I’m finally finished teaching art camps for the summer and that means I can get back into my studio and start making things!
Here’s my palette for my next machine-embroidered piece of fiber art:

That’s so yummy I think I could eat it with a spoon   I’ve got sari silk ends, raw mohair, carded mohair (from a farm just down the road from me) silk caps and silk roving.
I love the different textures and hands that you get from using different types of fibers in one piece.  The silk acts differently from the mohair, which has a different shine than …read more

Here’s the painted silk, after I let it dry overnight and then embroidered:

I did simple free-motion machine embroidery outlining the butterflies.  I used rayon embroidery thread, which I love using for projects like this because of the sheen.
If I had more time, I would get more detailed with embroidering the butterfly wings – but I don’t
I’ll show you what I’m using the embroidered fabric on tomorrow!

I’ve had a productive day… I just haven’t taken any photos of the progress on my outfit (my bad!)
I washed the silk today, on gentle, on cold, in my washing machine.  It’s not something I’d recommend (if only because the fabric manufacturers don’t recommend it!)  But I spent my early twenties working in a fabric store and that’s left me with a mild allergy to fabric sizing.  It’s pretty mild, I start sneezing and can get a rash if I’m not careful… I just didn’t want to spend my wedding day sneezing and scratching
I also hung the silk …read more

I’m making this skirt (the one with the train):

And this blouse:

Number “C” I should say
Out of this fabric:

Ivory silk dupioni… yummy, yummy, yummy!
For my wedding, which is less than a month away.  I’ve got a really quiet week so I can get it all done!

I apologize for not posting yesterday – I had a crazy busy day!  I’ve been back at work in the studio and so here’s part two of the origami butterfly tutorial:

The next step is to fold the point up and press.  Place the fabric under a weight to cool for a couple of minutes.  It helps to set the crease and makes your life easier!

This step is kind of tricky to explain – open up the last fold you made and fold the top layer of fabric up towards the top of the “wing”.  The bottom of the fold should …read more

I’ve been doing origami for years now and of course – being a fiber person, I need to see if I can use fabric to make it! My mother, Noreen has been using fabric in origami for a long time. I believe there’s also a book coming out about using origami to make art quilts.
I’m getting married this summer and instead of using fresh flowers, I got the bright idea to make corsages & boutonnieres out of fabric. I’m using paper butterflies to decorate, but didn’t really want to use paper to make the corsages. I …read more

Sorry about the lack of posts yesterday – I had about half an hour yesterday to deal with email… and that was it!
Here’s photos of the four finished cards – like all my work posted here, these are copyrighted & cannot be copied for sale or donation without my express written permission.

I used watercolor paper to make the cards, but you can also use commercially available blank card sets too.  I think my favorite is the blue & brown card with the ribbon
Don’t backstitch to finish off the ends, just pull the threads through to the wrong side …read more

I’ve had a set of silk swatches sitting (boy, say that fast 3 times!) on my studio desk for awhile now:
I decided that they would be perfect to use as my background for the embroidered cards. I ironed on a heavy-weight fusible interfacing (not necessary, but it’s sooo much easier this way!) and trimmed them down into little rectagles using my pinking shears:

I’m using brown, green & blue for my wedding colors
I decided to play around and used a few different ways of machine stitching to make the monograms. I started off with doing free-motion embroidery, …read more

*warning* upcoming post will be wedding themed
I was flipping through a wedding magazine last night and came across a unique thank-you card from Tiger & Jones.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find an online image of the card, but it was a simple cream-colored card with a square swatch of vintage linen fabric on it.  They had embroidered a monogram using silk-thread onto the fabric and machine-stitched the whole thing onto the card.
That got my creative juices flowing….
I’ve come up a with few designs of my own for the next post – after all, how can I call myself a craftsperson …read more

This tutorial has moved – you can find the whole how-to part one and part two here

image: © C Findlay-Harder