HGA Convergence
Convergence has always been one of our favorite shows. It is always fun! This year we managed to do
a bit of sightseeing and joined in some of the tours. What better place for inspiration than the
Long Beach Aquarium for some texture inspiration and a lots of colorful
fish. Makes us want to head straight to
the dye studio.
We also got the chance to visit the homes of local textile
artists. A huge thank you to everyone
who opened their home and shared their textile treasures with us. Here are few of the things that we saw (eyes
only we promise!). Okay, okay, we also
saw with our hands.
Spools of Aziza,
Almaza and Amani
I was pretty sure that spools of our tencel would work with a
sewing machine…but best to do a trial run. There’s something very freeing about
not having a deadline or a project in mind, just play! I doodled my way through plenty of yarn.
While I was playing, I figured I should at least attempt to
use up my stash. We won’t discuss the
amount of hand-dyed fabric I have. Often they begin life as mop-up cloths from
the yarn dyeing. I pulled out a pile of fabric and just started patching them
together. My first thought had been pin size but it had a mind of it’s own. I
called it quits when I started getting ideas for a bed size quilt – after all
my son is in Wisconsin and it gets cold there… Not that I need a justification.
What to quilt? I laid
a piece of tracing paper over the patchwork and did a few drafts. That got old
pretty quickly and I just started sewing! Working from a pattern is not a habit of
mine.
I have some new vanishing markers I’m testing. They
disappear with heat. Sometimes they work great, but on other fabrics they leave
that tell-tale white line. It is a black marker and once the line was ironed
over the black disappeared but left a whiteish line – note as noticeable on the
actual piece as in the photo but still not ideal.
Amani – started with the finest thread (20/2 Tencel) and
machine quilted some areas. Size 16 embroidery needle and normal tension. No
problems.
Put the feed dogs down and tried free-motion quilting. No
problems. On a roll!
Now some programmed embroidery stitches –tweeking the top
tension, they seemed to work too.
I have more feet for my machine than I care to admit and
only a few get used regularly. But the right foot for the job is invaluable (or
at least that’s what I tell my husband!). Twisted a few threads together and couched
them using one of those “special” feet and a zigzag stitch. The couched thread
is one of our hand-dyes and so is the thread I used to stitch it down –
different weights and textures.
I have 2 sewing machines. An old faithful friend (we know
each other well) and a new Bernina 830 (that stranger you don’t know and are on
you best behavior with). Up to now I was working on old faithful, but I have a
new couching foot for the 830…
Spent the morning ripping out! Not sure if it was user error
or the thread I wanted to couch was too thin. The foot is supposed to allow you
to stitch down the center of the thicker thread – sometimes it worked and
sometimes the needle and the thread I was couching just missed each other.
After all that ripping, I could see the pattern I wanted to stitch from the
back! So back to old faithful and into the bobbin went the Aziza (5/2 Tencel).
Worked like a dream!
I’ve done some great embroidery work with the Bernina 830
but for general sewing I clearly need more practice! Sounds like I found a second justification
for this quilt.
Here’s the final result -
