10.1 insertion stitch sample
Made bonded felt pieces in reddish-orange and turquoise for the later interchange samples, and one small piece in dark blue. Used that to cut into six strips (image 10.1). Followed the ideas in the course guide to practice (top to bottom):
- laced insertion stitch
- beaded insertion stitch (I ran out of thread in the middle and couldn't figure out how to end the thread, so just added some beads and left them hanging.)
- knotted buttonhole stitch
- simple insertion stitch
- machine zigzag stitch
Couldn't figure out how to do the plaited insertion stitch. I need to find directions on how to do that. In general, I think I made all of these stitches too tight. If I'd left them a little looser, it would be easier to see the intricacy of the stitches. This was a great exercise, though, and fun to see the results. There are a lot of possibilities for using this variety of stitches.
10.2 Simple counterchange sample 1a
10.3 Simple counterchange sample 1b
Then used the turquoise/orange pieces (10.2 and 10.3), drew a simple 5-pt star on both, cut out, switched inner stars and sewed seams with simple insertion stitch.
10.4 Counterchange sample 2
(image 10.4) Using Design Sheet C, I took the 2-squares-slightly-skewed star pattern and reproduced it on four square piece of felt of different colours. I moved the pieces around until I was happy with the balance of the colors. Wanting to keep something "stable", I used the same colour of metallic thread in each quarter (same as the dominant outside colour in the opposite quarter) and used gold in the blanket stitch around the outside edges. Happy with this sample. It looks more interesting in a diamond shape rather than a square.
10.5 Counterchange sample 3a
10.6 Counterchange sample 3b
For the final interchange sample, I chose star shapes from Chapter 8. FIrst, I cut out the shapes and bonded them to orange and blue squares of felt. I then stitched the shapes to the felt - I think I made a mistake here. I don't think I understood the instructions correctly. I could have stitched around shapes after it was all bonded together. However, as it turned out, it adds some interesting detail. Then, from the back, I cut out a third star shape from each square (image 10.5)
I now had the negative images left over, I made four more squares, bonded them, stitched, and once again, cut out the third star shape from the back.
I now had eight squares. Within the original four (call it "set A") I swapped around the inner sections and then swapped the innermost crosses. However, the crosses ended up being bonded felt pieces and were not very distinguishable from the neighbouring pieces... So, I chose to swap the innermost cross pieces from Set B for those in Set A. The bonded cross pieces tend to stand out more in Set B this way as well because they are on a solid background (image 10.6).
All of the squares were machine stitched with a zigzag stitch with the exception of one square in Set B.
Lesson learned: choose a simple pattern to work with. Lots of little pieces makes more work! (obviously ;-)
No play with light this time, but noticed that the red felt showed up well against the light. Will keep this in mind - could explore bonding red felt in a certain way that would allow shapes between the felt and top layer to show through against the light.
[Total hours Chapter 10: 37]
- * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * -
