Slow Stitching Step by Step

As promised, a bit of a tutorial on my journey with Slow Stitching.  If you hoping for video, I'm sorry.  I'm a bit camera shy. If you haven't seen it, I have an additional blog post on favorite supplies with links so don't miss that! FAVORITE SUPPLIES

 

The best way to begin is to just start experimenting.  You'll find out by trial and error, what works well...and what doesn't and you'll find what fabrics you like and your own style.  There are many examples online and online classes if you feel more comfortable with that.  I'm not an expert, but I've been working in fabric my entire life.  This has been so freeing, for me, not having to follow a pattern and tuck edges. 

 

First off, below is a slow stitched applique piece that has been hanging in my room since I was a child.  My great Grandmother made it.  Leona Jane Hatch.  I carry her name.  She is the one who taught my mother to quilt.  She was the one always in my mom's corner when her mom died her senior year in high school.  She had a hard life, most of it widowed, running a farm and raising children by herself...and she didn't mess around!

OK.  I'm going to walk you through a piece I'm working on.  It's inspired by Hill Top Farm...Beatrix Potter's farm in the Lake District.  As mentioned before, Jennifer Clouston's "Foolproof Flower Embroidery" book got me started with everything I needed to know including great supply ideas.

Designing your piece:

I won't go into the elements of composition, but design is everything.  I rarely put anything right in the middle of my piece and if I do, I have at least two other points of interest that move the eye around.  I start with an idea...lately birds and cottages/farms are on my mind...but I've seen cute rabbits...landscapes, florals, bees, butterflies, people...etc. You can do anything.  Begin by finding your fabrics... keeping value (how light or dark something is), texture and color in mind, remembering that you can also use embroidery to add texture.  You also don't have to make something completely square or rectangle.  I've seen beautiful things that are more abstract.  I'm still telling my mind that that's ok to try!

Begin with a drawing if you need too.  You can then make multiple copies on tracing paper to cut your layering fabrics. Sometimes I use a drawing, sometimes I don't. I ALWAYS back the main object with a whole piece of fabric...so for example, I cut the entire bird out of white linen before I started adding layers.  Same with the cottages...I cut out the entire cottage including the roof then I add roofs, chimneys, windows etc.  It will give you more stability. After you have your design laid out...TAKE A PICTURE OF IT!  Then you'll have it to refer to when you have to take it all off and trim your linen and stabilizer to size.  

Stabilizing your Fabric:

I've used linen as a base to work on for all of my pieces so far.  I stabilize that with Pellon Fusible Fleece 987F.  It will be very difficult to hold layers of fabric and embroider if you don't stabilize.  Your linen or cotton will still keep their texture so no worries about that.  For this piece I used a hand dyed linen, but often I start with white or off white.  I pick up old linen towels from antique stores as well and cut them up.  Sometimes they will have a fun border that I'll incorporate into the design.

Set you iron on Cotton, not linen, or it will melt the Pellon a bit.  I usually size my linen AFTER I come up with my design.  (anywhere form 6x6, 8x8, 8x10...whatever you want).   If you do it before, you'll get frustrated if you just needed a half inch more to make your composition work.  I cut my Pellon with scissors about the size I want, then trim it with the quilting tools.  Make sure the BUMPY side of the Pellon is against the BACK of your fabric.  I use steam and iron if for a few seconds making sure the corners are sealed.  I iron on the linen side.

     

Adhering your fabric to your linen base:

Some people pin everything, but if you try to stitch things in place with all of those pins, you'll go crazy.  I use Odif 505 temporary adhesive and it works really well.  You're needles won't stick and things stay in place even if you don't get to them for weeks.  It also allows you to move pieces if you didn't get it right the first time.  Some tips....Find a sturdy piece of cardboard to spray on. If you can complete small pieces first like the bird or cottage or bunny...then you can move the whole piece around before you place it and it wont' be falling apart on you.

Chimneys aren't attached yet but everything else is.

 

Robin ready to be put together with adhesive spray

 

If you really love a frayed edge....the best way to ruin it is to get adhesive on it!  So protect that edge with a small slip of paper when you spray.  

 

   

 

Use a ruler to help place things...and remember, Place things in order of bottom pieces to top pieces.  If you have a bird sitting on a branch....place the branch before the bird etc.  If you have background fabrics under the bird...they go on your linen first.  

 

     

I did lift up the house a bit to slip this green under because I wanted to place the house first as a reference for what was next. The green wool placed just under the house is right up against the house.  Since it's thick like the stone part of the house, I didn't want to layer it and get a bump.  

       

Placing the path in with a pin and moving it as needed helps me place the other things in.  The path is the last piece in the foreground to be set in.

You can use pins to hold your place as well.

   

If you're using organza, I like to let some of it lift off so again I protected an edge from the spray adhesive before placing.  It adds movement to the piece.

  

Initial inspirational linen. (It says landscape all over it!) Initial placing/idea piece (REMEMBER TO PHOTOGRAPH IT FOR REFERENCE) and then trimmed up, stabilized, and adhesive applied.

Ready to stitch!  I added some soft fluff with a pin over the organza to be the top of the tree.  I'll just tack that in.  I wouldn't spray that.  As far as stitching...there are a lot of reference books on embroidery and slow stitching.  You can cut out flowers and leaves out of plain fabric as well and tack them in.

HAPPY STITCHING.  LOVE TO ALL MY FRIENDS, AND A HELLO TO NEW FACES.