BLOG 178

I have been indulging myself this week by playing solely with threads and this has been a complete diversion to my usual preference of working with fabric. I suppose that these days, when I make a quilt, I generally have to have a bed or a wall for it to go on or an exhibition in which to enter it. Not like in my teaching days when I made quilts at the drop of a hat, usually with the excuse that it was for teaching purposes, when it was really that I just needed to make something; I just couldn’t stop myself. I still have vast collections of fabric but not the excuse now to knock out quilts. So diversions like playing with threads give me time to ponder on my next piece of fabric work.

As you may have read in earlier blogs, I go for a sewing day to machine embroiderer Suzette Smart in Shropshire. These fortnightly get-togethers aren’t lessons as such; 3 of us just sit at Suzette’s table and do our own thing. But that said, I certainly couldn’t do my own thing without having Suzette’s samples for inspiration and the advice of the other two very experienced embroiderers. It was from Suzette that I got the idea to make decorative plates with threads. I am toying with the idea of combining thread painting with my painterly quilts, I just don’t know how yet.

And here is my paint palette of threads. There are many different types of thread and just looking at them makes my mouth water!

                                          Thread palette

To make the plate, I placed a square of ‘Ultra Solvy’ onto my embroidery ring. (This layer does just as it says on the packet: Extra strong, transparent, water soluble film). It dissolves in warm water to leave just the threads.

                          Water soluble film

  I then teased a thin layer of fibres around the embroidery ring in the colours I have selected for the project.

                                   Solvy and fibres

I added another layer of ‘Ultra Solvy’ over the top and held it all in place tightly with the inner ring of the embroidery frame.

                                     Extra Solvy layer

I put a free motion foot on my sewing machine and the same thread in the spool and on top. I started by scribbling with the thread in the areas where the inserted fibres of the same colour are positioned. I made sure when I was scribbling that the threads overlapped one another so that they would form a mesh when the soluble was washed away.

                                        Scribbling with thread

 I tried to get as close to the edge of the embroidery ring as was possible with my machine foot, in order to define the most accurate circle. I changed colour often, both in the bobbin and on top, and continued to scribble over the fibres of the same colour.

                                       Colour changes

 Once the colours have been laid down, I add some decorative floral detail over the top of the mesh of threads.

                                      Decorative detail

I took the layers out of the embroidery hoop and followed the directions on the water soluble packet. Once the soluble has been removed I placed the embroidery onto a deep plate and left it to dry overnight.

                                  Shape over a plate

And that was it! I got such a sense of achievement from the process, now I need to work out how to adapt the idea in relation to my quilts.

 

                                       Finished plate