do any stitching for several weeks, Cherri has been busy and has produced one of her most successful quilts. She put it together from some old designs of fish and turtles that I did a long time ago, and although the wonderful colours give it terrific vitality and energy, the patterns and colours remain subtle and intriguing

 

Turtle and Fish Quilt 2012

Cherri's turtle and fish quilt

 

Disaster…

MiaUncategorised1 Comment

Well, the embroidery machine has conked out. I think that part of the needle or the bobbin assembly has become misaligned, but whatever the reason it's definitely not working. At the moment it's all boxed up and waiting for the carrier to take it down to Edinburgh and the kind attentions of David Drummond, but it will probably be several weeks before it's back

So the blog is currently on hold because I don't have any new stitchouts to post. I'm spending the time drawing and digitising so that when the machine is home again I'll have lots of new material to show, but meanwhile I'm afraid that there won't be any new posts

Hope to see you in a few weeks time

The silver fish panel

MiaNew approachesLeave a comment

The panel with the gilt and Mylar fish is done. The piecing was a bit fiddly, especially when the last few squares were added, but I ran a decorative stitch between the squares and although the whole panel doesn’t lie quite flat it’s not too bad, and it will look a lot better when it’s properly mounted.

Fishpanel
The finished panel

The photo doesn't give much idea of the size – the panel is about 30 inches long (76 cm) and 12 inches high (30 cm), so it's really quite large, and with all that gold and silver you can't really ignore it when it's in the room.

The question remains as to whether it was worth all the work it took. It’s not entirely satisfactory, although I can’t say exactly why. It’s certainly very garish with all that metallic glitz, but as someone told me, “Sometimes you need a bit of garishness”. I’ll put it aside and look at it again in a few weeks, and maybe I’ll be able to put my finger on what’s wrong

 

The Hawaiian bags

MiaDesigns for projectsLeave a comment

Recently Cherri has been planning a trip to Hawaii with some friends, and has come up with a lovely idea for travel presents. She wanted to make quilted bags in a typical Hawaiian quilting style and asked me to come up with some applique designs that she could use

I don’t really know anything about Hawaiian quilting apart from the fact that it seems to involve large squares of stylised and appliqued flowers and leaves, invariably done in radially symmetrical designs. I suspect that the design tradition has its roots in the tapa designs of the South Pacific, but that’s only a guess

The designs are simple and fun to do, and rather remind me of the papercuts I used to make as a child. Cherri has interpreted them in brilliant tropical colours and I think the finished bags are stunning

 

Jackie

Bev

A technical breakthrough!

MiaNew approachesLeave a comment

I’m still working on the silver fish panel and have accidentally come up with a way to solve a lot of the technical problems that have been plaguing me. Following Cherri’s instructions I started sticking the Mylar to the fabric with tape to hold it steady before embroidering, when I suddenly had a brain wave and stuck a layer of Sellotape (or Scotch tape in American) to the back of the Mylar before stitching it on to the background fabric. This really improved things. It made the film a lot more robust and a lot easier to handle, and it stopped it rucking up and wrinkling when it was placed on the fabric. Best of all, the film was no longer cut through by overstitching

Silverfish
 Large areas of unsupported Mylar, but the stitching doesn't cut through it

 

So then it occurred to me that the same trick might work with the gold leaf, so I tried it and it was just as good. The taped foil was strong and easy to handle, and there was no need to glue it to the fabric. And best of all, there were no little flakes of metal drifting about

  Gold fish

The top fish is made with tape-supported Mylar and the bottom one with tape-supported gold leaf

I’m now contemplating using double-sided tape, so that the film or the leaf can be stuck to the fabric and make things even easier

It’s true that the taped Mylar or leaf might not stand up well to washing. but that doesn’t matter for this project, because the fish panel will be mounted and not worn. Still, I’ll do a test piece and throw it in the washing machine to see what happens

 

Learning to live with Mylar

MiaNew approachesLeave a comment

I’ve been working with the Mylar for several days now and have struggled from time to time. As a material to work with it’s a bit of a curate’s egg – there are some good things about it but also some really annoying things. Perhaps the most irritating is the fact that overstitching the Mylar can cut through the film, which can mean that large pieces of the stuff are cut out, as on this blue fish. There were supposed to be large silver panels on the back, between the narrow bands that remain, but they were neatly excised by the satin stitch overstitching

 

Bluefish
 Blue fish without all its Mylar

 

On the other hand, the large areas of Mylar on the bottom of these fish survived perfectly well, and I can’t see why it remained in place on these, but was cut out of the blue fish

 

  Sardines

Three fish that managed to hang on to all their Mylar

 

As I’ve been discovering, the safest thing to do is to overstitch the Mylar with lines of running stitch, which seem to hold it in place. That’s fine where it suits the design, but sometimes a design demands large areas of plain glittery finish, and then you’re stuck

 

Greenfish
 How to keep your Mylar – add a stitched grid

 

So as advice to anyone starting to digitise designs with Mylar, I’d suggest reducing the density of both running and satin-stitched areas. Even then, however, you can’t really get away with large areas of unsupported Mylar. Still, one of the secrets of good craftsmanship is to recognise the limitations of a medium, and give in to it gracefully, so I’d better learn to bow to the inevitable