For the background of this beautiful bird embroidery, we will concentrate on creating texture with fabrics, layering them and fringing or ripping their edges. You will be exploring the different qualities of fabrics and variations in creating background compositions.
I will show you how to make the bird in fabric first, to help you with your background composition and colour placement.
How to layer up ripped and frayed fabrics to create a collaged background.
How to make a raw-edged appliqué fabric bird (using a template supplied). This could easily be adapted to any topic of your choice.
Some tips and tricks for sewing creatively.
At the end of the course you will have gained confidence in using frayed edges, pulled threads and layering up sheer fabrics (transparent fabrics like silk organza).
I explain a little about framing but do not show this in detail; this can be found in the framing course.
If you are new to free motion embroidery, you may wish also to take my 'Flowers and Grasses' course, which goes into depth about free motion stitching.
This embroidery is an example of how you can stitch onto the layered background. I used the background that I used to illustrate the course. You can see that a geometric background of squares, rectangles, and a mix of colours can be used as a base for a very organic-looking embroidery.
This course is delivered at your own pace, meaning you can start whenever you wish and take as long as you want to finish, and it will be available for years to come.
I have transcribed the videos underneath each video; if you are hard of hearing, you can read them.
If English is not your first language, you can copy and paste this into Google Translate and read the information in your own language
It will be available for many years to come, until I retire.
There are 8 short videos to watch.
There is a template of the bird in the form of a PDF; you can download it from your computer or tablet and print it on a home printer.
There is a Facebook group to join along with all of the other students on my online courses.
You can ask me written questions at the end of each lesson that I will reply to as soon as I'm able to.
You can send me images of your work too, either within each lesson or via email.
My email is johilltextiles@gmail.com if you wish to contact me to ask any questions.
Courtney can help you with any technical issues like access to the course; she works for me part-time.
I just love these wonderful, soft and interesting edges that can be created by ripping, fraying and pulling threads from the edges of the cloth. Explore which fabrics work best and notice what you prefer.
See how many different fabrics you can find to work with, from silks and cottons to linens and wools, from fine and translucent sheers to chunky threads and easy-to-fray edges.
See what threads your machine will work with. In my opinion, the best machines for this are old Berninas, Janome 2200 (other mid-range Janome), good-quality basic machines, but not necessarily high-tech digital ones; these can be a bit fussy when you are trying to experiment. Very inexpensive entry-level machines will be harder to experiment with.