Visual Thoughts and Ideas

Sometimes planning is about auditioning. Will these work or will they change?

Thursday K+S

Apologies for missing Thankful Thursday this week.
I am at the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace in London. Stewarding for the afternoon at the SAQA gallery Concrete and Grasslands.

Edit: Just see what I bought! It was late night opening. When we got there, it was nearly lunch and time for me to steward. So, we stayed after my shift and I managed to do quick purchases and look at some of the galleries. (loved so much of it, but really liked the Cork Textile Network from Ireland.)

Like I need beads, or thread and fabric if you think about it! from Paint Box Threads rainbow colours, from Totally Beads a possible project and replacing stock on the beads. Fabric from Bombay Fabrics and also different African fabric suppliers - Diligent Hands and Dovetailed London. I have used most of the African fabrics I had, but I have more to say about the African refugee situation which doesn’t get on the news.
A few of these are for possible dresses, too. No I haven’t used the fabric from FOQ! Yet!

My friend Pat came with me. We left here at 9am and got home after 11pm! And last week we were also in London on Thursday, so I am done now for going to London! Too much of a good thing.

Bead on 22-28 July

Sorry for the long silence.  Struggling a bit with spending much time on the computer because my right eye, which was getting rather blurry, is in need of a cataract surgery. 🙈 The date is the 21st of August.
 I am looking forward to having 2 eyes to see out of! 😜

So, those and a birthday and a very busy weekend doing things with friends.

week 30  2018
I didn't do much on the trim, so that will wait, but I still did the daily beads.
bead on fabric

I have been doing future project thinking, which is easier than wearing out the one eye which does work. When I do small things or try to sew on the machine, I have to close the blurry eye. But that makes perspective off and you should see me thread a needle!

Anyway, I want to do something wonderful with these threads I got from InStitches in the Spring.

I have been sorting cupboards and fabrics (instead of sewing), with an eye to what might work for the project. This loose weave navy with stripe is what caught my eye. It will set off the threads nicely, and the stripes will give me a guide to work with.
Not fully decided on a specific embroidery stitch or several different ones. But this will probably become some daily project - or weekly. I really like the work Penny Berens and Judy Martin do. I would have loved to go to their recent joint exhibition!

I like Thankful Thursday

Coming across things you 'must have' on holiday.

-If you have been in Dorset,  you need fossils

...and because they are also selling gemstones, you get those,too.

This is restraint! I could have got loads more. Sort of thinking necklace, so I tried to remember what colour necklace I keep thinking I need. Not so good at the remembering part. But I can always use blue and I think I have been wishing for green. The blue one is marbled with white on the other side.

I think the fossil looks like an abstract painting. Or a smiling fish if you turn it another way. It is a straight tube fossil, related to cephalopods. I don't know what the round spot is. Maybe a cross section of another one?

-coloured twine - not for the garden, but to be considered 'thread' or to make a net with.

-a wonderful thing for only £8! and even a Thoughtful Man thought it was a good idea. ie: didn't frown about me buying it.

A shoemaker's last.

But not just any old shoemaker's last...one for the whole family. 😃👞👟👠

There was another also in the shop with just two shoe forms...also £8. So, that wasn't a hard choice. 😀

The shop owner said people buy them for door stops. Sensible. So, that is what it is doing til I need to use it for shoes!
Actually, it has given me an idea for how to depict or record something I have been wanting to make about the refugees in so many places.👣

and finally - a photo of a blue flower. Don't take the flower, just a photo.

It was too near the edge for me to attempt a photo, or even to get near enough to look at it closely. So a Certain Young Man, who came over from Sussex university for a few days with us, did the bending and trying to get just the right photo. It only took a couple tries to do it. Lovely.
Not sure what it is. They were scattered on the banks near the dragon.

Check out more likes from the others taking part...links on LeeAnna's blog.

Thread

In January, when InStitches came to the TVCT meeting, I fell in love with their threads. But I didn't have the money. (not that they are expensive, but there were a lot of things to pay for that month.)

Fast forward to Saturday just past. The SAQA area meeting was being held at InStitches Studio. So, I asked them to make sure the threads were out!
and this is what I came home with.

Besides just loving the colours and 'variagatedness', I do have plans for these.
But for a bit I will let them sit and glow at me.

Weaving Sticks

I mentioned the weaving sticks Caroline Marriot was selling on Saturday. (my fingers want to type stitch so end up typing stitcks!)

This is what was on the sticks I bought. (Although I had already changed the warp threads when I took this photo.)

I like these colours, but don't really have other wool or yarns to go with this. So I dipped into my collection of wools from Linton tweeds. I bought them at the first Sewing for Pleasure show I went to in the mid 90's!

This was just the thing for them. It made a thicker weave, because most were at least 2 threads together, if not 3 or 4. I started it on Sunday evening watching Country File and finished Monday night watching the Sewing Bee!

So, it makes up quick, it is addictive (as in 'you can't stop going on to the next thread colour'), and is a good use of odds and ends of threads that aren't enough to use for something else.

Only what will I do with it? I still need to tie off the warp thread ends and perhaps plait them or put beads on them.
Well, this was a sample, so that is okay. I have some blue and white eyelash yarn I have had for ages that I think will be pretty wonderful worked up on this. Maybe make/buy some more pegs?
I will have to experiment.

purchases at FOQ

This year I didn't have as much money saved up because of going to America earlier in the year. But being very judicious, I managed to get what I needed with one or two new ideas.

And asking around at Wonderfil about threads lead to being offered a sample pack which they give to teacher. (I may have an opportunity to do some more workshops.)

As usual I was co-ordinating the stewarding for the SAQA exhibition. Just across the path to one side was Philippa Naylor's stand. I was quite impressed by the ingenuous way to display her scarves.

And a few of her garments. Philippa started out as a fashion designer.

I loved this jacket with the wonderful twist across to behave like a scarf!

I also got some close up photos of the stitching she does on her quilts.

I thanked her for breaking the fear barrier for me about machine quilting. I took my Mother-in-law to the Quilt Museum in York one time years ago. Philippa was doing a demo. When I saw that she does all that amazing work on a domestic machine going chug-chug-chug, I decided I could do machine quilting!

I overheard Phillip say to someone that she likes to challenge herself, talking of trying out her techniques on a small scale.
and here in the miniature section...

All of the above designs are solely credited to Philippa Naylor.

edges

Edging on the bottom and side slits

You can see some of the bead stacks on the joins. Subtle.

I used this thread for the edging of the hem, the side slits and the left front edge. The metallic wasn't covering the edge and it looked a bit unfinished. So, I saw this and decided to do a satin stitch finish. It works really well. No fluff and no shredding!

I love variegated threads, and if you have a wide range of them, you are bound to find just what you need for a particular project. And so this Cotton variegated one works really well for the edging on the gown.

I had a reel of thread I always seemed to choose when I was demonstrating when I taught the machine embroidery class. Last year I discovered more like it on the Cotton Patch stand. The label says Gunold cotty you can see more here.

Zigzagging

I hope your vision of me over the weekend was stitching the zigzag on the edges of each of these pieces.
We aren't discussing how many at this point, especially as I am still working out the joining back together! But suffice it to say that each long side of front or back is 36 pieces. and with 4 sides (2 front + 2 back)...you do the maths!

So, the two piles needing to be stitched

and one of the piles which was already stitched.

The stitching is easier to do with the shoulder than the cutting was. (But it is tedious!)

My set up at the machine.

I use a blind hem stitch when I cover edges of things with zigzag. It helps the stitch to properly form over the edge without drawing the fabric up into a lump. My blind hem foot has a little bar, so the stitches form over the bar and then slide off it to the back as the piece goes along.
The little red bit at the front of the foot is adjustable for guiding your project edge along. For using the blind hem foot as a blind hem foot, it would be useful for getting it right for the 'bite' of the blind hem stitch.

You can  see the threads I will be using. The dark turquoise is what I am using on the lilac fabric. It is much paler when seen as a single thread. I am not doing a very close zigzag. Just enough to hold the edge together and add a bit of glistening.

If I get it right, I can go from one piece to the next like quilters do with chain piecing.

sampling

So, now that I chopped out the pieces of the pattern and the mull together, I am ready to cut out the fashion fabric.

In this photo, I have the pattern pieces which will be of this lilac coloured fabric and I have arranged them for being conservative with the fabric.

I have also cut the rest of the pieces from the embroidered sea-green coloured fabric.

And so it is time for sampling.

And here I found that the mull on it's own was not sturdy enough to support the fashion fabric to do my planned zigzag edge on the fabric pieces.

And also the mull being a somewhat loose weave, leaves whiskers on the edges! Especially on the embroidered fabric which isn't as sturdy as the lilac one.

So, I am being very thankful that I have plenty of this taffeta fabric I used for the lining. So, I tried using it at the back of the little sample sandwich. (Fashion fabric, mull and taffeta) and this also brought the realisation that in some cases the back of these pieces may be seen, and thus the lining fabric is a good plan. So, more cutting is called for.*

As for the thread sampling...
I showed all the different threads I was contemplating. And then when the chosen one wasn't really doing the job, I looked over and saw these wonderful threads!

They are metallics from Sulky. But they glisten in pastel colours instead of your normal metallics.

And there were a few that were just right.

So, the chosen top thread has become the bobbin thread. That way, if the back side of the pieces is seen, it will still be lovely!

Bobbin thread - Sugar and spice from Thread Studio

And yes, I realise at this point that I could do away with the mull altogether. But, oh well. I am being stubborn about it because I took all the time to cut it out!

*Please imagine me doing all this cutting with a shoulder that is shrieking pain for some reason. The hypersensitive nerves seem to say the shoulder is dislocated from the neck. (This is called Fibromyalgia doing its thing.) Even if it is not dislocated and will probably be fine next week, it still is very painful!

Oh yeah. It is very hard to use your non-dominant hand for stuff like this!

auditioning

Every work like this gown starts with auditioning fabrics and threads to see who gets to have a role in the main act!

The blueish dark one is actually more of a purple like the dark threads.

Stitched trees - 4

After the success of the top part of the tree, I thought I may as well carry on experimenting whilst doing the trunk.

I had finally found my machine embroidery hoop...it goes under the foot easier. This was also good for holding a bit of the water soluble fabric which I had trimmed away from the first part.
I wanted to see how the ws fabric behaved when a skimpy amount was used. 1-less wasteful. 2-I am prone to work on scraps 'in case it goes wrong' and then find it doesn't go wrong and I have a good bit of work on a wee bit of scrap!

I drew a bit of a trunk for guidance...and then ignored it when I stitched!

The threads this time was Thread Studio's Fed (I think for Federal? anyway, it says Fed on the reel.) The variegations went from a sort of claret to lime green with browns in there too. Because I wanted the overall look to be brown, I also used a lighter brown Madeira embroidery thread on the horizontal thread holder. The Thread Studio reels work better on the vertical and with one of those nets round it to keep the thread coming of regularly and not catching round the thread holder.
The bobbin was a random brown from the stash.

The stitched trunk before I trimmed away the ws fabric.

You can see the edges of the loose grid I stitched. I wasn't sure how well the threads would hold together because this time they were all running pretty regular up and down. Though I didn't stitch the whole trunk all the up and all the way down, but in sections. There is a bit at the top right that I could see wasn't really connected, so I trimmed that away as well.

As you can see, the scrap held up very well to the stitching. I did stick one little piece on, but it was more to use as a little bit to hold onto because that section was a bit thinner and I thought it would distort. Keeping it taut helped.

Trimmed Trunk

The trunk with the ws fabric washed out.

The edges are a bit scruffy.

But, I have pushed the threads together at the side while wet as I was blocking.

Any small amount of water soluble left in the thread work acts as a stiffener for stand alone lace pieces, so it will hold the threads in place when it is dry.

As I said with the top part of the tree, I will be stitching this onto the background, so I can make sure the sides of the trunk are smoothly attached.

You may be wondering if the thread colours used for the trunk and the thread colour used for the top section work together. You can see them both here. I think it will work. I have a background in mind, so I should be able to show you more about that next week. (bead day tomorrow!)

Stitched Trees - 3

Oh yes, how long did it take to make the tree part I showed you yesterday? Several wonderful drawing-with-the-machine hours!

The thread on top is Thread Studio's Victory variegated thread Middle Earth.

I used different random green threads from my stash for the bobbin thread. Fill bobbins, use bobbins. fill more bobbins with next random green. (It takes a lot of thread.)

So, the next part of the experiment is to see how the water soluble fabric dissolves. I trimmed the excess from around the stitching first.

I was pleasantly surprised that the visible ws fabric dissolved straight away.

This photo was taken after the work had just been dipped into water...no scrunching and swishing.

I left it to soak, and after popping out to the shops, I pulled it out and rolled it in a towel to get out the excess water.
Then I pinned it to the foam core to block it.

I am very pleased that the piece was so well contained. Nothing floating about unconnected. I am not worried about some of the fringes at the edge, because I will anchor it to a background with stitch.

You can see in the top photo, that I had stitched a grid of sorts...somewhat organic arcs instead of your normal grid... because I wasn't sure what was needed to hold it together. I didn't want obvious squares in the lacy part.
I don't know yet whether I will want to go in and trim the fine lines away. It will depend on what it looks like on the background. At this point I am leaning towards leaving them.

Tomorrow, the trunk of the tree.

Knitting and Stitching Show

Today I was at the Knitting and Stitching Show. Very tired. But happy with what I saw and what I purchased. I helped at the Quilt Guild Stand for a while and happily chatted about some of the winning quilts from the Festival of Quilts which were displayed. I met a young lady who doesn't live too far from here who may come to the next TVCT meeting.

Also one or two other things from ArtVanGo.

I had a full loyalty card, so I had £10 off. More textile paints. I think the opaque yellow ones may be the solution to printing on darker things. I got some advice from Clare Benn, when I stopped by the Committed to Cloth Stand, who said I could try mixing some of it with the transparent yellow to use it up. (I have a big tub of the transparent yellow. It was what I tried to do a sun with the other day.) Either that, or I will be doing some yellow on lighter fabrics for some time to come!

Threads from Thread Studio. They come every year to K+S from Australia.

I emailed last week to see if they could bring some of the kinds here on the left that I got 2 of. I was nearly out, and when I went last year, they hadn't got any of those with them. So, Dale brought these and reserved them for me under the table. I really like working with these variagated threads, so I have a stock of them. I restock at Knit and Stitch.

I got to see what the Unfinishable work looked like. I had donated a piece to add to their collection. Something I did when I was in College! for my aunt who was having a baby. Now the baby is a grown man with at least 2 children, and who has been to serve in Iraq and came home safe. So, it was good to have it out of my head. I bought the book they did - some stories are very poignant. and was given a bag for participating.

and this was one of the exhibitions I really was taken with.

Called Jabberwocky. Nothing is what it seems! Little dancing fairy flowers which were made from very pointy vintage forks! a chandelier made from wine glasses, a jug pouring flowers made from more wine glasses, etc. and a very awesome Elizabethan gown which had 'Off with her head' burned into the fabric. There were even crowns made from chicken bones!

threads and machines

Today I got my poorly machine back from the doctor again. It was doing a little blind hem stitch dance and then kept chuntering along even when I lifted my foot from the petal. Not good.

I haven't dared try it, but they said they replaced the synchroniser. Okay. me neither, but I think it must help the 2 new boards (that they put in when it went to hospital in August) talk to each other. Or something. I am so glad my dealer decided to extend the warranty another year.

anyway, besides going to Reading for that, I also needed a post for V, for the Ideas of Inspiration blog. I forgot I already saved one of a sculpture in Lyon which was covered with Verdigris. Anyway, I decided to go for variegated. So, that meant I had to sort out the box with all the tangled variegated threads!

This is not all of the variegated threads mind you. But it is worth having such a selection. you might choose one which is almost right, but has a bit of green or yellow or something else, which changes the look of a piece in a way that you don't want. So, if you have a choice of nearly the same versions, you can find the one that works.

Most of these are Valdani rayon threads as sold by Thread Studio. I understand they have worked with them to get their own dye selections. I get a few more each year when they come to Knitting and Stitching show.
Recently, I discovered Mettler silk finish variegated cotton threads. They are good when you want a bit thicker line. I have started to get one of each so I can shop in my stash when I need them.