Module 1–Chapter 10 - Stitching Colours, Line and Texture

 

Mini Samples

Page 1    Stitch and a blob.

All the samples and projects in this Chapter are completed using free embroidery, feed dogs down, using an embroidery foot on the sewing machine, and a straight stitch.  There were occasions where I wished I had an open toe foot so I could see where I was coming and going a little bit easier!!!  I need to get one!!! 

Threads:   Where I used  Aurifil – 100% cotton – it was the # 12 weight -  there were no colour numbers for the #12 weight;   For all the black felt samples, Black Guttermann thread was used in the bobbin.

Stitching:  in all the stitching I attempted to ensure that I was true to the stitch chosen.

Sample 1

 

Fabric and stabilizer – black felt

Threads:   Aurifil –- turquoise (tint) ;   Aurifil –  magenta (hue);  100% rayon embroidery – magenta; WonderFil  metallic – gold 8858.

 

Sample 2

Fabric and Stabilizer – black felt

Threads:   Aurifil – turquoise (tint);  Aurifil – red orange (hue); WonderFil – metallic – silver 881; Gutermann – metallic – blue green  143

I had difficulty with this sample.  I did 3 rows of metallic stitching on the opposite diagonal.  I looked too messy so did more over stitching in the original direction with the heavier Aurifil threads.

 

Sample 3

      -

Fabric and Stabilizer  -  black felt

Threads:    Aurifil - magenta (hue);  Aurifil - chartreuse (hue); WonderFil -  metallic - gold 8858; Guttermann – metallic – burnished gold 24; 100% rayon embroidery – magenta.

I did a lot of overstitching to decrease the intensity of the bright chartreuse thread.  This looks like wavy shadows in the water!!!!!

 

Page 2   Stitch and a squiggle.

Sample 4

Fabric and Stabilizer – black felt

Threads – Aurifil – spring green (tint); Aurifil – magenta (hue); 100% rayon embroidery – magenta (hue); 100% rayon embroidery – spring green (tint).

I liked the effect of the finer threads over the heavier Aurifil threads.

Sample 5

Fabric and stabilizer – black felt

Threads – Aurifil – blue (tint); Aurifil – orange (hue); WonderFil metallic – copper MT7722.

 

Sample 6

Fabric and stabilizer – black felt

Threads:  Aurifil – yellow orange (tint); Aurifil – violet (hue); 100% rayon – violet (tint0; WonderFil  metallic – shiny gold 8858.

Stitching – I laid down the yellow orange first and  then all the other threads crossing and crisscrossing. 

 

Page 3  -  Round and round, back and forwards.

Sample 7

Fabric and stabilizer – black felt

Threads: Aurifil – magenta (tint); Wonderfil metallic – gold 8858.

Stitching.  For the top part of the sample, I did overlapping circles, whereas the bottom part I echoed the circles on top of the original ones.

 

Sample 8

Fabric and stabilizer – black felt

Threads: WonderFil – metallic gold 8858

I liked the effect of the gold thread on it’s own!!!

 

Sample 9

Fabric and stabilizer – black felt

Threads:  Aurifil – golden yellow; WonderFil metallic – red MT7714.

Stitching – tried to do this on the diagonal.  I was not very successful so I cut it out as a square.  There are two rows of red stitching; one going in the same direction as the yellow stitching and one in the opposite direction.

 

Page 4    Doodle and Stitch

 

I took two patterns from this page and stitched them on to a transfer painted bridal satin from Chapter 1. 

 

Page 5  Stitch and Doodle samples

Sample 1

Fabric – Bridal satin form Sample #5 listed in Chapter 1

Stabilizer – black felt

Threads: Aurifil  100% cotton 40 weight – orange (hue); Aurifil 100% cotton 40 weight – blue (tint); WonderFil metallic – dark blue 8850; WonderFil metallic – orange 7713. Bobbin thread – Guttermann – black.

Stitches – some difficulty in stitching circles from side to side and then straight stitching in between. My right angles were not always 90 degrees.

 

Sample 2

Same fabrics and threads as for Sample 1 above.

Stitching – I like these two samples and that the colours of the fabric and the threads are somewhat similar. 

 

Page 6      More Doodles

These patterns are from Zentangles – a great source for doodling!!!  I like the bricks in the middle as well as the flower on the bottom left of the page.  How I would use them I do not know!!!  

 

Page 7       More Doodles

 

 

Page 8     Shapes and colours for the resolved sample (‘Pottery’ by Patrick Caulfield)  

 

I printed off two copies of the picture.  There are variations in size, colour and value. Every time you look at the piece,  there is a different shape, a different colour, a different size. Some of the shapes are similar but exaggerated in another way.  There seems to be no focal point.  Yellow takes you through the piece from the bottom up the right hand side and red goes up the centre and to the left. .  Blue is spotted through out in the pure hue as well as a variety of tints.  Then there is violet, shades of green, different colours of pinks including some peach.    There are no shadows.  The piece is very complex in many ways.

 

Page 9    Shapes from the “Pottery” piece.

Everytime I looked at this piece I found another shape.  All the shapes came in a variety of sizes. 

 

Page 10   -   Lines and Shapes

I drew 4 sets of lines and shapes and chose 2 of them to stitch. 

Sample 1

 

Sample 2

The photographs a bit out of focus on this page!!! 

 

Page 11      More lines and Shapes.

Sample 3   (first stitched sample)

 

Sample 4  (second stitched sample)

These exercises were not as easy as I thought they would be.  I was trying to achieve different shapes and make it interesting with colour and patterns in the shapes.  I am not sure if I succeeded.  I painted the examples using Golden Fluid Acrylics (Quinacridone Red, Primary Yellow, Ultramarine Blue, Titanium White, Dairylide Yellow, Permanent Green light).  

 

Page 12  Stitched Sample #1

Fabric – black felt

Stabilizers – black felt and Avalon Madeira stabilizer tear away cotton soft white (Art 9436)

Threads : WonderFil metallic – silver 881; Trident – red;the rest were Gutterman threads – blue 251; yellow 850; orange 462.

I was not happy with this piece.   I used silver metallic thread to follow the lines and I did too many.  There is a confusion of threads in the middle.  Also, I should have outlined the shapes in their selected colours and not silver.  The blue blob was too big for the piece. I really liked the the orange blobs. Also my threads should have been more vibrant ….  I should have used metallic or rayon instead of 100% polyester. (the actual piece is quite dull – the photo enhancer on the computer programme increased the colour intensity).   I really like how the stabilizer worked.  So easy.  This was one case where I would have preferred an open toe foot for the machine instead of the embroidery foot that I have.  It is a clear plastic one but hard to see through to the stitches.  

 

Page 13     Stitched sample # 2

Fabric and stabilizers – same as for Sample #1

Threads: WonderFil metallic – gold 8855; Mettler silky sheen rayon 1912; rest of the threads were WonderFil 100% rayon embroidery; green 4125; orange; blue 3123; yellow (no colour numbers for orange and blue).

Stitching – I liked this piece better than sample #1  in a number of ways:  fewer metallic gold stitched lines, the blobs were outlined in the colour intended, the rayon threads were certainly superior to the polyester threads.  The green blob should have had more overstitching around the edges.  It is hard to distinguish the stitch formation on the red, blue and green.   The shapes of the blobs were different shapes and sizes.  I seem to have two of each colour and maybe I should have made the green blob orange.  Also the yellow thread is not very yellow…  it should have been a brighter or darker version.

 

Page 13     A drawing of resolved piece.

I spend some considerable time deciding how I should tackle this piece.  I had fun doing it.  I used Golden Acrylic paints to colour in the fruits. (same colours used for the samples above)

 

Page 14    Resolved piece

Fabric – transfer painted cotton polyester

Stabilizer – white felt and Avalon Madeira stabilizer tear away cotton soft white (Art 9436).

Threads – Aurifil 100% cotton 12 weight – green (shade).  The rest of the threads are listed under the individual fruit.  All the Aurifil threads used in the pieces below were 100% cotton 12 wt.  In most cases where I used metallic and rayon threads, I stitched with both in the needle.   I did try to put one of the finer threads with the Aurifil with little success. The bobbin threads were all Guttermann threads and they matched the fruit colours

Stitching.  I kept faithful to the selected stitching pattern for each piece of fruit.

 

Pumpkin

Threads:  Aurifil – red orange, orange; Wonderfil metallic – orange (tint) 7713; WonderFil rayon – orange 1137.

 

Apple

Threads: Aurifil – red violet, pale green (grey);  100% rayon embroidery – light grey. wine red.

 

Pear

Threads – Aurifil – yellow (tint), yellow green (tint); WonderFil metallic – gold yellow 888; 100% rayon embroidery – yellow

 

Banana

Threads: Aurifil – yellow green (tint), yellow, golden yellow (tint); WonderFil metallic- gold 8858; 100% rayon embroidery – yellow.

 

Grapes

Threads: Aurifil – violet; WonderFil metallic – silver 881;  100% rayon embroidery – violet (tint).

 

Strawberry

Threads: Aurifil – green (tint), red; WonderFil metallic – red MT7714, green (tint) 3142.

I used the doodle on page 4 for the main part of the strawberry.

 

Pomegranate

Threads: Aurifil – red violet; 100% rayon – wine red.

 

Orange

Threads: Aurifil – red orange, orange; WonderFil metallic – 7713; WonderFil rayon – orange 1137.

 

Kiwi

Threads: Aurifil- spring green, yellow (tint); WonderFil metallic – dark green 7725.

I used the doodle on page 7 for this piece.

 

THE END OF MODULE ONE!!!!!

Chapter Nine - Playing with Colours, Building Layers

 

Playing with the primaries

Page 1

Fabric – unbleached cotton (calico)

Stabilizer  -  white felt

Threads  -  Gutterman threads (100% polyester)  - red  (colour #410);  blue  (colour # 251);  Yellow (colour #850)    -   the bobbin thread was matched to the  top thread

Stitch – zigzag with a length of 0.5 and a variation of widths from 1 to 5.  Foot on and feed dogs up.

The fabric was distorted quite a bit and the length should maybe have been 0.4.  I was not to happy with this piece and the intensity of the colours. 

 

Page 2.

Fabric -  unbleached cotton (calico)

Stabilizer  -  white felt

Threads –  Aurifil threads – 12 weight – 100% cotton 

The top threads had no numbers, however, I did match them to the 3 in 1 Color Tool.  The red was a shade off Magenta (#17); Blue was a tint of blue (#11); and the yellow was a tint of Golden Yellow (#24).  The bobbin threads matched the Gutterman threads used in the sample on Page 1.

This time I used automatic stitch number 11.  I varied the stitch widths and lengths as well as turning the piece up side down.   The stitch was intensified by reducing the length.  I also stitched over other rows.  However, the rows are not very straight.  The red is definitely dominant in this piece.  Foot on and feed dogs up.

 

Experimenting with secondary colours

Page 3

Fabric  -  unbleached cotton (calico)

Stabilizer  -  white felt

Threads – Aurifil Threads – 12 weight (100% cotton) .  Bobbin threads are Gutterman threads to match top threads.

Again, the these  threads had no numbers and so I matched them to the 3 in 1 Color Tool.  Green – tint of green (5);  Violet – shade of violet ((#13); orange – hue. Bobbin threads were matching Gutterman threads. 

Stitches – zigzag with a length of 0.6 and a variation of widths.  Foot on and feed dogs up.

There were lots of problems with this sample.  The heavier weight of the top thread didn’t always catch the bobbin thread and in several places you see the bobbin thread coming through to the top.  I also fiddled with the tension quite a bit and was not always successful.  I also changed the needle and cleaned out the fluff!!!    I always tried samples before I started the a row but this didn’t always transfer to the actual piece!!!  Also, I found that slow was best!   And as before, the rows were not very straight. There was some distortion of the fabric.  I still decided to put the piece in.  I do have to admit that I did cut a couple of rows out and re-stitched.  So I feel the heavier thread was not a success in this piece. 

 

Page 4

Fabric -  a piece of pima cotton polyester that has been transfer painted

Stabilizer  -  medium weight pellon

Threads -  All Gutterman threads (100% polyester) – orange (#462); violet (#945);  green (#752).    Bobbin threads match top threads.

Stitch  –  automatic pattern #22 - a small flower. I see that the second orange row is a leaf pattern ….. it is right next to the flower pattern on the machine. A mistake but it looks just fine!!!   I varied the width and length throughout and I stitched some rows over other rows!!!  Foot on and feed dogs up.

I quite like this piece and it was easy to do.  And the rows seem to be straighter!!! 

 

Mixing of primary and complementary colours

Page 5

Fabric – unbleached cotton (calico)

Stabilizer – white felt

Threads – All are Gutterman threads (100% polyester).  red (#410); violet (#945); blue (#251); green (#752); yellow (#850); orange (#462).  Bobbin threads match the top threads.

Stitch -  automatic pattern #24 – a leaf stitch.  I varied the lengths and width of the rows of stitches.  As I went down the rainbow of colours, I made sure that I over stitched the colour before.  Foot on and feed dogs up.

I liked the effect of this piece with the selected automatic stitch.  Rows are not as straight as they should be!!!! 

 

Building layers with primary and complementary colours.

Page 6   -    Yellow / violet

Fabric  -  Unbleached cotton (calico)

Stabilizer  -  white felt and medium weight pellon  (I was having such trouble in preventing distortion of the fabric!!!)

Threads  -  Aurifil  100% cotton – 12 weight …   there were no colour numbers, however, I did use the 3 in 1 Color Tool.  Yellow  -  a tint of golden yellow (#24);  Violet  -  a tone of pure Violet  (#13).   Bobbin threads are Gutterman threads to match top threads.

Stitch  -  leaf stitch (#24) -  I changed the length and width of this automatic stitch.  I laid all the violet rows first and then started adding the yellow rows.  I did stitch over the violet rows.  However, the violet rows are definitely dominant.  I framed the piece with violet top and bottom.   Foot on and feed dogs up.

I liked this piece.

 

Page 7  -  Red /  green

Fabric  -  unbleached cotton (calico)

Stabilizer - white felt and medium weight pellon.

Threads -  Aurifil  100% cotton -  weight 40/2 .   Spring  green  (#114  2BD)  - shade of # 4 on the 3 to 1 Color Tool;      Fushia ( 2535 1EO)  -  shade of #16 on the 3 to 1 Color Tool.   Bobbin threads are Gutterman threads to match top threads.

Stitch -  Automatic stitch  #11 -  varied the length and width of the stitch as well as stitching rows over other rows.  I particularly liked the wide red row when I double stitched it ---  a complete fluke at the way it worked out!!!  -  especially on the right side of the piece.  I also varied the stitches by going from right to left and then left to right!!!  Foot and feed dogs up.

I liked this piece ….. although my rows were again not very straight!!! I had to add in some bits!!    (I could probably fix this if I stitched each row one after another  instead of doing several rows of one colour  with spaces and adding the second colour in the spaces!!! ) 

 

Page 8  -   Blue / orange

Fabric  -  unbleached cotton (calico)

Stabilizer - white felt

Threads  -  Gutterman threads (100% polyester).  Blue  (#251);  Orange (#462)  Bobbin threads same as top threads.

Stitch -  Automatic stitch leaf stitch (#24).  I varied the length and width of the stitch.   I stitched the orange rows first and filled in with the blue rows overlapping in several places.  I really liked the freedom of the pattern when the length was set at it’s maximum. Foot and feed dogs up.

I really like the effect of this automatic stitch as I used it in three of the examples!!!! 

 

Colour Grading

Page 9  -  Red

Fabric  -  unbleached cotton (calico)

Stabilizer - white felt and medium weight pellon

Threads  -  1.  darkest  -  Mettler  - wine red (#060).    2.  #1 and Guttermann – dark red (#430).   3. Gutterman – dark red (#430).   4. Mettler  shade of red (#60).           5.  Pure red hue  -  Guttermann  (#410).    6. #5 and DMC bright pink (#602).  7. DMC  bright pink (#602).   8. Pink – no clue what brand it is!!    9. Gutterman – pink (colour # not available).  10. Mettler pink (#0903).  11. Trident pink  (colour number not available!)  12.  #11 and Gutterman – white (#20)

Bobbin threads -  Black, red and white. 

My stitches and rows were a bit better in this example.  I finally chose length – 0.4 and width – 5.  I varied the tension between 2.2 and 3.2.  For the 1st and 3rd row there was only one thread used in the needle.  I should have used two or overstitched to cover the spaces.     Used foot and feed dogs up.

 

Monet Colour

Page 10

 San Giorgio Maggiore Venice at Dusk by Claude Monet

Monet was the founder of French Impressionist painting where he expressed his perceptions before nature.  He would paint in the moment – outside for what he saw and not in a studio and not from a photographic copy.

I found the following colours in a part of this painting.  Dark red, red, orange, yellow, medium blue, light blue, willow green, black brown, and off white.

 

 

Page 11

For this rendition, I used water colour crayons (Staedtler) and then added a bit of water with a paint brush.  Not a great success.

 

Page 12

For this painting, I used Golden Fluid Acrylic Paints.  The colours are Pyrrole Orange,  Naphthal Red Light, Diarylide Yellow, Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue, Hansa Yellow Light, Cerulean Blue Deep, Permanent GreenLight, Carbon Black, Titanium White.   I did a bit of mixing of colours to get the brown and the pale blue otherwise all the other scrumptious colours came out of the bottles!!!! 

 

Page 13

Fabric -  Black felt

Stabilizer – chair dust cover

Threads – Aurifil #12 weight – 100% cotton -  there are no colour numbers on the spools!!!!    I will try to describe the colours used using the 3 in 1 Color Tool.  1.  red  (#19) brown  - red tint plus grey .  2. Orange (#21)  – pure.     3. Orange red (#21) – pure.     4.  Orange red (#20) – tint.  5. Yellow (#1)  - shade  6. Golden yellow (#24)  -  tint.  7. Spring green (#4) – pure.   8. Blue (#11) – tone.   9. Blue(#11) – tint.                                                                            Guttermann threads – yellow (#850)  and a pale yellow (# 807).  Used orange (#462) and blue (#251).

Stitches – For this piece, I lowered the feed dogs, used a free motion foot, and  the embroidery hoop.  I used the straight stitch going back and forth left to right.  Half way through, I turned the piece 90 degrees and continued straight stitching up and down.  There is lots of stitch layering.  I also was copying the patterns found in the actual painting and in my rendition of the actual.  Then I read the description not to copy!!!  Sorry about that!!!!   I started with the dark tones and then added layers ending up with the lightest tones on top!!! 

 

Page 14

Fabric -  Transfer painting on bridal satin #1 from Chapter 1.

Stabilizer -  medium weight pellon

Threads – similar colours to the above sample but all were Gutterman threads (100% polyester)  and not the heavier weight threads of the Aurifil line. 

Stitches – same as above using an embroidery hoop.  There is not the same amount of stitching and I didn’t use the darkened piece to the right as in the original.   I liked the effect of the painted background.  I also noticed that the machine needle caught threads of the bridal satin.  I did change to a new needle before beginning this piece. 

 

Page 15    Sample using all the colours stitched together with two threads in the needle.

Fabric  -  poly cotton (pima) that has been transfer painted.

Stabilizer – medium weight pellon

Threads  -  Gutternan threads (100 % polyester)  -  Red (#410);  Blue #251);  Yellow (#850);  Orange (#462); Violet (#945); Green (#752)white and black.

Stitches  -  free motion using an embroidery hoop.  I mixed up the colours using two threads in the needle.  Also added black and white to a couple of the colours.  The centre bit had lots of over stitching!!!   I think I need to get bobbin threads that are lighter in weight and not just the regular 40 weight Gutterman threads!!  

The END of Chapter 9

Chapter 8 Take a line for a walk!

 

Page 1 --- an orderly knot garden with lots of marks in the various beds from lines to dashes to dots to diagonal lines, etc.

The second picture shows repeating patterns of stylized cherries.

 

Page 2. I have actually done a small embroidery of the log house with door and window and an amazing flower garden (hidden by the fence in this picture) in the front. In the second picture, the trees and the branches create negative spaces. This card has always been a favourite of mine. One could use a resist for the trees and then machine embroider the branches on top!!!!???

 

Page 3. The straight lines of the bamboo are intriguing against pavement stones and green garden in the back.

 

Page 4. What a neat looking sun!!! Lots of doodling and the colour, of course, to show of the fancy sun!!! I like the repetition of the various patterns.

 

Page 5. My taking a line for a walk is not very inspiring. (the pointy bits between hop and jump are “skips”.)

 

Page 6. My stitching from my “take a line for a walk” is not too accurate. I did find it very difficult to follow as I just wanted to keep sewing and not look at my diagram. Stopping and starting was not easy for me. I used calico with a feather weight interfacing (50%polyester/50% rayon ) and Guttermann Black thread (colour # 10) for all the stitching pieces in this chapter. All done in a hoop.

 

Page 7. My interpretation of “take a line for a dance”.

 

My stitching for “take a line for a dance”.  I used the same materials as I used for “take a line for a walk”.

 

 

Page 8. The next few pages are a series of mark makings with various tools and mediums. On this page I used various felt pens and different sizes of pigma pens. The machined piece of calico to the right of the page is my attempt to copy two of the marks on the top of this page. The second piece is another attempt to copy marks from the center of the page just under the Sharpie fine point ? marker. The upside r comes from page 11.

 

 

Page 9. Here I used a sketching pencils, graphite and charcoal

.

Page 10. Here, I used graphite, rolling it, using the side of the marker, using different pressures.

 

Page 11. On this page I used black artist’s ink and a paint brush in all sorts of contortions!!! Fun to do and produced all sorts of varied marks!!!

 

Page 12. Again more marks with felt pens. I also have a new Graphite crayon which is water soluble …. also works well on fabric. Lots of fun adding a bit of water when I was making marks!!!

 

Page 13. On this page, I used unconventional mark making tools such as a credit card, a toothbrush, the end of a plastic spool of thread, a toothpick, sponge, etc. They were all dipped into the ink.

 

Page 14. Various implements (from page 13) were dipped into bleach to create the above display. I also tried to bleach out patterns on black card stock and other black papers to no avail!!!

 

Page 15. The top part of this page, I tried to use a bleach pen. Left a whitish mark on top of the paper but did not block out the black. Similar mark makers used in the experiments above.

 

Page 16. This is my emotions page. You also asked us to identify the emotions from two of your own drawings. The first one which looks like clumps of grass, I chose – undecided. And the second one, I chose – angry.

 

Page 17 These are the samples I stitched from my emotions page.

        

fear                                                                   mournful

                 

              love                                                                    anxiety

               my attempt at anger.  ( I had trouble following my drawing – it was too complicated and so I gave up!!! 

 

Page 18. I put all the samples on one page and then decided to cut them up and put them close or next to the drawings. The sample on the top right is one that quilters use with ease (I believe it is called a stipple stich or meander stitch) and looks absolutely wonderful when done perfectly. I have a long way to go. So I guess it is more practice for me!!!

THE END!!  (finally!!!