A Piece in Production

Good Morning dear readers, today I am going to show you from go to woe my latest little piece and how it sprang to life from a little pile of bits and pieces. For interests sake and to see what would happen, I decided to take the same starting point I used with my previous piece I showed you, the lovely Golden Headed Cisticola. So here's where it all began.....

First I do sketches. I use an assortment of reference points being mainly books and photographs being particulary mindful NOT to breach copyright. I like to keep the bird reasonably accurate so get out the trusty bird identifier books - they are really good for shape and colour etc.

Next, I take the sketch I like the best, scan it into the computer and then print it out to the size I want it to be in the finished piece. I then trace that onto white fabric, with a normal drawing pencil. then comes the colouring in bit. For this bird, I used my new Tsunikeko inks that I had bought to paint it.

Then I select thread colours.... I ended up using all but 2 of the threads you see here, so quite a few colours went into him.

Then off to the machine. First I clean, oil and pop in a new needle and attach the darning foot. Next I fill my bobbin with a fine bobbin thread such as The Bottom Line, with something to match the top thread. I adjust my tension by loosening the top and I use a bobbin case I have especially for messing about with the tension screw.

To prepare the painting for stitching, I stretch it in a wooden embroidery hoop. The trick here is to use one that you can do up with a screwdriver and get the fabric really taut.

Then I begin to start stitching. I drop the feed dogs, take the stitch length down to zero, bring the bobbin thread to the top and away I go! There's lots of thread changes, lots of threads and periodically I stop and draw the threads to the back of the work. When I've done stitching I cut it out just roughly at this stage. These are a couple of work in progress pics above.

On to the background. I take my hand dyed piece I have selected as the base, (which I did weeks ago) and then start cutting strips of fabrics for the grass in selected colours. I have acquired some company at this point, looking for attention, no doubt.

But now I don't like the background, I think it's too light. So off to the paint pots. Here I go over the dyed fabric with paints.

I like this much better, but now it throws out the grass colours I had previously selected, so I have to start again with grass strips.

How can I use that fabric if you are sitting on it??!!! This species is more commonly known in the household as A.S.M. (Attention Seeking Missile)

When I'm happy with the layout, I throw under some tear away and start pinning everything into place.

Back at the sewing machine, I free motion straight stitch everything down with clear monopoly thread. The bird gets stuck in place with fusible web near the end of this process.

Then I re-hoop the bird and stitch it in place along with more detailed embroidery to finish it off. The final grasses are stitched down over the bird, then the whole thing goes back onto the painting board for finishing touches here and there wherever I feel it needs lights/darks or colour balancing.

Lastly, the tediously slow process of removing the tear away, then I stretch it over a small artist's canvas, staple it in place and voila! Finished!

It came out quite different from the original cisticola, despite starting out from the exact same sketch. That was a really good exercise and I hope you like the results as much as I do.

A Little Cisticola

Finally, here I am, in the mood to do some blogging, and have I got a little treat for you! This piece was fun to make and a challenge colour wise, I like the way that there is only fundamentally two colours - blue and orange (with lots of earthy variations). The bird is a male Golden Headed Cisticola, in full breeding plumage, and I reckon he's calling out for a mate, but he's keeping himself out of danger by staying just within the confines of the long grass. It was made with dyeing the background and all the grass fabrics are dyed, the bird was painted, free motion embroidered and then appliqued on along with all the grass. I then went at it again with more fabric paint to add lights and shadows where the piece needed it.

Latest Blue-Ribboned Effort

No, I haven't dropped of the face of the earth, although my blogging efforts of late might have made you all think so. But I reward you with a pic of my Rainbow Bee-eater. She's currently roosting at the Quilts Across Queensland display, at the Ekka in Brisbane. So if you're a Brisbanite or near enough, you can get to see it for real. And what do you know, she took out 1st place small quilt professional section! There's another ribbon for the brag wall!
I enjoyed the challenge of using different techniques to execute this little bird, although it was extremely tricky sewing the borders on before appliqueing and then getting the whole thing to stay square. Not sure I'll try that trick again, I don't really like to repeat headaches in a hurry. Its 110cm x 127cm.
And if you are wondering what I'm secretly sewing away on right now, the only hints I'm giving out is this time the birdie is a male!

Wayside Daisies

Time to share my piece I made for the Queensland Quilters challenge. The quilt had to fit the theme 25, as Queensland Quilters is celebrating it's 25th birthday. So I did 25 daisies. I had taken photos of some daisies growing wild that I came across in my travels many years ago, and had the images stored away for the right moment to use them as inspiration for a work of art. This piece has a painted background, with hand dyed fabrics used for the leafy bits, and some yarns couched down for the stalks. The daisies were machine appliqued and I used whip stitch for their centres. It was all stitched together with monopoly, which is a bit tricky in the photographing phase as it really reflects the flashlight and goes all shiny.

The exhibition opening was last night, and prior I had a fabulous meal with Kate and my dearest friend Karen, at a turkish restaurant. Delicious! There was some beautiful textiles hanging about the restaurant, so it was very fitting. After that we moved on to the exhibition, which was terriffic, superbly organised and the quilts were hung beautifully. Congrats to those that won prizes in the challenge, they were well deserved.

Dropping a line to you

I've been busy on a couple of pieces, but I'm not going to show you them yet - one's going to the Sydney Quilt Show (see the clever button to the right about that) and another is off to the Queensland Quilters challenge. Soooo, instead, thought I'd show a pic of something else I've done. This little piece I made ages ago and is the "chuck ya scraps onto fusible web and have fun stitching over the top" kinda stuff. Haven't done one of these for a while...maybe it's time to do that again and reduce the scrappy pile....

New Year New Fun

Boy, it's been a while since my last post - that's what happens when you get busy with end of school stuff, christmas, summer holidays. The holidays have once again drifted by in a blur of relaxation, swimming, humidity, rain, family and friends. And the last week has been the busy preparations ready for the new school year. So, soon to have time to myself again. But never fear, the sewing machines were buzzing away nicely in between all that stuff - dressmaking though. I don't know what other sewers are like, but I just don't like what the shops have to offer, the pants never fit me, and I much prefer going to fabric stores, fondling all those fabulous array of dress fabrics and buying that, rather than traipsing endlessly from boutique to boutique. And now that my daughter is in ladies sizes, I find myself doing a double dose for her as well. I might have turned quilter, but the dressmaker in me remains a permanent fixture.

The other evening whilst mucking about on the computer, I did a big splurge purchase on threads, got the lovely squishy parcel in the mail a few days later. All these lovely greys! Some really lovely browns, a few blues and a smattering of red/purple/orange. I bought the Isolon threads this time, haven't used them before, but I think I will be very happy with how they perform in the machine.

NSW Guild Challenge

Ohh, so exciting, my entry into the NSW Quilters Guild challenge won first place!!!! What a happy dance for me. Today I collected my prize, a Pfaff 3.0 select sewing machine, wow! I can't wait to use it. Thank you so much to Pfaff for your kind donation. The challenge was to make a quilt 50cm x 70cm with the theme Coast and Country. I got so inspired by this theme, abosulute loved making the quilt, and was so pleased with the results, so I was just so thrilled about it winning. It's called "The Sentinel" and yes, another Aussie Bird, this time the kookaburra. If you want to see all the entries, check them out on the Guild's blogsite.