Annette TOC

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CREATIVE

Fabric TechniquesFor quilters, embroiderers and textile artists

Annette Morgan


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Contents

3

Introduction 4

1. Creating New Fabrics 6

Vilene Basics 8

3D Freeshape Appliqu 9Layer Upon a Quilt 11Machine stitching designs

and techniques 16Making a Needle Case 17Making Cords 18Making a Vase 19rapping Scraps and

using Sheers 21

2. On the Wire 23

Stitching Method 24Stitching and

Hot Air Gun Method 24Te Seedhead Quilt Method 26Creating the Seedhead Motif 27

3. Laying It All On 28

Making a Box 31

4. Found Fabrics 32

Silk Waste 32Random Cushion Front 33Button Cushion Front 34o Make the Cushion 35Button Band Fabric 36Button Band Fabric 37Using Embroidery ransfers 38

5. Trash Quilts 42

How to Make a rash Quilt 46

6. Serendipity & Soldering 48

Serendipity & Solderingechnique 49

Variations: Faded Murrey

and Blue 51Variations: Pink FlowerySquares 52

Variations: Selsley Common 53Variations: Beth Chattos

Bamboo II 55

7. Image Transfer 56

Pevensey Castle 58Pevensey Castle echnique:

Stitched Collage 59

Sunflowers from Chenonceaux 60Designing with

Acetate/OHP Film 61InkAID Products 62issue Paper ransfer 64extured Shells: An Exercise 66Photocopy ransfers 69Image ransfer with

Machine Embroidery 70Products for Light/Dark Fabrics 71ransfer Paper Collage 72

Annette Morgan 74

Suggested Reading 75

Suppliers 76

To go to chapters and projects,

click on the headings here,

use the bookmark links (click

on the icon at the top left of

the PDF document) or scroll

through the page thumbnails

(click on the icon next to the

bookmarks).
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Introduction

4

This book wouldnt be here with-out the many students who havespurred me on to play and experi-

ment with textiles. Since I was in-troduced to this wonderful worldof colour, texture and stitch in theearly 1990s it has become my pas-sion. I love to play with design andcolour, but making is the process Ienjoy most.

On this journey of exploration Ihave shared many techniques withstudents who have taken these

ideas on and made them their own.As you read the pages I hope youfeel this way too.

I always think of those involvedwith textiles as being like garden-ers who are willing to share tips,knowledge, samples and friend-ship. I enjoy passing on knowledge,whether it is in a workshop, to City& Guilds students or to my peersin the embroidery and patchworkand quilting world. I am basically aquilt artist but many of these tech-niques cross the boundaries notjust of our craft but the boundar-ies of experimentation.

Many of the ideas in this book havenot been previously published, soyou are treading on new ground

enjoy!


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INTRODUCTION

5

Out of the Dustbin I (see rash Quilts)


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1. Creating New Fabrics

6

Use fabrics from your stash, combined with polyester sheers and

stitch to create sumptuous textiles.

I love making something out of nothing. Perhaps it comes from my up-bringing; my parents went through World War II, with its rationing. Sowhen I was a child we didnt waste anything. As I write, life has come fullcircle, we are in a recession, people are discovering new ways of craftingand the sale of sewing machines is rising!

This thriftyness shows when I am demonstrating painting techniques.I hate wasting that last little bit of paint in the paint palette, so I graba piece of fabric and paint it. Its the same with dye. Ill put a piece offabric in a clean jam jar and pour into the jar any left over dye froma dyeing session. I also take a clean piece of fabric and wipe clean the

plastic cover on the table where I have been dyeing or painting, and thisgives areas of creased patterns. Often these scrap fabrics are just rightfor a project.

So it is natural for me to consider other ideas and avenues where Ican use leftovers. Nowadays, we embroiderers and quilters are en-couraged not to waste anything so I save wrapping paper, plastic meshbags from fruit, foil sweet wrap-pers, face wipes and tumble dryersheets. This chapter is all about theamazing results we can achieve us-ing such materials.

Rather than think outside of thebox I tend to think sideways, al-ways wondering what I can do witha certain technique making newfabrics was one such occasion.

There is something very satisfyingabout making your own fabrics for

different projects. After all, whenyou create your own fabrics, yourproject has originality built in. Manystudents who have learnt thesetechniques from me use themagain and again, so I hope you willfind them just as useful.

Getting to work with

different media:

When you are considering playing1.with these techniques, do ask

yourself What if? and this may

lead you into adventures with

new ideas and techniques!

Dont procrastinate, do it! Many2.

students I have worked with

dont get work done because

frankly they just dont get on with

it. Delve in and dont think too

hard.

Often new techniques develop3.from unexpected situations. If

something hasnt turned out quite

how you expected, experiment

with it, stitch into it and see what

happens.

Detail of Strippy Pearls

(see next page)


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CREATINGNEWFABRICS : MACHINE STITCHING

16

Machine stitching designsand techniques

Free machine embroidery takes a lit-

tle practice. The best way to start isto find a pen and piece of paper anddraw designs onto the paper, withouttaking the pen off the paper simpleloopy patterns work best. This stimu-lates your hand/eye co-ordination.

Vermicelli stitch is very popular butnot the easiest stitch to use. Try in-stead to go round and round in cir-cles and loops.

When stitching through layers whichare to be burnt, it is best to use agood quality thread, such as thecoloured rayon threads and the Ma-deira metallic threads. I dont use aspecial needle, just an ordinary ma-chine sewing needle, usually no 90.

Set the stitch length and width to0 and drop or cover the feed-dogs(if you dont know what theseare, look in your sewing machinemanual under Darning).Stitch at a medium speed nottoo fast and not too slow. As youmove the fabric you are makingthe stitches, so the slower yougo the larger the stitch, the fasteryou go the smaller the stitch.This technique does take practice,

and practice makes perfect!

Tis sample was made by layering scraps on a piece of fabric, covering with a sheer layer,

stitching with a straight stitch and burning with a hot air gun. Leaves and flowers were

cut out with a soldering iron and placed on top, with a machine stitched cord for the

stem. Te whole piece was laid on a sheer background, then the edges were cut with

a soldering iron.


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CREATING NEWFABRICS: NEEDLECASE

17

You will need:

Fabric as made on pages 1116

Rotary Cutter, board and ruler

Coloured felt

Sewing machineEmbroidery thread to match fabric

Cords as described below

Needlecase: print pages 1718

Making a Needle Case

Use the fabrics you have created to make a variety of items, such as theNeedle Case shown here, and the Vase on pages 1920. These needle

cases make appropriate gifts for stitching friends and family.

Cut the newly created fab-ric with a rotary cutter toa suitable size 95in(2515cm) to make thecover. Cut a layer of felt veryslightly larger than the cover.Pin the two layers together.Cut another piece of feltmuch smaller than the cover,to make the inner page in the

needle case. Pin this smallerpiece of felt to the centre ofthe larger piece of felt.The next stage is to makethe cords see below.

A Needle Case cover on top of its slightly

larger piece of felt. Te smaller piece of

felt for the inner page is shown below,

with the cords
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2. On the Wire

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Play with wire frames, wrapping, stitching, burning and appliqu to

make creative squares.

On a wire frame you can effectively weave a new fabric, using stripsof fabric and other materials. The beauty of this enjoyable technique isthat you can use many different types of fabrics and materials, includingsheers, plastics, papers, threads and yarns. Anything goes, so the charac-ter of your new fabric knows no bounds. A new fabric made from sheerfabric strips can be quite ethereal whereas one made from thick fabricsand yarns will be chunky.

Once the strips have been woven onto the wire frame, the variouslayers are stitched together to make a stable fabric. And, in the secondmethod described below, a hot air gun is used to create additional tex-

ture.

The resulting fabrics can be cut up into smaller pieces and applied toother surfaces. For instance, if you place a fabric with holes on top of agold fabric, the gold will shine through.

Fabric woven on a wire frame, then

stitched and zapped with a hot air gun

Tips and Ideas

Have ready lots of strips of1.

fabrics, including sheers, paintedpapers and plastic.

If you cant find a wire frame,2.

make one from a wire coat

hanger

Try using just paper strips or just3.

plastic.

Plastic can be stitched and melted4.

with a hot air gun too but

beware of fumes, wear mask,

goggles and work in a well venti-

lated area.


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3. Laying It All On

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Use fabric as a base for piling on texture, then add paint to give

surface decoration.

This technique is a development of one I learned at a workshop by An-gie Hughes. With Angie, we layered lots of white textures onto a fabricbase, stitched into them (often using a thicker thread in the bobbin),painted them with emulsion (wall paint), and finished by adding colourand foiling.

This inspired me to add my own touches, using all sorts of colouredfabrics and textures and laying it all on! Thanks to Angie for her permis-sion to describe this technique.

Detail of box lid made with the Laying It

All On technique

Fabric Choices

This is the ideal technique for using

fabrics that you would otherwisethrow away because you dont like

their colour or design.


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4. Found Fabrics

32

Here are ideas for creating new textiles from existing fabrics,

including those long abandoned and left in the attic.

Silk Waste

Im fortunate to live in East Anglia, a lovely area of England, where thetown of Sudbury has two silk mills, one of which made the silk for Prin-cess Dianas wedding dress. The silk mills often sell packs of silk piecesfor craft workers at very reasonable prices. Look out for such placesnear you. The cushions below and the Seedhead Quiltwere made usingthese silk fabrics.

The silk ribbon in the photograph is taken from used silk saris. This is

available from various shops that stock items for textile artists. I decid-ed to combine the sari ribbon and the silk and make some cushions. Silk fabric, silk ribbon and knitting yarn
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5. Trash Quilts

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Rescue those unwanted old quilts from the trash and dustbin, and

turn them into contemporary art quilts.

Some time ago, when packing away quilts after giving a talk, I found somevery early quilts about a yard square, which were not worth keeping,or so I thought! The quilting wasnt too good, and the appliqu designnot very sophisticated, so I decided to put two of them in the dustbin(trash). Soon after this, Moira Neal, an ex-student, phoned and askedwhat I was up to. On hearing that I had thrown some quilts away, shetold me I couldnt possibly do thatand I should retrieve them. Oncethey were out of the dustbin, Ithought, OK, what am I going to

do with them now?

I like experimenting, so after someconsideration I laid the quilts onmy work table and painted themwith white emulsion paint, bothback and front. The plan was tocover up the imperfections andprovide me with a blank canvas. Ihave realised since that this is justwhat artists used to do with paint-ings that they didnt like.

Initially, I loaded the whole quilt sur-face with paint, which concealed allthe colour of the fabric and stitch-ing. Then I discovered that if youbrush the surface lightly with theemulsion paint, some of the colournear the stitching is retained. So, Ipainted half the quilt thoroughly

and the other half lightly.

The painting highlighted the quiltedtexture of the surface of the quilts,which I then exploited by drybrushing with acrylic paint, oncethe emulsion paint was dry (dip adry brush into the colour and gen-tly brush over the surface). Mixingthe acrylic paint with an iridescentmedium worked very well.

Detail of Out of the Dustbin I (see page 5).

Tis image shows the painted surface of

the quilted fabric which has been cut up,

rearranged and stitched back together


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6. Serendipity & Soldering

48

This technique came about by accident, hence thename Serendipity given to the quilts in this series. Ibought a remnant from a local fabric store becauseit looked like a crinkly cotton fabric, which could beuseful. However, it was an awful colour, so I decided todye it using a rust colour. A lot of the dye colour ranout of the fabric, but some colour remained. When itwas dry, I ironed it on a cotton setting and was horri-fied to find myself burning a hole in the fabric. What adisaster! But good things can come from disasters.

The fabric must have been a polyester cotton mix assome of the fabric retained the dye, and the fabric

burnt easily with the iron. I decided to make use ofthe fabrics easily burned nature by incorporating itinto a technique that used the soldering iron. Insteadof using white wadding (batting) I went for black,which would show through when the fabric wasburnt. Many of my quilts have straight line quilting soI could use the soldering iron between the rows ofquilting to create texture.

It did indeed create texture the first piece lookedlike birch bark. I was so pleased with the technique

that I went back to the fabric store and bought theirremaining 14 metres of the original fabric!

Serendipity. Te textured

surface of this quilt has

been achieved with the use

of a soldering iron.

Photo by Kevin Mead

Experiment with a soldering iron and wadding, to create an

innovative textile base.


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7. Image Transfer

56

There is a bit of a myth around about image transfer many people think it is difficult. I hope I can erasesome of those myths and give you some ideas frommy experiments, which will help you transfer yourimages to fabric or paper.

Most of the ideas here are related to taking digitalimages and printing them via a printer onto the sur-face you want to stitch into but not all! So do readthrough the following pages as there are lots of waysto play.

I am not really keen to put portraits of family orpeople onto fabric I find such things a bit spooky.Personally I like to play with images of landscape orarchitecture. I chop up images and rearrange them,and I also to add other bits and pieces such as dyedscrim, stitch and texture to the surface to make thecollage more interesting.

To start playing with these techniques, you will needsome images. Take your camera with you whereveryou go and take pictures of whatever interests you.

My notebook with photos of Whitehaven mine, which inspired one of my first

experiments with image transfer (see next page)

Use your own images, transfer them to fabric and transform

with stitch.


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IMAGE TRANSFER

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Collage of images of fishing boats at Old

Felixstowe, showing foiling and stitching

Te images were printed onto cotton

and paper together with scrim, then

placed onto a white cotton ground using

Bondaweb


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Annette Morgan

My first love is making art quilts, but I also enjoyother textile related arts and the freedom of dab-bling with new techniques, such as the use of plastic.

Ive won a number of British and internationalawards and have exhibited in Japan, America andEurope, as well as various UK events. I am a qualifiedquilt judge and tutor on the Quilters Guild QuiltJudging course. Since 1999 I have been teaching Cityand Guilds courses to Diploma level.

My quilts have been featured in all of the major Brit-ish patchwork publications and Ive written severalarticles for The Quilter- the journal of The Quilters

Guild of The British Isles.

In 2003, I was included in the book Inspiration ToStitchby Bailey Curtis, which profiled the work ofsix textile artists. And Im fortunate enough to beone of the quilters showcased in The Quilters GuildCollection (2005), a book based on The QuiltersGuild Heritage Collection.

My book Glitzy Quilts: add sparkle to your stitchingwaspublished on CD by Rainbow Disks in 2007.

I come from a family of needlewomen, but it was myfather who taught me to knit and sew. In my earlycareer as a theatre nurse, sewing remained a recre-ation. But after achieving my City and Guilds quali-fication in 1992, quilting and textile art became myvocation - and my passion. Since then, my feet havehardly touched the ground! My proudest achieve-ment has been serving as President of The QuiltersGuild of The British Isles from 2001 to 2003.

Im a qualified teacher, working both in the UK andabroad. I am mentor to a group, Out of The Fold.

For information about Out of The Fold or othercourses, or to be added to my mailing list:

[email protected]

www.annettemorgan.co.uk
mailto:[email protected]://www.annettemorgan.co.uk/http://www.annettemorgan.co.uk/mailto:[email protected]

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