Look-out: thread-painting par excellence - the works of Alice Kettle

Odyssey, 2003

Alice Kettle's work has fascinated me for several years now. She creates huge, colourful, figurative wall hangings out of tiny stitches. The impact is that of the painted surface. She has a fine art education so the borders between fine arts and crafts are seems to dissolve.

In an interview she states: "I make figurative pieces. I think I am a maker, I love stitching. This doesn't mean that it is without intellect since every mark and thought require a creative response which articulates  my response to the world, to life and my particular aspirations."

Wisdom ond Lor', 2010

Alice Kettle finds her inspirations in history, people, stories, places, emotions, so her work has this extraordinary human aspect which catches my imagination and involves me immediately in the stories she is telling. But that is just the first step. On closer inspection her work offers so many layers and facettes, such an amazing richness, that I just would like to spend hours and hours discovering all the depths she has to offer. 

She builds up her pieces, layers upon layers, using a great variety of threads and so creating the impression of dimensionality. In an another interview she explains this process: "I do the background first, building up the stitches in different directions so the light falls in different ways. I use thicker threads and rayons to achieve luminosity. I also use a lot of metallic thread to create an undulating surface. The light responds to the different threads in different ways and you can also create areas of shadow. You can create three-dimensional effects by varying the tension in the cloth or ba keeping stitching in one small area so that the machine is forced to pound and mould that area into a specific raised form. I than go back and "draw" the figures."

Pause I, detail

I found this very recent video where she explains a her piece on her namesake, Alice Kettle, a mediaval witch.

Thread painting - the freedom of motion

I used to find thread painting tedious several years ago. But about 4 years back I started to make monoprints and dye-painted wholecloth-quilts and I’ve realized, that intensive machine quilting was that, what I wanted on the surface. I’m still not quite sure where the definition machine quilting ends and where thread-painting starts but that is no matter for me.

As said, the first intensely quilted piece was this monoprint: Earth Lines #2. I used free motion quilting and Madeira thread.

 

 Earth Lines #2

A few months later I started to use Aurifil and has been with it since. I love the textures, the colours and I use them in different weights. I’m rather unorthodox in these things and do use them mixed.

These two monoprints are intensively quilted, but they mightn’t “qualify” as thread-painting. Though for me the definition has more to do with spontaneously sewn lines on the surface, just like drawing with a pencil. Moving around, drawing thin lines has the quality of sketching - looking for "the right line" with your pencil. Not each line is supposed to have a perfect sit, I can improvise and this gives me a kind of freedom I cheerish. 

Midsummernight's Dream

Leaves of Grass 

The last one I’d like to show is a dye-painted wholecloth-quilt called Long Shadows and I did it as the others, rather spontaneous, just “drawing with the machine.”

The last three ones are made with Aurifil.

Threads and Needles and Stabilizers, Oh My

First, let's get the business out of the way.  I can tell you what I use, but I heartily encourage everyone to chime in with what works for them.

I like thin thread.  My favorite is Aurifil 50 weight.  I like it because it's thin, strong, and comes in any color I can dream.  My only problem with it is that it is in short supply in my small town and I have to acquire it at quilt shows or drive an hour or so to obtain it.  And I have done that drive.  More than once...  but I digress. I do use other manufacturers and weights but I like the thin thread because it's forgiving.  If I scribble-sew all over, mistakes aren't obvious.  With a thicker thread, it would be.  But thick thread has its place.  I like to cover things with thread because I think it gives an organic look.  My favorite subjects have hair or feathers.  But thick thread is really great for trees.  And for less organic things.

With my thin thread, I use small needles.  I like 75/11 or 80/12 sizes.  I usually use Schmetz jeans/denim or Microtex.  The shop where I purchased my machine suggested a new brand, Inspira.  I have been using their denim and Microtex and sometimes their titanium-coated needles and they seem to work pretty well- they're cheaper too.  I change my needles a lot.  When they make that popping noise, it's time for a change.  Sometimes I will notice nests or loops on the back -- time for a new or different needle.  I don't change my machine tension a lot after I make my sample.  Just the needle.  When using thicker thread, a larger needle is in order -- without a lot of blather about technical stuff, I suggest 90/14 Topstitch needles.

As for fabric, I use anything I can lay my hands on.  My favorite stuff to use is hand-dyed cotton, but I'm not proud.  I'll use anything that suits the project.

Which brings me to stabilizers.  I have been using Decor-Bond for a while now -- it's fairly lightweight and doesn't feel too crinkly inside of a quilted project.  A friend recommended Sulky Totally Stable recently, so I'm going to be experimenting with that this month.  I have a project that I abandoned because I didn't use any stabilizer before I started covering it with thread and it puckered.  I'm going to see if I can reclaim it with stabilizer.  Sometimes I use batting and sometimes I don't.  I like thin batts when I do use them.

And don't forget feet:  I use my freemotion foot with the feed dogs down.  Sometimes I forget and leave them up -- I usually don't notice until I remove the piece.  So I'm not sure it's all that important.

Next: thread-sketching and the value of making samples

May: Sketching and Painting with Thread

I was at a quilt show a couple of years ago and in the little sign accompanying a certain quilt, one of the techniques given was "thread-painting."  My friend and I looked all over that quilt and didn't see anything we thought would qualify as thread-painting.  It was a modern art quilt, composed of beautiful hand-dyed fabrics and artfully quilted, but we just didn't see any actual thread-painting.

I am not enough full of myself to think that I can provide the definitive definition of thread-painting, but I think that a lot of what I do qualifies as such.  So this month, my month, I want to explore the art of painting on fabric with thread.  Because it's really just another form of my favorite thing: putting color on fabric.

Here are a couple of examples to get the creative juices flowing:

Ellen Anne Eddy does some fabulous work with thread.  Here is a link to her website: http://www.ellenanneeddy.com/   and her blog: http://www.ellenanneeddy.com/weblog/

Terry Aske has a nice portrait of a thread-painted dog here:
http://www.terryaskeartquilts.com/Studio/2013/04/13/on-my-design-wall-dog-portrait-finished-2013-04-13/

Shannon Conley has a nice thread-painted dog here:
 http://imworkingonaproject.blogspot.com/2013/04/woof-woof-dogs-are-out.html

and for those who are not necessarily fans of dogs, Quilting Arts is offering a free ebook on thread painting and sketching here:
http://www.quiltingdaily.com/blogs/quilting-daily/archive/2013/04/25/thread-sketching-and-thread-painting-new-free-ebook.aspx


Next up: the basics.  Threads, needles, fabrics and stabilizers, oh my...