Making cords

Most of my work uses machine wrapped cords which are very useful not only for textile art but also jewellery and beyond. Most sewing machines will allow you to do this. Firstly put your darning (free machine) foot on your machine. Put your machine to darn or free machine mode. Thread you machine normally using preferable matching thread. Grab some interesting lengths of threads/wools, wire (if you want to twist the cords or add stability) etc, a metre plus is advised. Switch to zig zag and experiment. Place your threads in the middle of the plate and hold them taught then start to sew. Here are a few pictures of
me making cords. Good luck!

 Detail of machine wrapped cord on the sewing machine.

 This cord was made using lengths of silk, linen and thick gold thread and machine stitched using copper thread (wonderfil). I then used the finger knitting technique.

 Further detail of above.

I used a textured thread for this cord which makes a nobbly cord when machine stitched.

These are a few details of my wall hanging. What do you think?

Wall hanging inspired by nature

This wall hanging was inspired by woodlands and what grows in this habitat. The base of this wall hanging was felt (which I made using the wet felting technique) this was then stitched and 3D mushrooms applied. These mushrooms were made of various materials including silk, plastic packaging wrap, cottons and organza. The ivy which curves aroud this wall hanging was made of machine wrapped cord and wire with cotton and fuse fx leaves.

Mushrooms

These pieces are my interpretation of mushrooms. These pieces with be exhibited at the festival of quilts this year. I am a bit nervous as I have never submited work to a show before. Wish me luck!

This is a papier mache version of my mushrooms. It looks really effective amongst the undergrowth.

Last samples

This is a detail of one of my samples for the end of my course. These samples were based on seed heads. This particular sample is inspired by honesty. The base material is rice paper which was painted with Modge podge (a type of glue) to make it stitchable then stitched. I then added the felt seeeds to the back and added another layer of rice paper. This was then painted with brusho from the back and inked on the front of the work.

This sample  used open thread work and was very contemporary for me. I looked at various shapes of seed heads and took the patterns and shapes as inspiration. I used different types of canvas and machine stitched with various threads.

This sample explores texture and uses fabric manipulation. I have used ruffles and pintucks and yo-yo's. The border was made using acryli felt which has been stitched with seedhead motifs and then burned with a heat gun.

 

One of my samples

this picture is inspired by the techniques of Alice Kettle. Her technique requires you to sew over and over and over again until the surface is filled with stitch and almost feels as thick as a rug. It is a great tecnique although you need to stock up on loads of spools of thread (try and get these from car boots etc as you will go through alot of spools!)

Finished my City and Guilds in Machine Embroidery!

Yeh! I have finished my city and guilds! I went to Wickham Market (Suffolk) for the City and Guilds exhibition for the Creative Stitch College. As always I was very nervous and not sure whether my work was up to scratch but thoroughly enjoyed it and loved the work that other students produced. Would highly recommend doing this course if you love machine embroidery/ textile art.