TAST - cover for libary of stitches

Here is the piece of embellishing (Janome Xpression) that I have completed for the cover of my stitch library. It is on cotton velvet as I find this keeps its shape very well for larger pieces.
Click on photo for a larger view to appreciate the variety of texture.


I chose colours that were in the base colours of my TAST samples and added contrast colours of lilac and purple, organzas and lace for texture and blacks to hold it together.

The photo below shows lilac wool tops being embellished, they worked well as they allowed the base colours to show through. Left hand side is unembellished and the right is embellished.

After the embellishing I covered the whole piece with programmed stitch on my sewing machine, the area was too large for me to contemplate FME. Again the RHside shows the way the embroidery beds down the piece.

This will cover a cut down A4 lever arch file and now I need to go away and think about the best way to do that.

Embellished Postcard

This postcard has been completed from a piece of embellished felt on my Xpression. I used mainly wool rovings but there are other fibres in there. The embroidery was to represent the colours of March. This year everything is so green and so early. Fresh greens and the new shoots of bulbs, grass and shrubs. The postcard was my March contribution for the 6x4 lives flickr group. I am not totally happy with colour repo it is actually much brighter/richer than this.

EMBELLISHER - FIRST ATTEMPT

JUST GOT MY HANDS ON MY NEW TOY!
My Janome Xpression has just arrived and I couldn't wait to try it out. I went to the NEC at Birmingham last week to the Stitching for Pleasure exhibition and tried out as many embellishers as I could whilst there. Came home with lots of samplers. I had done research beforehand as to cost, delivery and guarantees over the internet, as well as ask as many bloggers as possible as to which they would recommend based on their usage of the machines. I decided on the Janome as it has an easy to reach separate compartment for the large amounts of fluff. It has five needles which can be removed separately with pliers to replace, I was assured, and I have already tried to do this successfully. So my first attempt was to create a motif for a denim bag that I have had for many years, my daughter was going to throw it out! I used a grey felt as the base and wool rovings, net, silk tops and novelty knitting wool for the design which evolved as I worked on it. After completing the motif I then needle felted it to the denim, it was so much easier than I thought it would be.

This closeup shows the variety of threads and fibres used and how they felt so well together. I learnt a lot from my first attempt and the potential for creating new fabrics and embellishing with embroidery seems endless. Watch this space for more creations.