Textile Construction #15Some of you may have been wondering what happened to my weekly explorations as I haven't posted anything on that subject for several weeks. Not to worry, I have stayed true to the challenge. I did decide to count the work I did while at Quilting By the Lake as one of my studies and they have been shown here a week or so ago.
After returning from the workshop, I have had many things happening and have not been able to get into the studio to create new fabric so I decided to look at some of the fabric I made earlier this year and work with them. I recently purchased a new sewing machine and have wanted to work to improve my machine quilting so I made that the focus of the two pieces shown here and I also used some additional hand stitching as a result of the workshop.
Detail - Textile Construction #15
This detail shows how densely the piece is quilted as well as the simple hand stitching I added.
Textile Construction #16TC #16 is a composite of two fabrics and it has also been machine stitched with an area of hand stitching from the upper left toward the lower right corner.
I especially like the hand stitching in TC #15. It makes a stronger mark but I can see that both approaches contribute the mark of HAND which is exciting.
Upon making the decision to purchase a new machine, I decided I wanted to brush-up my machine quilting skills. I have a small quilting frame and a special machine for it which I have written about before but since doing so much work on these smaller pieces I began to see the need to better understand the relationship between needle type and size, top thread and bobbin thread. I also became aware that the quilt bating I most often used was "harder" than some due to a skrim this particular company uses.
I spoke with my neighborhood quilt store owner who suggested a different type and brand of batting. I made three large quilt sandwiches of the fabric type I use and I have been testing and recording the results. It has been an interesting venture and I am hoping to have some documentation that will help me improve my results.
