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 "Work Quilt" by Victoria Gertenbach |
Quilters and embroiders alike share a common passion for cloth, stitch, and color! For centuries, people around the world have used
hand sewing not just to stitch two pieces of fabric together, but to add interest to their projects.
Placements of stitches are dictated by the shapes on your quilt top. Start with easy stitches you know, such as cross stitch or whipstitch, and use them separately or in combination with other stitches. Ladder stitch is perfect for couching unusual materials or to fill long, narrow spaces. Back stitches or stem stitches outline and define fabric shapes. Or use cross stitch to add texture to your designs. Add French knots for dynamic hints of color and texture that attract the eye and are often mistaken for beads. With a balance of mastering the running stitch and picking gorgeous colors to work with, you will have a breathtaking masterpiece before you know it!
7 Tips on Combining Hand and Machine Stitching
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| Artwork by Natalya Aikens |
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1. If you have identified your design lines with bold machine strokes, don't take away from them by adding contrasting-thread hand stitches. Try a coordinating color or a soft variegated color thread to achieve the needed texture without excess boldness.
2. If sections of your piece have puckered and gathered between the machine-stitched sections, 'smooth' them out with your hand stitches. The beauty of hand stitching is that you can pull and gather your fabric with your stitches as you see fit. Gathering a puckering section into a smooth but textured plane is one useful technique.
3. To avoid gathering and puckering during machine stitching, use tear-away stabilizer, especially with sheers. Just don't forget to tear it away before adding hand stitching. Instead of using tear-away stabilizer, you can use an embroidery hoop.
4. When adding hand stitching to large areas that you want to make sure don't pucker, work on a flat surface, such as a foam core board or a stretched canvas. They are lightweight and portable, and you can pin your work to them.
5. Don't be afraid to overlap stitches, whether created by hand or machine. Lots of overlapped stitches add great texture and boldness.
6. When hand stitching, don't cut the thread longer than the length from your fingertips to your elbow. You may have to thread your needle more often than if you use a longer thread, but you'll spend less time untangling thread and feeling frustrated.
7. If you're working your hand stitches in a straight path, consider using a long needle. It will make life easier for your fingers because you can get more stitches on it in one swoop.
Source: Quilting Arts In Stitches, Vol. 3, by Natalya Aikens, Interweave, 2011
Stitch As Mark
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Sea urchin texture emulated
with hand sewing,
by Victoria Gertenbach. |
There are literally hundreds of different stitches at your disposal, yet mastering just a few may be all you need to successfully portray your image on fabric with hand sewing. I tend to use mostly straight stitch and its variations, as well as couching. These basic stitches can easily emulate the drawn line and can also be used to draw directly onto cloth and paper, with anything from the finest of threads to simple raffia and string. In these examples I worked out of a frame, with fabric in my hand, to feel how the stitch moves the cloth.
Spotty dotty marks: The surface of the sea urchin is rough with a fine gritty texture and protuberances in high relief. While the straight stitches give shading and tonal changes, it is French knots, padding, and appliqué that give the physically raised forms that reflect the surface and its marks.
Dyed linen upon muslin formed the ground, which was then textured and shaded with lines of thread in simple straight stitch. The stitches were worked in a manner similar to how I use cross-hatching with a pencil on paper.
Circles (with holes like donuts) were cut in three different sizes, from an old blanket covered in gauze, and stitched on with a blanket stitch. Circles of fine cotton were stuffed with batting and drawn up to form balls. These were then fitted into the "donut holes" and sewn from the reverse. Additional small raised dots of blanket were applied with cross stitches, and even smaller dots were formed with French knots.
Source: Drawn to Stitch: Line, Drawing, and Mark-Making in Textile Art by Gwen Headley, Interweave, 2010
The Multi-purpose French Knot
Why do we love the hand sewing with the French Knot? Let us count the ways.
First, the French knot gives you a lot of textural bang for your buck. French knots literally rise above the other basic embroidery stitches, popping right off the fabric.
Second, you've heard the term "connect the dots"? Well, you can make a series of French knots close together to form a line or map out a shape, like a constellation.
Third, French knots stitched close together will fill in a shape and provide shading, especially if you vary the thread colors.
Fourth, French knots are very organic. Depending on the color, size, and placement, this embroidery stitch can serve as a lone blossom, a scattered field of flowers, or the honeycombed center of sunflower.
Fifth, they're just so much fun to make. Winding the fiber around the needle, piercing the fabric, and then pulling the thread through to create that perfect little knot is so relaxing and satisfying.
Here are some tips for making a French knot.
1. The general rule is, don't wind the thread or fiber around the needle more than twice. If you want a bigger knot, use a thicker thread.
2. After wrapping the thread, place the point of the needle right next to the place it came up from, rather than back in the same hole. That way, the knot will stay anchored on top and not slip right through to the back of the fabric.
3. To add dimension to your French knots, use a variegated thread.
Source: Quilting Arts Magazine, October/November 2009, artwork by Jane LaFazio, Interweave
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