Thread-u-cation Thursday: Stem or Outline Stitch

Thread-u-cation Thursday - Stem or Outline Stitch
Sometimes you just want to draw a line from here to there on the surface of the fabric. That's where the Stem or Outline Stitch comes to the rescue. It's a handy stitch for flower stems, of course, but you can also connect tree tops to the ground with this linear stitch. Thus forming the necessary tree trunk.

To delineate one shape from another on your quilt top, run the Outline or Stem Stitch just next to the fabric shape. Chose a thread color that is contrasting in color or value to really make the shape pop.  Or give your tulips a trim and finished look like this guy below using a similar colorway.

Here's how I make my Stem or Outline Stitches: Work from right to left. Insert the needle at B about 1/4" from A. Exit the fabric about half way back to A at C and draw the thread through the fabric. Repeat with C now being point A. Have fun!

 

 

Les Artistes en Beaujolais

If you are in France in mid-April, please stop in to see my quilts at the Quilt Expo en Beaujolais. The exhibit takes place in Graves sur Anse on April 15 - 18. I am one of les artistes! 

Along with quilts by  Michèle Clarès and Hitomi Hanaoka, five of my quilts will be shown. You'll see: Chicory, Fences and Bridges #1, Three Sisters in Autumn, Prairie Breeze, and Young Forest. Wish I could be there too!

Friends and Fabric
When you have a moment, check out Vivika DeNegre's blog. She is working on a beautiful commission piece using a variety of green fabrics some of which I have dyed. As a fellow farmer's daughter, I love that her art is based upon the lush season of high summer on the farm. And her farm stories are wonderful to read too!
Every once in a while, I send Vivika a box of fabrics in colors she specifies that are not available on the Artfabrik site. She picks out what she wants, and returns the rest. These fabrics are those yards of random acts of dyeing I make at the end of the day to finish up the dyes. Thank you Vivika, for sharing your artwork with us!

Thread-u-cation Thursday: Fly Stitch

Thread-u-cation Thursday - Fly Stitch
The Fly Stitch always evokes images of flying birds when I see it on the fabric surface. Maybe that's why its called... the Fly Stitch. I mean, doesn't this look like a flock of flapping fowls? The Fly Stitch is another easy embroidery stitch to use as a single decorative element or, when grouped together, as a textural filling stitch.

Here's how I make my Fly Stitches. Think of the stitch as the letter V. With the thread on top of the quilt at A, insert the needle about 1/4" to the left of A at point B. Angle the needle down about the same distance. Bring the needle up to the surface of the fabric at C so the tip is centered between the points A and B. Trap the thread under the tip of the needle with your left hand and slowly pull the needle and thread through the fabric. Then insert the needle over the loop of thread at C and push it down to the back of the quilt to finish making the V. If you extend the bottom part of the stitch to make a Y shape, it looks like tree branches! Is there no end to the wonder of it all?

Teaching in Snowy VA
Next week I leave to teach at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival in VA. I shall pack my mukluks as I hear they have more snow than we do. Ha!
In preparation for my Stitch after Fusing class, I am pre-fusing fabric kits. You will find me at the iron for the next few days as I transfer the Wonder Under to fabric using the prescribed methods as outlined in the Chicago School of Fusing Rules of Etiquette. I'm also preparing stitch handouts that will cover the most fun stitch in the world the Pistil Stitch (as seen in the tulips above). Hope to see you in VA!

Inspired! Creativity Cards
Lucky me! My quilt and quote have been chosen by C&T Publishing (the best publishing house in the world) to be included in their Spring 2010 product, Inspired! Creativity Cards: 36 Secrets and Quilts to Ignite Ideas.

If I remember correctly my tip was using fused fabric scraps as design triggers. It's an old trick I've tapped into for years. Delve into a bag of left over fused shapes and use the shape to trigger a new quilt design. Sorry, I can't remember which quilt is featured in the cards (my brain has left the building). But below you see a detail of Fences and Bridges #1. It was directly inspired from the scraps above.

Creative Rampage
Something came over me this past week inspiring a new series: Little Bird on the Prairie. My first step is to create the little bird from my massive amounts of pre-fused fabric scraps. During construction, I keep in mind that the little bird lives in a 12" x 12" square.

After making the bird, I choose a background setting that contrasts with the little bird's plumage and alludes to the bird's story. By story I mean, is the little bird flying to visit a friend, nesting in the swamp, or dancing the fandango? Here we have the quilt top steam set to batting and awaiting some hand stitching. Stay tuned for the little bird on the prairie's transformation with stitching.

Tumbling Chairs 40 x 51 1997

Friends and Surface Designers
Years ago when I was teaching at the Fine Line in St. Charles, IL, I met two delightful sisters in my surface design class. Marcia and Mimi really took to painting and stamping fabric and now share their energetic designs with the world. Mimi travels to art shows exhibiting her colorful art pieces and also designs rugs for Crate and Barrel. Marcia, is using her surface design skills to launch a really fun line of fabric called the Gerta Collection for Troy. You'll be able to see her work first hand at the International Quilt Festival in Chicago in April.

I kind of miss those days of playing with textile paints, stamps, and silk screens. Dyeing has supplanted all that fun. But I do have a few quilts from that era like Tumbling Chairs above. The fabrics were stamped with hand carved stamps and printed with a textured roller.

Thread-u-cation Thursday: Scattered Seed Stitch

Thread-u-cation Thursdays- Scattered Seed Stitch
The Scattered Seed Stitch is my version of the traditional seed stitch (where sets of short parallel stitches travel across the fabric). Being an undisciplined stitcher, I just throw individual stitches all over the place. It's more akin to the Straight Stitch (see Feb. 4 post) but I like the name, "Scattered Seed Stitch".

I use it a lot as a texture stitch for filling in larger areas. The most difficult part of making the Scattered Seed Stitch is keeping it random. Try not to have the stitches form a pattern by repeating stitch angles near each other. Think of the stitch angles in terms of an hour hand on a clock. This gives you 6 different directions to make stitches. I make my stitches about 1/4 - 1/2 inch long and try not to drive myself crazy watching the clock.

Susan Brubaker Knapp is quite the stitcher! Check out this piece she is free-stitching on fabric that was clamped and dyed with black to form geometric shapes. I love the freedom of the stitching and the heavy textures too. The parallel running stitches contain the wild organic shapes and carry the color around the piece.
Susan is part of the Fiber Art Options group. They recently open the “Orchids: Sensuality Stitched” exhibit at the Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden in Belmont, NC.

 

Sprouts from the SAQA Transformations exhibit

During the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, UK this past August, I was asked to film a tour of the SAQA exhibit, Transformations and Reflections for Just Hands On TV. This is an on-line TV website devoted to the world of textiles and quilt making. Founders, Jennie Rayment and Valerie Nesbitt, asked that I provide some information about SAQA and about the traveling exhibit. Jette Clover was also part of the film and talks about her beautiful piece in the exhibit too.
Just Hands on TV reviews books and shows, has demos by various artists, studio tours, and much much more. You have to be a member to view the SAQA film, but check out their site for free video clips and patterns. It's a great resource and introduces you to many UK quilt artists.

Gossip and Acorns
Have you heard of Craft Gossip? Recently they asked permission to post links to 2 of my free chicken patterns. Check out the site. The Quilting Page is a great resource for information on new patterns, fabrics, and free stuff. They also have knitting, scrap booking, and needlework pages.

This isn't related but, I came across this image of Acorn on the Stream recently and just had to share it with you. It is gone now to a buyer somewhere in California. I hope she is enjoying it.

Thread-u-cation Thursday: Straight Stitch

Thread-u-cation Thursdays - Straight Stitch
Hand embroiderers who work on art quilts are constantly inventing stitchery to accommodate the images they are embellishing. Need window panes? Tree bark? Grass? The Straight Stitch covers a lot of these bases and acts as a stroke mark to help define the shapes. Here you can see the stitch as branches on the tree, window panes, and roof tiles.

Directions for making a Straight Stitch are simple: with the thread on top of the quilt, point the needle in the right direction and stick it down drawing the thread along with it. Straight Stitches can be in any direction and evenly spaced (or not). Just don't make them too long or the thread may bag and snag.
Nothing worse than bagging and snagging.

Questions, You Have Questions
A few people have asked me questions recently about items on this blog. So in the spirit of full disclosure here are some salient answers.
"Laura, what is the largest size of quilt you can stitch by machine with Timtex inside like Betty's Bloomers #2 above?" Why thank you for asking! The distance of my machine bed from the needle to the arm of my machine is about 8". So if I want to stitch in the center of a quilt with Timtex, the quilt can only measure 16" across max. Otherwise the quilt curls and like so many things in my life, I lose control.

"Laura, where did you get that really big piece of white Teflon that covers your fusing table?"  Why thank you for asking! This sheet of Teflon was custom cut for me by Bear Thread Designs. I was able to pick it up in Houston last year from my friend Victoria. The table looks really neat right now but soon I'll have something stuck to it.

Artfabrik Artists
It's always great to see how artists have used my hand-dyed fabrics or thread in their projects. Above is good example. This quilt by Susan Cleveland uses both my fabrics and size 12 thread (through the needle of the machine for decorative stitches). I suppose I could take a picture just of the quilt. But you should know that it has a place of honor right over my fusing table so I can be inspired by how beautifully she makes her art work.

Another artist combines my fabric with Cherrywood Fabrics. Ruth Ann incorporated bright fabrics from Artfabrik in this beautiful stole. Again more meticulous workmanship. Something I can only dream of.
If you are using Artfabrik threads or fabrics in your art work, please send me a photo. I'd love to see it!