My local Bernina Store does a monthly "Inspirations Club" that I attend regularly. They always do some sort of project - which is interesting - but really it is a way for them to get new things in front of you that you must buy... Sometimes I can resist - sometimes I can't. The club last week was on thread painting - very appropriate for my journal quilts... It was a great demo and I have signed up for a class the last Monday in Feb. I spent a couple hours practicing this morning... The first thing I did was practice the basic stitches that were demonstrated - I used a old piece if shirting fabric and some variegated thread to see the effect.
I did each stitch in a right to left and a left to right motion - and I also took the opportunity to use this little piece as a place to have some binding reference samples as well with 2" and 2.5" strips - sewn down with different needle positions to ensure the width and fullness of binding I want on each particular quilt. One of the best tips from this demo came from someone in attendance - if you machine has a motor speed option - put your machine on half speed and floor it! BTW I should mention this thread painting was done similar to freemotion quilting with the feed dogs dropped. After this practice piece I moved on to more detailed work....
In this piece the leaf on the left is lightly sketched on the fabric with washable pencil then drawn in with thread. The lines are stitched multiple times to achieve the effect shown. The filler is free motion zig zag - with the feed dogs dropped as well. It creates interesting texture. The leaf on the right is done entirely free hand - no pre-sketching to know where I am going. It turned out alright in my opinion for a practice piece. Again the filler is free hand zig zag stitch - but this time I mistakenly went in different directions. Oops - but I like it and think some of the mistake texture would be great on my trees... I then did little boxes of each of the zig zag textures created so I could reference them when I do my next journal quilt. Then I background painted the square for more practice on the stitches from the original practice piece. I used a light blue thread so I could still see my notes on all the different stitches. More practice for my upcoming journal followed...
First I free hand drew the tree with thread and then filled in with variegated thread - just for practice...The filling is both straight stitch and zig zag. I only filled in about half the tree - as just from this practice - I know I need a lot more. One of the things the demo suggested was to hand sketch your item repeatedly to get the feel of it and then when you thread paint it - it will be easier. I did not do that on this piece. Next I cut some leaves from scraps of a quilt back and raw edge - free motion appliqued them down - added the twisty vine... These look pretty good to me and I will use this technique on an upcoming journal for sure. Again I made notes on the piece in pigma pen to reference later and background painted in white thread for more practice.
Overall - I am pleased with my practice this morning.
2 comments:
It looks like you're learning quickly. It's handy that there's a store close to you for classes. Looking forward to seeing some of the rewards in your journal projects.
Very nice! Looks like you had fun too. Now that you have practiced it it will naturally appear in your journal pages!
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