Current work

This is a picture I took of Milham Park, not too far from my home. I am currently working on producing a thread painted wall quilt of this picture, though I will make it a fall picture, not a very early spring one as here. I am in love with Nancy Prince's work, and also the work of Ellen Ann Eddy, and have wanted to be able to produce something similar. Nancy's website and the Bernina website both have really nice tutorials on thread painting.

I played with this picture in my Kodak Easy Share software, made it black and white/grayscale and then changed it into the "coloring book" mode. After that I took a clear acetate sheet and drew the outlines with a black Sharpie. I then copied that drawing on plain white paper (at Kinko's) and had them blow it up so it was quite large (about 20 X 30).

I then layed a piece of lightweight stabilizer over the drawing and lightly drew the main lines. Then using raw edged applique I blocked out the main areas in fabric, stitching them down with clear thread. I am using a lovely embroidery thread that has a nice sheen (I believe it's rayon) for doing the water. I plan to thread paint the whole stream and waterfall, and then just do some embellishing of tree trunks, leaves and plants and flowers for the rest of the picture.

Somehow, my friend has talked me into giving a class in this technique for our local guild. I don't know how she managed that! The class is supposed to be April 18, and I haven't even finished my piece yet, let alone started doing it in a smaller size that the students can nearly finish in a day. I need to do the different steps out in separate pieces to make it easier to show the students.

On top of the stress of trying to do all that, my main machine has gone on the fritz! And, unfortunately, I cannot afford to get it fixed until I get my income tax return back. Sigh, it looks like I'm going to have to postpone my class (oh, goody, more time to make it better for the students).

Though I have discovered I can do free motion embroidery on my mother's old tinker toy sewing machine, it doesn't work as well as my White did, and I don't have a table extension for it. So I am definitely going to take the time and reschedule so that I can show the students what I mean when I describe the different steps during the class.