Monday, November 24, 2008

Machine Embroidery with Soluble Stabiliser

Another exercise for Experimental Textiles with South West TAFE - the course that has now finished for the year. As usual, I'm still finishing off required tasks.

As part of the CONTAIN subject, I have used soluble stabiliser, and it was VERY experimental. I couldn't find directions for it's use, so I really had to experiment. Firstly, I laid out silk fibre on top of the stabiliser to depict a simple composition of three flowers. I obtained this beautiful fibre from spiraldyed.com and a little goes a long way.

I then folded the other half of the stabiliser over the top. Off to the sewing machine and this is when the problem solving had to be called upon. Through trial and error I worked out to lower the feed dog, use a ballpoint needle to help stop snags, change the foot to a darning foot (this made the most difference) and have stitch size at zero. I'm sure there are many other things I should know about this process. All advice welcome.

This is the result after sewing.



Then into a sink of warm water and a bit of agitation to get rid of the gloop.


Onto the line to dry.

And after an iron, this is the final result. It has resulted in a delicate fabric which I like. Actually I really like how it has turned out. The image doesn't do it justice. I made lots of mistakes throughout the process but I learnt a bit too. The next one will be better.


And the last image is from a bunch of flowers I received from grandchildren no. 1 and 3. They made a request to their other grandmother for flowers from her garden. I got a bunch of roses as well. I'm not au fait with flowers so I'm not sure what species they are.





3 comments:

maggie said...

gorgeous! nice texture and simple primary colors. thanks for the 'tutorial!'

t said...

Hello Lesley, thanks for your comment, yes the blog thing is fairly new to me as well, but i am enjoying it and find it fascinating as well.

Will get back to you on that class expression of interest after the weekend.

talk soon.

xt

skiingweaver said...

Beautiful! Love how it turned out! I've seen scarves done with this sort of technique and ribbons, etc., but I really *really* like your piece...