FUFO

Finished UFO!!!
I have had a panel lying around for years. I think I did it with Olga Walters, at the Patchwork House, when it was still in Church St, Hawthorn. I can't remember how long ago it was, just that it was quite a while. Maybe 10 - 15 years??

Anyway ...

I found the panel a while ago and decided not to put it away - it has kicked around for almost a year.

The Christmas, New Year and Summer holiday break has been a good time to play around with some ideas. And the weather has been fairly kind to us so far, unlike the rest of Australia.

I decided that I needed to play around with my new(ish) sewing machine and practise my free motion sewing. I even got out two little booklets that Dijanne Cevaal made which show many different free motion NOT stippling designs. Every now and then I get them out to have a play.

Those empty spots are mostly filled in now.

I did some more free motion work on the panel, having decided that I couldn't be bothered doing the whole thing with patterns I had started so long ago. So now it has little sections of different designs where I just played.

What to do with it now?
It is not as if it is gorgeous and should be on one of our walls.
I have been visiting a friend lately and taking my sewing machine. It has a lovely big perspex table to go with it, to help with the larger pieces of sewing. I have been taking it in a cardboard box which is a bit unwieldily.
The panel is exactly the right size for the box - well, it is because I had, with great forethought (or we did it for some reason that I don't remember), made the batting and backing much larger than the front. So I have been able to put a wider border on it than I would usually, and lo and behold, I have a bag for my perspex sewing table.

Now all I have to do is remember to take the legs with it when I take it with me. (I don't use it at home, I have a wonderful Horn table that fits my machine. I love my Horn table. I have had it for years and years and it has been one of the best purchases I have ever made.

Look What I Found!

I have been doing some tidying of my studio recently, partly due to having taken soooo much stuff to the Laura Edgar workshop at Ballarat and needing to put it all away again. I decided to be tidy and put my stuff in 'sensible' places, accessible places. Wonder how long that will last. And if I will be able to find everything.

While I was deciding where some of it should go, I came across an old piece that I had started after an Olga Walters workshop - years ago. So long ago I can't remember the actual date. Maybe the 90's, early 2000's?

It was when I was first taught some of the possibilities of Vliesofix and was encouraged to be more adventurous with free motion stitching.

It has some fabric that has been fussy cut (very fussily) and then placed on the backing. All of it is commercial fabric, I don't do a lot of dyeing of my own cottons. It has wool batting/wadding (I never know what we call it in Australia, I think we use both terms) and backing fabric. It is really a rather traditionally constructed quilt, just not the usual proportions.

It is currently lying on my cutting table, while I think about whether to work on it, to continue to play with some of the techniques I have just learnt with Laura, and which I need to try or I will forget them, or whether to actually get out the tapestry loom.

Too many choices - hope they don't freeze me!

Cityscapes

We are having a bit of a break in our design classes, mainly due to the Easter break. I have taken advantage of this and am trying to come up with a series of small machine embroidered pieces.

I have been diligently taking photos from the top of the cliff nearby, it looks towards the city.  I have quite a lot of photos now.

One of MANY photos from this vantage point.

I have been debating how to use these and have even thought of doing a tapestry based on one or two of the photos.  Our tapestry group met last week and I took along some printouts of some of my photos.  I haven't started the tapestry as I am not sure I actually want to do this design.  One of the ladies present suggested that I not do the actual scene, that I leave out the city and just concentrate on some of the skies.  I think she has touched on what has been holding me back - the reproduction of photos, of doing realistic scenes, is not quite what I want to do.  This could partially be because I don't think I will do a good job, especially in the proportions I am thinking or working in. But I also have this thought that if I can reproduce a photo, what is the point really?  I already have the photo.

So it was suggested that I take parts of the skies that interest me and just do those bits. I like this idea, I just have to think more about it.

In the meantime, while I have been thinking about it, I have decided to play around with the images in another medium.

I have done some fabric collage and have come up with some small pieces.  I decided to return to the Olga Walters type or work I enjoyed so much previously.

I started with one of my sunset images. (See above.)

I laid out my background fabric, ironed on the Vliesofix, tore fabric into strips and ironed it on. Then I put on the wadding and backing fabric and started to do some free motion sewing.

This turned the image into a much more abstract piece, I had no hope of reproducing the colours, the actual clouds, etc. I think I like this way of working, I just make it up as I go along. Very freeing.
I am also only using fabrics that I already have, no new purchases. This is not particularly hard as it I only need small strips of fabric.

I had drawn up a cityscape earlier, not quite to scale and not particularly accurate but based on the view in my photos.  I transferred it onto Vliesofix and ironed it onto some dark fabric.

I have been rearranging my studio and have recently sorted all my threads.  Therefore, they were in my recent memory and I decided to use some.  The piece has ended up much more textured than I had envisaged but I am happy with that.  I am realising that it is texture that I like and I have been thinking about the earlier tapestries I did in my textiles degree, I used to put in texture in various ways, including using textured yarns. Now this is part of my sewing repertoire too.

The buildings have turned out to be much smaller and less important than I had planned but I don't mind, the focus is on the sky now and the cityscape just gives it context. 

Still playing around with Olga Walters' workshop ideas

Yesterday I used a piece of fabric that was made in the workshop but that had not been sewn.  I wanted to make it into a pouch with sections for the different parts for a TomTom (GPS) for a family member.  However, it was too big for what I wanted and was also too floppy.  This may be because I used polyester filler rather than wool or cotton.  The sewing was also less dense than in other pieces we were shown and that we did in the workshop.

Back to the drawing board.

I had a piece from the original Olga Walters workshop that I did not finish, I had just sewn it so that the fabric strips were well and truly attached.
Today I got it out and sewed it a bit more.  I attached some medium weight interfacing to the back of the piece and sewed it more densely.

After making the basic fabric, I then fiddled around, trying to work out how to close it.  I didn't want to use press studs because that might mean you were pressing on the screen.  I wasn't sure if you could use magnets near a computerised item, I seem to remember that magnets do dreadful things to computer monitors.  So I decided to put on a button with a loop.
Do you think I could remember how to do that??  NO.  But the amazing internet came to the rescue.  I found this useful video of how to turn a tube of fabric inside out.  The woman in the video says she doesn't use many tools in her sewing but that this tool is one she loves.  As far as I can see, it is just a straw, or a small tube, and a stick with a rounded end.  That is what I used, a straw and a meat skewer.  It worked a treat.
I came across this useful site, telling me how to make a clutch.  I didn't do it their way but I did learn how to make the button tie thingy.  One very useful tip was to use a button with a shank, so that the tie can go around it. This might be obvious to you people with sewing experience out there, but it was news to me.  I am going to have to become a more proficient sewer if I am actually going to use these fabrics I keep dyeing and creating.
Here is the finished item.

Yet another bowl

I had to blog today, 7+6=13.  Just a little quirk I have.

Today I decided to try making a fabric bowl.  No really good reason, just wanted to see if I could.  I had been looking at books of bags and, suddenly, there I was, making a bowl. It seemed too complicated to make a bag.  And a bowl is smaller.

So I got out the template I made up for my thread bowl and cut out some fabric.  I used the technique I learnt recently at Olga Walters' workshop.  I used white cotton for the base fabric and some wool batting I had that was the right size.  As I was making a bowl and you can see both sides, I chose some fabric I dyed years ago at a dyeing workshop.

Winter is approaching and there are starting to be ads for Christmas in July, so I decided I might play around with some Christmas stuff that I didn't get around to in December.  I might even try some decorations too - we can always use them in December.

That is one of the advantages of having Christmas in summer, people want to do the whole hot meal thing and have another celebration in July - not that my family does but I can still play.

After I laid out the template, over the three layers, I cut it all to the shape of the template.  I'm still not sure if this was a good idea or not, it did work but there were some fiddly bits under the sewing machine.   Then I cut out the Vliesofix and ironed it onto the top fabric.  This is when I realised that the template is not perfectly symmetrical and had to do some adjusting.  It might have been better if I had done the cutting through all the layers at once.  Live and learn.

I then laid out some scraps of fabric I had, I also used the wedges I had cut out for the template.  I have had these tiny scraps for years, being rather obsessive about not wasting things.  Finally, a use for them.

I am having issues with focus on my camera, sorry.

I sewed over the surface to attach them more firmly.  I then decided to do a red pattern to give added solidity.  It was easier to see from the back, so I did that.

I then butted the pieces together and used satin stitch to join them.  Then I sewed across the top edge.

Voila - a reversible bowl.

More machine embroidery

Wow, it is a week since I posted last.  Where does the time go?
Actually, it has probably gone, this time, on an assignment for my Machine Embroidery as an Art Form course.
As I posted before, I attended an Olga Walters workshop and it so happened that it had very similar techniques to the current assignment in my course.
We are doing some work with heat bonding and laying out fabric or fibre scraps to make our designs.

I wasn't doing landscape designs, I decided to challenge myself more than usual and try portraits.  However, at the workshop I did a layout based on on of Olga's designs and have now done some free motion sewing on it.  It doesn't look at all like her work but it was fun to do.

Olga suggested that I frame it with the black fabric but that is as far at the finishing off has gone.  I will have to decide how to do that when I get it back from my teacher.  I am sending it off with the coursework, just to show her the sorts of things the workshop was about.

Olga Walters workshop

I have just had a wonderful two days participating in a workshop at the Embroiderers Guild.  It was so much fun!  I felt really inspired - now I have to keep that enthusiasm up and continue to play (as Olga called it).
The workshop was called Whimsical Workshop - Fabric Collage.  Olga showed us how she works on her quilts and bags.  It is seemingly simple when she demonstrates - not so much when you do it yourself.  The techniques are not that hard but the design that looks so easy when she works is not quite the same when you try it yourself.
She is a lovely teacher, always seeing the positives in your work and then going on to how you might develop what you are doing.  There is none of that 'do it my way', she allows you to develop your own visions and to play (and make mistakes) in your own direction. She makes suggestions about what to do next, allowing you to decide if that is what you want to do.
Mistakes are usually incorporated into the work and are no longer mistakes.  The occasional mistake that remains a mistake is worked on and problem solving techniques are employed to rescue the work.
Olga not only taught us her techniques for the class samples but demonstrated quite a few other ideas that could be incorporated when we go home and master the class techniques.  She is a very generous teacher and has revved up my enthusiasm.

I haven't finished any of the samples yet but will post a couple of images to give an idea of the techniques.

Torn strips of fabric laid out over Vliesofix(Bondaweb) and iron onto base fabric.

The anchoring sewing - more needs to be done.  Lots of texture still there, I am hoping not to flatten it too much. Olga uses pieces such as this to make her bags and quilts.

More fabric laid out onto Vliesofix, then ironed onto the base fabric, waiting for some machine sewing.

Olga brought in a lot of her previous works to show how her techniques have been used.  You can see images of some of them here.
I have only put images of my work, if you want to see how she has done it, much better, go to the link above.