Friday, April 6, 2012

Stupendous Stitching

I've been doing an online course through www.craftsy.com called Stupendous Stitching, taught by Carol Ann Waugh.  It's a paid course, so I won't talk through each step.  Instead, I'll just upload some photos of my work through the stages.  At the end of the course, you will have created a stitch bible, then made an artwork by couching, using decorative machine stitches, some basic hand embroidery and then sandwiched and quilted it, before mounting it so it can be hung on the wall.  I really enjoyed the course and would recommend it.
First - Here is the quilt I made for our new couch.  I wanted to make my Stupendous Stitching artwork to match the quilt, so I used one of the fabrics as the base.

Part of the course is about exploring your sewing machine, particularly the decorative stitches.  Here are some of the 'Stitch Bible' pages I created from my Brother QC-1000 Innovis sewing machine.  Lots of fun getting to know my machine better, which was one of the reasons I took the course.





 Here is the beginning - cords, threads and ric-rac couched onto the fabric.

Here is the final artwork - after the couching, it was machine stitched using decorative machine stitches and many different threads (particularly variegated threads).  Then hand-stitching with basic embroidery stitches such as french knot, chain and straight stitch.  Finally, sandwiched and quilted.  I have mounted it on a stretched canvas and now it is in my lounge room.