Q-SNAP FRAME

Hello Fire lovers.......my name is Mary Stori.  I want to thank Beata for providing the opportunity to discuss hand stitching with you.  It's especially important these days, when the focus seems to have turned toward machine and long arm stitching.  I've been fortunate to have made a 25+ year long career in the quilt world where many trends have changed and others remain the same.  Happily, there are still those of us who love the often slow, yet contemplative process of working with needle in hand.  

 I came up with a trick years and years ago that allowed me to secure my often highly embellished work in a frame for hand quilting.  I still continue to use this method today when I'm hand embroidering and beading.  I always, always work in a Q-snap frame.....11" x 11" or 11" x 17" are my preferences.  Working in a square or rectangular frame, rather than a round hoop, allows the fabric to be secured 'on grain', thus helping to avoid wrinkles/distortion from developing.  The 'clip' system makes it easier to adjust the tension....tight for beading but looser for hand quilting.

One problem however, is that the plastic clips that secure the fabric to the frame can damage embellishments.  (Here, I'm outlining the image with matt black beads.) One way to eliminate that issue is to wrap your quilt around the framework, use straight pins, safety pins, or hand baste to secure it.  Use the clips only in areas that is embellishment free.

                                      

Another approach is to make  muslin sleeves that slide onto the framework, which comes apart at each corner. Think of it as a casing for a skirt or pants, with a 2" extension at one end.  You can make just one or up to 4 for each size frame. This will allow you to pin your pieces onto the sleeve to maintain fabric tension without using the plastic clips.

                                     

This trick will also enable the stitching to be brought out to the edge of the quilt...without trying to hold it in your hands which has a tendency to cause the edges to ripple.  The finished piece is below:

Please join me next time to learn a nifty method I use when beading.

Mary Stori

web:   www.marystori.com

Blog:  www.marystori.blogspot.com

NEW SHOP BLOG:  www.marystorishop.blogspot.com

Author:  "Beading Basics", "All-in-One Beading Buddy", DVD -  "Mary Stori Teaches You Beading on Fabric", and "Embellishing With Felted Wool"

2004 Professional Teacher of the Year

Bernina Artisan

Silk Threads ,Patterns, Travels and Memories

 Some of my earliest hand stitching experiments,  moving on from heirloom hand quilting,  came out of the pleasure of using the Gutterman silk buttonhole threads that my Mum bought in the 70's. Threads are so important: the colours, the sheen , the way it slipped through the fabric. And even now the pieces I made using them are among my favourites, perhaps because of the time spent and the memories built into them. Dijanne Cervaal, whose work I admire hugely refers to such work as 'slow cloth'.  I made 2 blue and green based on algae and diatoms from old botany books ( above) and one based on the colours of Australia and the spiral rock paintings  I drew  at Maggie Springs, Ayers Rock .This was the first piece I sold for what seemed like a lot of money at an exhibition at Pitzhanger  and I must admit I have  a slight regret I no longer have it, especially as I don't have decent photos of , but I still have my sketchbooks from that wonderful trip.  Simply pieced, it was the stitching that  made these pieces.

 Also  based on my travels, 'Erg Chebbi' (below)   depicts the sand ripples on the dunes in Morocco - this  one  I see first thing in the morning as it's in our bedroom and again brings back memories od camping in the desert with stars as the ceiling!

I no longer use this thread very much - as I've moved to painting over my stitching with paint it seems a waste to cover it up ! But it's still the main  ingredient of my portable travel project, a patchwork stole that is indeed well travelled.

Threads and wholecloth

Hello everyone! It's Erica Spinks here again with my second post. If you missed my first entry, you can read it here.

Like most hand stitchers, I love threads as much as cloth. Non-shiny threads are my preference, since bling doesn't appeal. I prefer cotton, though I will use other fibres if the colour is right. For me, it's all about how the thread feels in my hand.

 Reaching for Words started life as a piece of plain cotton fabric that I folded and then hand-dyed. The dyeing resulted in a partial grid, so I pulled out all the threads from my collection that seemed to be potentials for this piece.

I used my favourite Aurifil 50wt cotton in plain colours, as well as WonderFil 12wt Fruiti and Spagetti threads. Fruiti is a beautiful variegated thread, while Spagetti is the same thread, but comes only in solid colours.

Mixing thread weights is a wonderful way to add variable texture.

I would like to try some of the beautiful colours in the Aurifil 12wt range once I can build a small collection. Linen is another thread I'd like to audition. What about you - what thread do you like to use for hand stitching?

The next piece in my Reaching series will be Reaching for Rain. I hand-dyed this piece of fabric and then coloured a section with Derwent Inktense sticks and then stamped and sponged it. The auditioned threads are a similar mix, with a few others thrown in. I haven't yet started stitching this piece.

The final quilt I'd like to show you is Windows. Again, this is a piece of fabric I folded and then dyed to create a grid. It was stitched with variegated Tutti 50wt cotton thread to create  windows of pattern.

I enjoy stitching on wholecloth, because then you can let the stitches make the pattern.

Sometimes, the fabric speaks to me and I find myself stitching the way it wants. That's the truly magical part!

Do you have recommendations for thread? What brands and weights do you prefer to use? When we stitch by hand, it really is personal preference because we handle the thread so much. We'd love to read your comments.
 
I'd love you to visit my pages! My blog is Creative Dabbling.
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Please pop over and say hello.

Daily stitching

Linda McLaughlin here, todays guest blogger. If someone had told me a decade ago that I would be hand stitching on a daily basis, I would have laughed and said, "Not me!" I still love my sewing machine and use it regularly, but hand stitching has really become a big part of my routine.

I'm very comfortable with daily projects, I'm on year five of a daily photo blog, but had never done stitching daily. In early 2012 I became intrigued with daily stitching projects so started a short term project,  Sixty five days to 65. It was started and done to celebrate a milestone birthday. I found that I loved doing hand stitching, but also learned a lot about doing a daily stitching project. I had given myself too many options so there was way too much stuff accumulated to accomplish my stitching. I had 35 different coordinating hand dyed fabrics, three different block sizes, floss for stitching and beads.

"Sixty five days to 65"

My next daily stitching project "365 days of being 65" started on my birthday with a much slimmer fabric and thread selection. Whenever I make a new stamp or screen, I do a sample print in black on either white or muslin fabric. I had a pile of these samples, so I cut them into 4" squares and had them ready to go. All the stitching was done with black pearl cotton thread. Everything fit into a container, so it was all in one place. Each block is different and my stitching was in response to whatever was printed on the square.

"365 days of being 65"

3/14/2012 to 3/13/2013

Daily stitching has become a very important part of my life, currently I have two different projects going at the same time. I start one on my birthday and the other at the beginning of the year.

"365 Red Circles"

1/1/13 to 12/31/13

Here's what I do to make each one a project I enjoy and look forward to working on.

- I plan ahead and keep everything I need in one container

- Fabric squares are cut ahead, the flannel I use to back each block is also cut and ready

- I have my threads, usually pearl cotton, also in the container. Each thread has the correct size needle with it, threaded and ready to go.

- It's become a part of my routine

- It's easy to travel with, everything I need for the duration of my trip goes into a zip lock bag

- I photograph and sew the blocks together as I go

- Post pictures to my blog weekly to keep myself accountable

Container for " 365 Red Circles"

Container for "Indigo and Rust"

Daily stitching has brought some definite benefits.

- When I do something creative everyday, I'm happier

- It gets me into the studio and once there I'm more likely to continue on other projects

- I'm using up materials I have on hand

- I get to try things on a small scale, finding out what works and what doesn't

- When traveling its great way to center myself before or after a busy day

- Each individual piece may not be much, but the sum of all parts is pretty impressive

- A sense of accomplishment

- A way of marking time, I remember where I was or what was happening when I look at certain ones

Line Dance

The first 3 rows of this years daily stitching

Today is my birthday!! So here is the one that was finished yesterday.

"Indigo and Rust"

3/14/13 to 3/13/14

I get to start a new project today.

I'll be back in two weeks to tell you about my weekly stitching projects.

Letting go

Penny again here.  As I talked about in my last post, the drawing class I took several years ago taught me that letting go of control could yield interesting and beautiful results.  But even though I went to the class with the intention of applying it to stitching, nothing much happened on that side of things.  I knew I wanted to do something different, but had no idea of how to go about it.  Then came Dorothy Caldwell's "Human Marks" workshop in May 2013, which opened up a whole new arena in stitching for me.  I have written about the week at the workshop and about work influenced by it in my own blog.  Some of the photos below also appear in that post, but have added new reflections here, focusing on the notion of "letting go."

A number of the exercises in the workshop were directed towards opening oneself up to chance or accident, encouraging us to pay attention to what was happening under our fingers, even if it wasn't intentional.  Here are two new directions in my stitching, both stemming directly from the workshop.

Blind stitching

The photo below shows the results of a blind stitching exercise, where Dorothy would read out a word, and the students, blindfolded, were to make a row of stitches with that word in mind.

When I took off my blindfold, I was enthralled with the second row from the top, made with the word "dialogue" as the prompt.  (I intended pairs of stitches, but sometimes I couldn't remember whether I'd done one stitch or two, so sometimes ended up with three stitches together.)  I asked Dorothy, "If I want to do a stitch like this again, do I have to be blindfolded?"  She answered no, likely not--a good thing, as sewing with a blind-fold on was not something I'd be eager to incorporate into my practice. Looking at the work as it develops is one of the joys of hand-sewing.

Last fall, I tried out the stitch as one included in a sampler piece (more on this piece here):

It is not as "loose" as the stitch done blindly, but that's fine--I like it very much as it is, perhaps even more than the stitch done in the workshop.  I think of it as my "conversation" stitch.

Looking at the back
One of the major lessons I took away from the workshop was reinforcement of the idea to slow down and look carefully.  To be open to accidental beauty.  To look for serendipitous adjacencies/relationships (this last most in play when we were making our small books, looking to arrange pages with interesting juxtapositions).  For example, on one of my cloth-book pages, I sewed a trapezoidal piece of fabric I had brought with me.

But when I turned the page, I found I was more enchanted with the line of stitches that showed on the back:

Looking at the back came into play when I turned to a large quilt that had been lined up for machine quilting for some months, but I had been unable to make a decision about the quilting.  It struck me that  my "conversation" stitch--could contribute to the meaning of the quilt, which is about regret--a state of mind that has much to do with conversations, missing or gone astray.  And that sitting with the quilt on my lap for the months it would take to hand-quilt it would be more therapeutic for me than machine stitching.  (More on this quilt here.)   I started by making the stitch in irregular rows in the upper right black figure (charcoal thread on black fabric).  When I looked at the back, I loved the irregular dot-dash lines that were created, and decided to use that as the main stitch on the rusty/red/orange background sections of the quilt.  So, for those sections, I am stitching with the back of the quilt facing up, making the conversation stitch onto the back.  In this photo, you can see the conversation stitch in the black and it's "back" in the background (this shows about a quarter of the whole quilt):

Here's the back side, showing stitching from the top right and some background:

And I've also varied the stitching on the front by sometimes doing the stitching from the back as a random seed stitch rather than in rows, which yields the stitches on the bottom right on the red side.  (This is a lot less confusing if seen in person!)

When my friend Mary Beth was visiting a few months ago, she asked me how it felt to do the more improvisational stitching--did it take more attention/thought than a standard, regular quilting stitch, or less?  Interesting--it actually takes more, and I find this to be true of making compositions improvisationally as well.  There is an early stage when the point is not to think so much, to let go of concentrated intentionality.  This is what generates the free-form stitches or compositions.  But once those elements are in place, and one wants to repeat them or work them into a composition, one has to think about it.  In repeating the conversation stitch, I had to take care to make it not regular.  After months of repeating the stitch, it now comes pretty naturally to vary it without thinking.  But there is still more conscious thought involved.  It's different from the kind of meditative state that I am more likely to enter if doing a regular, repetitive traditional hand-quilting stitch.  I like both.

My last post is scheduled for later this month.  In that post, I'll talk about techniques, tools, and materials (including the thread that I hand-dyed for this last project).

Bringing Stitching Forward

Penny Gold here.  My attention in quiltmaking has long been focused on color and shape.  Choosing fabrics, creating pleasing adjacencies of color, selecting shapes--these have been my main pleasures.  Quilting the layers together at the end was often done with reluctance--I loved how the tops looked without quilting.  I thought about changing to doing fabric collage rather than quilts, but I love the feel and drape of quilts, and I enjoy giving quilts to family and friends as gifts that can be used.  And--I had to admit--the finished quilted product always did look better than the unquilted top. 

I have always done some handquilting (reserved for projects that had special personal meaning) as well as machine quilting.  Whether working by hand or machine, I found it difficult to think creatively about the stitching; my main question was: what stitching would detract/divert the least from the design I had made through color and shape.  Several years ago, I decided to challenge myself to think in a more wide-ranging way about the quilting, to think of the quilting as a kind of drawing, as a layer that could add additional meaning to a quilt rather than just supporting what was already there.  I had the good fortune to be able to take an art class at the college where I was teaching, a course called "Drawing in the Expanded Field."  The course was about a wide range of 20th-century and contemporary drawing, considering "drawing" in the widest possible sense.  I looked at artists familiar to me in a new light and learned about many more; favorites include Sol Lewitt, Agnes Martin, Gego and Eva Hesse.  I did a lot of experimental drawing.   I learned a great deal, with two things in particular that have an impact on my work in quilting:

1) I love repetition of simple lines and shapes.  This is obvious from my attraction to the artists mentioned above.  Variation is also a necessary part of the work—but sometimes only the very slight variation that comes from something being repeated by a human hand.  There is an obvious connection here to the pleasure I get from traditional hand quilting—one similar stitch after another—and from my favorite style of machine quilting, which is closely spaced parallel lines.  There is a kind of control and attentiveness in these processes that appeals to me.

2) But—more of a surprise to me--I also learned that abandoning control can also yield interesting and pleasing results.  I'll talk about two examples.

Using a code to generate a sequence of shapes:

One exercise in the class was to find a pre-existing pattern or code, and to use that to generate a sequence of some sort in one's art work.  The pre-existing pattern I used was a sentence taken from a book I happened to have open.  Then, following the sequence of consonants and vowels, I assigned vowels to be squares and consonants to be rectangles:

I loved making this and others like it, fiddling with various shapes and assigned codes.  It freed me from making decisions about placement of each shape—I just followed the code.  Yet, because there was some underlying meaning/rule in the originating code (the relationship between consonants and vowels in English words), the resulting pattern of shapes had a kind of in-built balance to it.  I enjoyed the combination of freedom with structure.

Cutting things up and re-structuring:

One of my ongoing quilt projects has to do with stones, some pieces focused on color, others on shape.  For the ones focused on shape, I was intent to convey the beauty of the myriad curving contours of stones, so I put those curves against a contrasting background, for example, these small pieces made with hand-painted fabric: 

One of the class assignments was to cut up something and then make something from the pieces.  I photocopied a number of photographs of stones, cut up the photocopies, and collaged them together.  Here's one of the resulting collages, perhaps my favorite piece from this class:

and a detail:

I made straight-edge cuts, and I like how those straight edges play against the curved lines of the stones.  This is nothing like the fabric work I had done before, and I never would have gotten here through step-by-step figuring out.  It took the leap of cutting up, itself done randomly, without intentionally trying to make particular shapes (other than angular edges).

Buoyed with courage from that experiment, I took the leap, and cut up some fabric stone shapes that I had appliquéd onto fabric, and then put them back together in a new composition:

I do love this small piece (13x14").  But still, what to do about quilting?  Once again, I couldn't bear to "interfere" with the shapes, and I kept stitching to an absolute minimum, invisible except from the back.

So, the class taught me a lot about what could be gained by experimenting, and most especially, by letting go of control and of conscious intention.   But the impact in my quilt-making ended up being in the areas of color and shape, not in the line of quilting.  Yet the groundwork was laid, and when I read a description of Dorothy Caldwell's "Human Marks" workshop, I saw this as a chance to come back to thinking about quilting as drawing, as "mark-making."  My next post will talk about the impact of that workshop on my stitching.

Stitch Size - from heirloom hand quilting to tacks and darns

When I started thinking about what I might write about hand stitching for this blog, I read through some of the posts on  my own blog where I've considered this subject.  About 5 years ago I was looking at how much  the size of my stitching had altered over the years.

My mother taught me to hand quilt  in the few months  I was unemployed after graduating and once I'd practiced on a bag ( getting 12- 13 stitches per inch) I was hooked, loving how the  stitching altered the surface and the soothing rhythm of process. The first art quilts I made were based on stained glass windows, 2 wall hangings made of scrap strips cut with scissors from jumble sale fabrics.  I  had a hand operated Singer machine  with a single stitch  suitable only for dressmaking and piecing and  I took it with me when I moved around the country in various jobs  from 1983 to 1990 -  quilting had by necessity to be by hand

 'Parsons Prism' 1982

 

'Amish Square' 48 x 48 " 1986

 











1986 was a productive  year for quilting while I was based in Salisbury doing botanical survey work on Salisbury Plain - Sarum Quilters were so supportive. More confident now in my stitching, in an Amish style quilt   I used black thread which would show up more  in the tulip patterns I designed myself.  However black on black was nightmare  and I reverted to cream for 'Counterpoise'!

 'Counterpoise' 60" x 60" 1986

 In 1987 I went  on a  batik course at Westhope College with Anne Dyer with Medieval Tiles in my mind from the British Museum. My mother had died recently and it seemed important to keep going  with the textile  interests we'd shared. Forming the centre of a double sized  bed quilt, it took me 7 years  of weekends and bank holidays to complete the hand quilting, each 'tile' taking 2 hours.

 'Medieval Tile Quilt' Double Bed  1987-1994  

 

Then in the mid-1990's I acquired a Bernina sewing machine with 'windfall shares' from a building society. Now I could achieve small stitches with machine quilting, I could be more prolific and concentrate on using larger hand stitches for decorative  not functional purposes. I often use a combination of both machine and hand stitching, whatever seems  appropriate for the cloth I'm working with. 

'Rules the Waves' 2012

'Red Remnants' 2014

My average stitch size now is probably 3-4  stitches per inch, often  larger! On some of my seascape pieces such as 'Rules the Waves'  I use  glazed quilting threads in huge overlapping tacks to give the impression of  sea spray and on my most recent pieces I've been using crochet cotton to 'darn' sections of old quilts.   Having served my apprenticeship over 12 years making thousands of tiny heirloom quilting stitches I think I've earned the right to break out!  

In my  next few posts  I'll share some of my projects large and small which illustrate the  different approaches and threads I use.

Mags Ramsay