Bobbin Case

Thanks for the advice about getting a separate bobbin case to Alison and Stephanie. I know I could get one for my old machine. I googled about this machine but I'm not sure which part number it would be, so next time I'm in John Lewis I'll make enquiries.

Chapter 5 - Patterned Papers - Monoprinting

I spent this afternoon doing some Monoprinting.

Firstly I painted the pattern on to a cheap cutting board that I got in the 99p shop in town.




The next lot are from when I was cleaning the board and the ink had diluted a bit with the water I was painting on and left patches. So I thought 'what would happen if I painted diluted ink on??' Well you get these patterns - close ups of rino or elephant skin perhaps???




The last lot are when I spread the ink on with a credit card and used a narrow piece to make the pattern in the ink. It was exciting because I didn't know what effect I would get until I took the paper off.



You can see some more of this type of Monoprint on my other blog.

Hopefully I'll be able to do the same thing when I come to making patterns on fabric later in this module.

Chapter 4 Animal Markings

Chapter 3 continued

After using normal stitching I had to go on to 'whip' stitch on the next samples. I've done it the best I can on my sewing machine. It has a bobbin that drops in the top not like my old machine where it went in a case before being put in the machine. That meant I couldn't alter the tension on the bobbin so I had to do the best I could by altering the tension on the top stitch and reducing the pressure on the foot. I also had to stitch from the wrong side so didn't know if it was correct until I'd finished and had a look.

Sample A
not a very good example, bit too loose

Sample B
getting better

Sample C

Sample D

Sample E

All the following samples have a thicker thread wound on to the bobbin.

Sample F

Sample G

Sample H

Sample I

Sample J

Sample K

Apologies

I've had to enable comment moderation after getting some spam left in the comments earlier. I suppose I've been lucky this is the first I've had any in the 18 months I've been blogging but it is so annoying.

Chapter 3

In this Chapter I had to use machine stitching to obtain the tonal effects. All the samples are 4" square on calico backed with cotton.

Sample A
straight stitch in rows

Sample B
zig zag stitch varying the stitch length and width

Sample C
straight stitch in peaks

Sample D
straight stitch randomly over fabric

Sample E
zig zag stitch randomly over fabric

Sample F
zig zag stitch in zig zag pattern over fabric

The following samples are using different stitch pattern that I have available on my sewing machine with varying stitch and width lengths.

Sample G

Sample H

Sample I

Sample J

Sample K

Sample L

Chapter 2

This Chapter covers tone in Hand Stitching.

Sample A
Cross Stitch with black and white threads on 12 count Aida

The next samples are Tone using 'Blackwork'.

Firstly I had to use graph paper to draw a pattern where as you added another stitch to each row you would get a darker tone by the time you got to the end. I got a bit carried away and ended up doing 3 samples, B, C and D.

Sample B

Sample C

Sample D

Next I had to vary the spacing between each row. I used a cross pattern and gradually increased the space between each row and each cross as I got further down the sample.

Sample E

Lastly I had to do a sample where various thickness of thread where used to obtain the tone, I also increased the space in between each row as I went.

Sample F