I’m glad to finally resume work on Stitch the Sketch. My sewing machine is in good shape now. In this latest episode, I created a piece of abstract art out of marbled fabric. Marbling is a cool surface design technique for creating beautiful fabrics. I learned this technique in a workshop and I’ve shown you how to create your own marbled fabric in this blog post. Some of the fabric from that workshop is what I’m using in this piece.
So, here is the piece of marbled fabric I started out with. I’m sure you’ll recognize this as one from the photos from the workshop.
I cut up my marbled fabric and added a few design elements using suitable hand dyed fabrics. I then fused them all together.
Since the marbled fabric already looks beautiful, I decided, it was important to make my stitches work with the marks that already existed in the fabric rather than compete with them.
It’s easy to employ stitch just because … But the main premise of this challenge has always been to employ stitch in creative ways – as a design element rather than a decorative element in fabric art. So following that thought process, I allowed my stitches to take their cues from the paint marks that already existed in the marbled fabricI I was using. The result is a very organic, abstract stitched drawing that I couldn’t have planned ahead.
Closeup View of Stitched Marbled Fabric
Below is a detailed view of the stitches on the back of “Circular Blocks #4”. In this piece, I was going for organic circles rather than refined geometric circles and the marbled fabric helped me achieve that.
Following is a look at the entire reverse side of “Circular Blocks #4”
Here is a detailed look at the front view
And here is a look at the entire front view of “Circular Blocks #4”
Finally, here’s the video of how I stitched this drawing.
Thoughts on Working in A Series
In conclusion, I’ll say that I’ve been able to explore organic circles in this piece mainly because I’m working in a series. The idea occurred to me when I created “Circular Blocks #3”. If I’d not been working in a series I might have abandoned that thought. But working in a series has given me the chance to explore it here in this marbled fabric piece.
Question: What have you also been up to? What are you working on?
Warmest Regards,
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I am so glad to hear about your sewing machine. What WAS the trouble?
It turned out to simply be a timing problem that wasn’t identified by the previous mechanics.
An explosion of geodes!!! Love it. I can feel the movement of the earth forces that created those geodes of yours in Circular Block 4.
What an apt description, Lynn – an explosion indeed.
Beautiful work.
I must live more outside the box from now on!
May I ask what type of sewing machine do you use? Works like a machine gun, lol. Can I use my Lotus like that? Thank you!!!
Yes Lora, you must! Living outside the box takes you out of your comfort zone in a positive way. My sewing machine is a Juki 2010 Q. Basically, all you need is for you to be able to drop the feed dogs of your sewing machine (or cover up the feed dogs).