stitching and drawing

Inspired by one of Jude Hill's classes, I've been handstitching, now drawing eyes mostly with Inktense pencils, then wetting them to make them permanent. What a trip for this "if I can't do it by machine, I won't do it at all" woman.

wallhanging pogress

This is the current state of the wallhanging from my last post. I sewed down all the fabric and batting pieces with black cotton thread, then embroidered with various cotton and rayon threads and washed away the stabilizer.

new wip

The background fabric is a half yard of "hopelessly-losing-the-glitter" fabric, folded in half, right sides together. On that I laid down heavy layers of scrap batting and fabric. I topped it with wash-away stabilizer and now I'm trying to free-motion all over the surface. Not easy, I just broke the second needle.

crossing

For this small wallhanging I raw edge appliquilted the fabric pieces.

i miss the city

Another small one that will be mounted to stretched canvas. I layed out all the pieces on the sandwiched quilt, then the raw edges were machine "appliquilted". The quilt edges were blanket stitched by hand, with 6 strands of variegated embroidery floss.

looking deeper

A collaged (fabric, leftover yarn and threads, sandwiched between background fabric and watersoluble stabilizer), heavily embroidered, quilted with invisible thread quilt (27 x 42 cm/~10.5 x 16.5") mounted (with gel medium) on a stretched canvas (40 x 50cm/~16 x 20"). I blanket stitched the edges of the quilt with 6 strands of variegated embroidery floss. I really, really like the process of machine embroidery, as it comes very close to the "spaced out" feeling I get when I paint.

life weaving

A small collaged, heavily embroidered, quilted with invisible thread quilt (26 x 30 cm/~10 x 12") mounted (with gel medium) to a stretched canvas (40 x 50cm/~16 x 20").

top done and thread and fabric collages

I finished my free pieced quilt top and it's already sandwiched with batting and backing. Now to get it quilted. Not today, I can't face wrestling with a big quilt so soon after finishing my last one.

I started two small collages. For the one on the left I just took fabric scraps and "dot-glued" them to a piece of muslin, for the one on the right I put threads and fabric scraps between muslin and water soluble stabilizer. I then set my sewing machine for free-motion stitching and had a go at them. They are far from done, but I wanted to show you what I've been working on.