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!
1 comment:
I often check your blog Jenny and I love this slash with the connecting lace. It's lovely.
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