Machine Drawn Thread

Saturday was a huge lot of fun. Some friends & I had arranged to meet at my house & have a sewing day. Two of us wanted to explore the world of machine drawn thread work.

I thought I would be well prepared and had a design all ready. I had chosen fabric delibrately with a huge slubby thread that would be easy to pull out. The end result was going to be a book cover and I wanted the design to sit a certain way. I carefully machined around the outline & set about withdrawing the threads. Traditional drawn thread work is 90% preparation & 10% stitching. Well................ this was 99.9999999999999999% preparation & 2 seconds of machining fun! So much for the book cover! I got one little section of my design done & it instantly became a UFO to be changed into machined cutwork!

Back to the drawing board! I cut another piece of fabric & just pulled the threads out right across the width. This still took some time & was still far more preparation than stitching!

The fabric was huge slubby threads one way & little soft fluffy ones the other. It was the little soft fluffy ones that I got to stitch over. I set the machine on the widest zig-zag & off I went! Those fluffy little threads got eaten up by the zig-zag big time! I had only to move the work slightly sideways & more would get eaten up!

Now the big question.................................would I do it again? Who knows! It definately has creative possibilities but experimentation is definately the key. After seeing my friend R's piece it is obvious that different fabrics will react different ways. I would have to know what I was going to end up with .

As for the day, it was a lot of fun. Lots of laughs, caring, sharing, cups of tea, lamingtons & home made bikkys . Gee, almost forgot the rocky road! Add some creativity and what more could I ask for? Hopefully this may become a regular activity!

Negative Spaces

There was some discussion yesterday on one of my groups about negative spaces. One of the girls was painting negative spaces but was not sure about how to apply it to embroidery. So I promised her I would upload some pics to show her.





This cushion I made a few years back when I forgot to take my regular stitching to my local EG group. It was lucky I had some fabric & thread to do something with & this was the end result. To answer the obvious question, yes I made the lace too. No, it was not made in one day, only born from forgetting my work!







The picture is also another example of the use of stitching the negative space. I did this one well over ten years ago & it became my holiday stitching project over about three years. The people we used to camp next to year after year used to comment " Haven't you finished that yet?" It now proudly hangs on my bedroom wall.







So JJ these are just to inspire you to take the plunge & experiment with the negative spaces in your stitching. I think you will surprise yourself.

Book Cover

Yesterday afternoon was another bit of fun. I have noticed in this digitized lace world they are doing anything from fillet crochet to cutwork to reticella and more. The list is endless, so I thought I would try for some drawn thread.

This piece was inspired by my drawn thread samples and started out with me just wondering if it could be done. With a bit of time & patience the answer is most definately yes. However, this design would not pass the wash-out test so I stitched it onto a fabric base, one of those I dyed back in at the end of August.

The end result will turn into a book cover for my resources & inspiration journal, just for my drawn thread.

Now it is back to the drawing board to produce the above design so it WILL pass the wash-out test!

Painting Day




Today was a bit of fun painting. I don't do it very often & I have been meaning to do this one for a few weeks. This piece is for my Seniors class which starts again in about 2 weeks. I like to give them a challenge for the first lesson of a new term & this piece of fabric is this term's challenge. I have painted it, & they will get a square each to do something with. They have been asked to bring a variety of threads & needles with them & to also think Christmas. I will give them a sheet which will give a list of instructions (ie the limits) & they have to provide the creativity. I find they really like to be told step by step what to do & this gives them a little bit of a nudge to step outside the comfort zone. What they make it into will also be their choice so we could have anything . It will be interesting to see what they come up with.

Shoe Bag 2



Shoe bag 2 has been stitched. Now it has been done I wish I had of changed the font of the stitching and reversed the shoe itself. It would have made it just that bit more different than the last one.

Oh well, we live & learn! The next one will be really different (I hope!).

Two done, ten more to go. But who is counting?

Digitized Christmas Bells




Over the last two weeks it has been a journey of discovery with more digitized lace. This little bell took quite some time to work out ( like about 4 days!) and all of 15 minutes to stitch out. I stitched out a total of six while I was reading a novel that had to be back at the library .

They are rather cute and are just the right size for my Christmas tree.

My mind is working on how to change this to a very special little Christmas bell. I have lots of ideas going through my head, one is already on the way. The others will just have to wait their turn.