Despite some of the laziness of summer, I have been doing some fiber art! I needed a new summery pillow for my couch, so why buy one, when I could make it? I have so many beautiful stitches on my Janome 6700 that I seldom use, so I decided that was the goal for this project. I chose one of the satin stiches that resembles a leaf and used the elongation function to make it the size I wanted. Using a Sulky 12wt Cotton Thread, I randomly stitched the leaves on the pillow top. For the assembly, I added some simple, white piping and a denim back. After I stitched the front and back right sides together, I trimmed the corners to eliminate bulk, turned it right side out and inserted the pillow form. After I whip stitched the opening closed, voila! A new pillow on the couch! Our local SAQA group decided that we wanted to swap Artist Trading Cards or ATC's for our July meeting. This was so fun and such a great challenge to do something that represented us in such a small space! Each card only measures 2.5 x 3.5 inches! The suggestion was to make 8, so we could keep one for ourselves and then have enough to trade. For mine, I decided to use some scraps. I fussy cut the flowers, free cut the vases and found a scrap large enough to use for the background. Layering them on two pieces of Sulky Fuse 'n Stitch gave them a "card-like" feel. I free-motioned around each flower and vase with coordinating Sulky PolyLite thread and then free-motioned the stems and leaves using Sulky 30wt Cotton Thread. For the finishing touch, a quick zig zag around all of the layers! Here are the three others that I came home with!
Cool, huh? So neat to see how each one reflects the person who made it! I hope to add to the colorful collection soon! So what have you been up to this summer?
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I think people shy away from fiber art at times, because it isn't like "typical" art.
You know what I mean. Art that you frame, stick a nail in the wall and hang it up. In the past, at my exhibitions, I have been asked by people, "How would I hang that in my home?" I always show them the hanging sleeve and the aluminum rod that I provide and I can tell that some "get it," while others still don't. And that's okay. Fiber art is different. That's one of the things I enjoy about it. :) Lately, I have started wondering about alternative hanging methods and I stumbled across some other SAQA members that attach their smaller fiber art pieces to stretched artist canvases. Intrigued, I decided to try it out for myself... |
About MeFiber artist, wife to a wonderful husband and mom to 2 awesome, grown kids Archives
July 2023
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