In The Art of Thread Sketching: Free Thread Drawing and Thread Painting Techniques, five quilt artists show you how to turn machine stitching into drawings with thread. Depending on the style and density of the stitching, thread sketching and thread painting can stand on its own or be combined with other techniques to give your quilt motifs dimension and life.
Dimensional flowers lend beauty and texture to a piece of fiber art, but they are not easily accomplished. When I saw Barb Forrister's demonstration of how to make realistic looking flowers with a combination of machine embroidery and surface design techniques, however, I was intrigued and wanted to share the process with you.
In the April/May issue of Quilting Arts I have an interview with artist Kate Themel, and I'm so excited by her painterly machine quilting and our conversation, I decided to give you a sneak peek.
Clean lines and contemporary versions of traditional quilt patterns are the hallmarks of modern quilting designs. And while many modern-style quilters like to use simple, straight quilting patterns, others like to use the wide-open fields of solid fabric to display a variety of quilting motifs.
When I first laid eyes on Dijanne Cevaal's "Blue Travelers' Blanket," a rich example of appliqué quilting, I fell in love with it.
Last week I blogged about tricks for machine stitching in circles. Today, I thought I'd share how to appliqué a circle.
During almost a year of sharing quilting ideas with you via the Quilting Daily blog, I've noticed something interesting: circles are popular. Whether the circles are sewn with hand stitching or machine quilting doesn't matter. Every time I write about circle motifs, the post gets a big response.
I'd love to tell you that I am already working on my handmade holiday gifts, but honestly, it's not happening. I do like to give gifts with handmade elements like quilting and embroidery, but this year, I'll have to streamline those efforts if I'm going to get it all done.
One of the differences between art quilting and traditional quilting as that in art quilting, thread is almost always part of the design. The choice of thread in machine embroidery, in particular, can affect the look of the quilt.
A note from Vivika: Today our topic is mixing fiber art with wet media (specifically watercolor) to use in surface design. So, I called in my mixed-media colleague Cate Prato, Editor of Cloth Paper Scissors Today, to serve as guest blogger. Take it away, Cate!
Idle hands were frowned upon in my house when I was growing up. There was always something to do. If I wanted to watch TV (and I wanted to watch TV!), I had to be doing something productive at the same time. So I would sit down with either knitting or embroidery, and watch to my heart's content.
In this free eBook, Free-Motion Machine Quilting Techniques: 81 Tips for Free-Motion Quilting, Thread Sketching and Quilting Motifs, three highly respected quilt artists, Frieda Anderson, Robbi Joy Eklow, and Susan Brubaker Knapp share their knowledge and expertise for successful free‑motion quilting and thread sketching.
Fiber artist Deborah Boschert and I share a love of hand embroidery. Although hand embroidery stitches are often associated with antique and vintage textiles, Deborah uses classic embroidery stitches to add interest and texture to her contemporary quilts and fabric collages.
We often advise artists to practice, practice, practice if they want to improve their machine embroidery skills. But practice doesn't have to make perfect. In fact, I recently spent time with two artists who embrace imperfections in their machine embroidery designs.
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