I was having a terrible time deciding how to quilt my Surface Design quilt on which I am currently working. Two sections have stitched Shibori and Paula suggested that I try French knots. I love French knots and like doing them, but couldn't envision myself doing that many through two layers of fabric and batting. So I decided to do them by machine. I used white YLI Jeans Stitch thread, a favorite of mine. It is 30 weight, which means it is quite heavy. I free motion stitched and went around in tight little circles several times to make the knot. It was really fun to do! Then I painted them with a watered down blue acrylic paint because the white was too stark.
Be sure to click on the picture for a bigger view.
Here's a piece before I did the French knots. Perhaps you don't know what "stitched shibori" is. I started with plain white PFD cotton and made rows of running stitch by hand. Then I drew the threads up tight and put it in blue dye. Wherever I stitched made a resist for the dye. After dyeing I removed the threads and this is what I got. Although the hand stitching is slow going and somewhat tedious, I like the results and want to do a lot more, using different patterns.
3 comments:
Well aren't you the clever one - I really like the effect it made! Nice job and thanks for sharing!
Could you do the prepatory shibori stitching on the machine with a loose tension and pull up the bobbin to do the gathering? Like smocking?
I suppose that you could do it that way, but would get a different look. I'll have to try it.
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