Tag Archives: Machine Embroidery

In The Garden

Posted on by Linda Matthews
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I haven’t made an art quilt in such a long time being so absorbed recently with my art bags, so I was a little nostalgic when my art quilt “Pomegranate” returned home to me last week after touring the country with the “Fibrations” exhibit for the last 12 months.

Art Quilt: Pomegranate

This little art quilt was part of my series “In The Garden” and was one of three small embellished art quilts that I completed exploring “soft edges”.

The other two were “Flowers”

Art Quilt: Flowers

and “Leaves”

Art Quilt: Leaves

I really enjoyed the process of working with soft edges using free motion embroidery techniques and water soluble stabilizer and you can see the soft edges better in this closeup.

Art Quilt: Flowers

You can also see where this art quilt series started in these posts:

Hand Dyed Fabric: Playing with Complementary Colors
Hand Dyed Fabric: Still Playing with Complementary Colors
Hand Dyed Fabric: All Done Playing with Complementary Colors

And of course, these techniques are included in my instructions dvds Titivations

Art Quilting Techniques

and Fabulous Free Motion quilting.

Art Quilting Techniques

It just may be that I’ll just have play with some art quilts this week.

Have a nostalgic day!

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“Titivations” on DVD

Posted on by Linda Matthews
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Beaded EmbellishmentI love to embellish in all sorts of ways using my sewing machine and by hand and you can find some examples of my work in the gallery. If you love to embellish also and are looking for some fabulous ideas, stop by the store and pick up a copy of my DVD “Titivations“.

“Titivations” was previously available on DVD, but I’ve just updated it and it now includes the original workshop with techniques and applications for creating embellishments using fabric and thread, and it now also has a new section called “Now You See It, Now You Don’t – techniques and applications for using water soluble stabilizer“, and there are simply dozens of techniques for creating stunning embellishments using thread and water soluble stabilizer.

The Titivations DVD includes

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Jacket with Needle Felted Detail

Posted on by Linda Matthews
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I’ve had this jacket hanging on my dressmaker dummy and sitting in the corner of my sewing room for the longest time just waiting for some trim to be added. After I made the jacket, this is what it looked like … nice but kind of bland …

Machine Needle Felted Jacket

I quite liked it but I always felt it was missing something, so I thought I might add some cording around the edge of the lapels and sleeve cuffs. Well that was a looooong time ago and cleaning up the other day and after brushing off an inch of dust from the jacket I thought it was finally time to add the trim and I’m glad I did because now it looks finished and very elegant; well I think so anyway …

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Hand Dyed Fabric: All Done Playing with Complementary Colors

Posted on by Linda Matthews
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If you have been following the process:
It started here with some hand dyed fabrics; then I began the design process;
and now for the final results:

This was the result of the sample at the last installment:

Machine Embroidery

Now I needed to add a little green because what’s purple and yellow without green? So I added some small machine embroidered leaves around the edges of the stalk and stem to liven things up.

Machine Embroidery

Now for the edges. It would be really easy to simply bind off and finish it at that, but I wanted to give the piece a “soft edge” finish. As I had already used small circles as part of the flower design, I decided to use the circular design to finish the edges. I placed some water soluble stabilizer underneath along the edges (a great application for using up all those small scrappy pieces of stabilizer), then quilted a couple of rows of circles all around the edges – very organic looking.

Machine Embroidery

Then I carefully snipped away the fabric from the outer edges being careful not to cut into the stabilizer.

Machine Embroidery

Using an embroidery hoop to keep the stabilizer taught, I extended the circular stitching onto the stabilizer.

Machine Embroidery

Then I washed away the stabilizer leaving a soft lacy edge.

Machine Embroidery

The final touch was some hand beading to the central design;

Machine Embroidery

and some bead clusters along the edges.

Machine Embroidery

I then mounted the embroidery onto a quilted greenish colored hand-dyed background. The final size is 14″ x 21″. Considering the fabric that I started with, I’m really happy with the results.

Machine Embroidery

I still have a few pieces of hand dyed fabric left over, so I might use them up in a similar fashion over the next month or so.

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Hand Dyed Fabric: Still Playing with Complementary Colors

Posted on by Linda Matthews
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If you remember the beautiful hand dyed fabric that I ended up with last week after my fun dye-day, for a few days they lay on my worktable taunting me until I finally gave in and decided to work with them.

Here is what’s happening so far:

I took one of the fat quarters with mostly purple color, cut it in half and made a quilt sandwich with some cotton batting in between. I added some free motion quilting for background texture, and then cut some lime green/yellow squares and frayed the edges and pinned in place.

Machine Embroidery

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