I had a thought the other day, so went to seek out my grandmothers old suitcase, buried deep in the back of the garage. In it, as I had thought, I discovered most of the samples I had made during my time studying textiles in 1989-90. These included lots of hand weaving and a mound of hand sewn and dyed Shibori samples. Some of these are now beautifully aged having spent 20 years in an old 50′s suitcase! I had dragged that suitcase around with me from house to house and literally forgot what was inside..until my brilliant thought….
This shows the mound but not the gorgeousness of this find! So much fabulous fabric to work with..
I recently borrowed a book called ” Stitch, Cloth, Paper and Paint” by Angie Hughes from my local library. I am a huge book borrower, especially art and textiles books….always a bookworm at heart. I still can’t help but get upset when my sun uses Google for homework and doesn’t look it up at the library lol.. Anyway, this book has some great techniques in it, so I decided to use some of my new sun printed fabric to try one.
It’s very simple really and I’m sure plenty of you out there already do it, but I have always been nervous about doing too much with the tension dial on my machine. This technique involves turning the tension really high then stitching circles or spirals.. The high tension distorts the fabric beautifully without misforming the stitches, so it adds a lovely texture to the spirals.
Here is my pebble printed fabric before..
And after stitching.. normal tension in the bottom corner so it’s flat.. then the highest towards the top.
I have stitched it with some of my new rusted fabric and some of my gorgeous old shibori.. Not finished yet, but you get the idea.
What an amazing result from such a simple technique! It looks like you backed it with something before you did it – is it another piece of fabric, or some wadding? =D
It is backed with wadding and a layer of cotton.. probably what makes the texture firmer. I might try doing it without as well..might give a more “ruched” effect I think. There are some other fun things to do with stitching and tension in the book so I’ll be doing a bit of it LOL
Wacko Beck!!!!! Can’t wait to see it! Ma.
Thanks Mum
Looks really good. I’m about to start on a similar project, Another book (now out of print) which has some really good stitch techniques is ‘Machine Embroidery’ by Pamela Watts and Val Campbell-Harding. If you ever see a copy to buy – grab it. It’s a goldmine.
Thanks for the tip..I’ll look out for it. I’ll always buy more books!
Gorgeousness many times over…and fun!!
So much fun lol!
I never heard of that technique before. I love the results and the way you’ve combined the fabrics. I will look for that book, too.
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