Lesson #3


Hi all,

Hope your having fun with the weaving.....I do believe we have this address thing now taken care of, so here ya go.

2 weeks ago, I asked you to prepare for this weeks lesson by taking a piece of trash fab, or cotton, and soaking it, wadding it up and putting rubber bands around it and then let it dry. This is know as the "Crumpled Fabric Technique"

Lots of talk on it in the last two weeks on the wearables digest.

They gave alot of really great ideas, and there is so much you can do with this technique, its unreal....just use imagination and creativity, and you won't believe the effects you can get with this technique.

Here I am tho with just the basics of this technique.

Here is the material list for this technique.

You need the amount of fusible interfacing that you used to make the crumpled fab.

some people using netting over this technique, why I have no idea....and I have never tried nor, do I know how, so maybe someone will come along and teach me. I'm always open to new ideas.

various threads, (such as metallic, heavy metellic, (the ones from madeira work great look like cording) small bead strings, small pieces of lace these are just a sample of what you can use)

machine embroidery needle sizes 10 or 12 for metallic threads, you should use a metafil needle or a topstitching needle

when I do this technique, I use my open toe embroidery foot, or my walking foot. sometimes I use my darning foot as well, the one that doesn't have the cut opening on it...

lingerie thread is good for the bobbin, although, when using metallic thread in the top, I switch to a polyester thread in the bobbin. metallic doesn't break as easily with polyester thread.

nylon thread, or invisible thread.....yli or sew art brands....size .004

first we are going to take and iron on the fusible interfacing to the wrong side of this fabric. DO NOT iron out the wrinkles, you want to fuse the wrinkles in. leave the bumps of fabric the way they are, you want the fabric to be this way.

ok, to use this method with just a regular open toe foot. feed dogs up.

its not good to use a decorative stitch, because it won't show up. with a straight stitch, you can take and do several lines just going any old way, straight stitching, making diamonds, doing any design you wish, this will give a textured effect to the fabric, but if ya want more here is a second option....

take an set your machine to a zig zag stitch. take the large cording or metallic cording and lay it anywhere....set the zig zag to a lower number creating a very small zigzag stitch, on most bernies were talking around 1-1 1/2 on the dials...both dials,......that would be for length and width dials. For 15 and 1630's I have no idea on what #'s these would be.

then you simply zigzag in place for 2 or 3 stitches over the cording, then you start zigzaging in any particular way, just kind of going anywhere,.....I have been known to take while doing this little scrap threads....(yep I save mine these are the ones you cut off ends when sewing away) and set them on the fabric while zig zagging down, I will lay them down as I am zagging along and stitch over them several times. When I use the feed dogs down feature, I also reinforce these again......they give a kind of frayed effect to to the look you are trying to acheive.

ok, for the machine embroidery using our darning foot, (its really important here that you have some experience working with feed dogs down and free motion work) I will put a basic lesson at the bottom of this post. Put your feed dogs down, add your darning foot. the one that comes with your machine is fine. At this point you can put any type of thread you wish in your machine, be it metallic, rayon, silk, just be sure to use the appropriate needles for your thread. You can then just do some meandering, going in and thru ditches (commonly refered to as the bumps you see in the fabric) make them so they stand up, I love to do that, it leacves an interesting effect all of its own.....looks the the fabric is standing up....great for mountains and such...anyway, if you added loose threads, you can add more at this time, and stitch over them very securely......its fun also to take cording or metallic thread and loop it like a figure 8 looping about 10-15 times then laying it down and stitching over it....when doing this technique, please be careful to keep your fingers out of the way......once your are comfortable with what you have added, you can add beads now....put your feed dogs back up and switch to a beading foot.

To add the string beads, I tend to use the smallest size bead available, because, I all ready have a ton of stuff going on here, so I don't need a whole lot more....but then we just zig zag over the beads to hold them firmly in place. thats it.....Have fun, we'll see you in two weeks.

Practice session for Machine embroidering.

You'll need a hoop, a good hoop, not the cheapies they use in hand embroidery, or to hang craft projects, and not a hand quilting hoop. I use the ones with the spring hoop clamp as they from a very taught piece of fabric in the hoop.

You need to use trash thread.....(good thread but in a color you bought and now don't use) add your darning foot to your machine, put your feed dogs down and now we are ready to sew.....

Take a put fabric in hoop. place under needle of machine....take a great big breath of fresh air, and put your shoe with your foot in it on your sewing machine pedal. hit the needle down feature button on your machine if you have it. (I love this feature, would even be willing to give up my knee lift to keep it) anywhow, we are all set now to sew.....first we want to start with stitching a few stitches in place (to lock our thread)....you can do this slowly if you want. Now, lets explore.....just start out slowly, moving the needle around the fabric making stitches, ok, so they may be big, as you get more comfortable, you will make these smaller. just keep meandering around increasing your speed as you get more comfortable, when you start to feel good, just speed the machine up more and more......the best machine embroidery and stitches come from the machine sewing fast, because you are concentrating on getting your design, you don't have time to make sure the stitches are small, you just find a rhythm you are comfortable with, and take it from there......

I wish that I could draw for you all the exercises that you would see in books, but at this point, I would honestly tell you that you should purchase on book on Machine Embroidery, you can't go wrong by doing this......We will be doing more techniques involving dropping those feed dogs, so it would be good if you could bone up on this......


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