here’s a little project i took to the lake and just a little ‘happy time’ sewing up decorative stitches. i love these kind of projects. for one thing, they aren’t so bulky, and so they’re easy to pack up. i {only} brought eight spools of shiny, strong and gorgeous100% magnifico polyester thread to choose from… and then my next hardest decision was choosing the type of decorative stitch!
i love using the bernina #20 open toe foot, and changing the needle position to the far right allows me great visibility and accuracy, as well it’s just darn fun… to get really nice placement along the raw edge of the circular motifs:
then i switched to some pretty wonderfil thread i found in one of our quilt store excursions… i believe the spool is about a 12 wt. perfect… for playing in the bobbin, and i eagerly wound some and then turned my project to the back and let it do it’s thing, which amounts to “puttin’ on the ritz” if you ask me! of course, i had already stitched from the front side, so i had a great road map to place the bobbin thread to begin with. i let the top tension “lose the thread battle” to a certain degree as you can see below – {the outter-most stitch is the one i’m referring to} and this is a result of setting the top tension at a lower number rather than a higher one, so the bobbin thread {the thick stuff} ‘wins the war’ so to speak… and i let it because i loved the textural presence of how the tug-o-war changed the look of the stitch pattern. ain’t it cool? {well, i thought so!} if you don’t like that look, then raise the top tension {to a higher number} so the two threads meet in the middle!
and i don’t want to forget to mention that i had all of these patchworks stabilized. that’s very important, so the stitches don’t warp the surface area of the fabric/patchwork. this time i chose a fusible fleece from OESD, and it works very nicely, adding a puffy bit from below as well as stabilization for the stitchwork.
it’s pretty impressive as a satin-type, decorative stitch. i love the texture, and the beautiful color it brings to this bright patch of stitchwork. you can see a bit of it — the white peeking out from below the top, in the last photo.
the fabric is a hand-dyed piece of velvet i dyed a few summers ago. precious stuff! and below are the patchwork pieces… i had brought three each of these two block types.
and that’s how to have fun in my book!!
do i know what i’m going to do with them… exactly?! heck no! but now that i have them, i’m even more excited to play with figuring it all out!
bless your day!
xo
leslie
Comments 5
ouuuu la la Leslie, very pretty, love all the decorative colorful patterns, and you selected such beautiful threads to make your stitching pop. Looks so lovely! You do such beautiful work!
Gorgeous! xox
Looks gorgeous!
Greetings, Rike
Wow so pretty I love them all!!! I love embroidery by hand and machine fancy stitches too. Plus your fabric makes it all come together. Just my style!
Awesome – that looks so cool!!!