I Should Be Working!!!

It's that time of the year, when all assignments are due in and we are preparing our presentations of our work.  Everyone is tired, distracted and busy.  I should be working right now.

I am in between tasks and need a break to reset the brain - and I am nearly missing my self-imposed task of at least one blog a week.  I think  I have finished all the making, well, for the RMIT course at least, and now have to make sure I have done all the fiddly bits of paper work that have to be handed in.  I need a good rest before I get into that mindset.

In the meantime, I have started to work on the final project for my SWTAFE course, Machine Embroidery as an Art Form. I have been playing around with making bowls.  I think my final work is going to be in machine lace but need to do a bit more experimenting.  I especially need to work on how to stiffen the lace but not lose the lustre.  So far I have stiffened my work but it is a bit dull.

I made a bowl that I thought would be easy and fairly quick - is anything quick with machine lace?
Anyway, I decided to be a good girl and recycle my cut off bits of thread from my other machine sewing.  They were all sitting in a container, looking lovely.

I drew a circle on a piece of MacRinse (water soluble vilene) and laid the threads out in the circle.  Then I pinned another layer of MacRinse over the top and put it into a hoop.  I couldn't see the threads as I wanted to use a thick soluble fabric and thought it wouldn't matter.  I used free motion sewing to keep it all together.  This was a good chance to use up all those bits left on spools.  I just put the spools on the top and bottom and didn't worry about having slightly different colours in them.

The pink spiral is photographed from the top and all seemed to be going well.  Then there were some strange noises and bumpy sewing.  When I checked the bottom it looked like I had bad tension or had tangled the threads.  But, upon closer inspection, it turned out that the loose threads were being pushed out the back by the sewing.  I have turned the solvy over to try to redistribute this effect, in case it was obvious (it wasn't in the end).

I was worried that I had gone a bit overboard with the free motion sewing and that it wouldn't be transparent enough but when I held it up to the window it seemed ok.

I am a bit disappointed with the way the colours have come out and think it would have been better to have used transparent soluble so that I could work with the colours a bit better.  It also still has a fair bit of the soluble not rinsed out, to give it body, and I think that is dulling the colours.
So now I think I had better do what I should have done in the first place, and make some smaller samples that I can try various stiffeners on - but that would be too organised and orderly.  It will all have to wait till later now, I have to get all my other work done first, then move on to this.

Back to basics

Since I've started my Studio Textiles and Design course, I have done very little patchwork and quilting. So I am pleased to say that I have almost finished a cot quilt. The baby was born last August and I started the quilt with months to spare but even that was not enough. Part of the problem was that I decided that I didn't like one of the colours that I had used, so I had to pull

out all those bits and then I lost my impetus. Fortunately, just before Christmas I decided to finish it whether I liked it or not. So I put the new bits on before going away and now have done all but the binding, which I hope to finish tomorrow. Now I can send it off to the relevant baby before she grows too big!