free machine stitching on felt.

Over the years my felt pictures have slowly developed and I have been adding more and more stitching to them. I wondered what would happen if I completely cvered one with stitching and this is what happened.

First I made a very simple felt picture. I wanted to be able to concentrate on the stitching and not a complicated design. This is the felt

Next I covered the felt with a layer of zig zag stitch in colours to match the felt.

I continued by adding layers of straight stitch . I overlapped some of the colours to blend everything together. When there were just tiny bits of felt visible I stopped stitching. The end result was a more crisp and defined image and I preferred it to the original.

The drawbacks are it uses a LOT of thread, takes a lot of time and the stitching distorts the felt fabric. This picture started out in a landscape format and ended up as portrait.

As you can see as well as changing shape the stitching had cause rippling at the edges. After careful pressing on the back I got rid of the ripples but how should it be finished and presented? I scoured my reference books and the internet which all gave different advise. I looked at images of stitched pictures and saw that some had been edged with yarn. After rummaging through my stash I found some novelty yarn in black, grey and white which I thought would bring out the colours in the rock. It was very thin so I made a cord with it which thickens the yarn x 4. I trimmed the edges of the felt and stitched the cord on to it. It  worked.

I was going to put this in my textile sample book but my husband liked it so much he wanted it displayed so I mounted on to black card and put it in a box frame. I like the way it seems to 'float', It now lives in our lounge. 

I will be exploring this further and hope to have some in my etsy shop soon.

Stitched felt paintings

I have been playing around with more stitching on my felts and decided to go for it and make the stitch a central focus on a felt. This is what I did.

I made a wet felted landscape with the silhouette of a rooster in the foreground. I made the silhouette in a vaguly chickeny sort colour because I guessed some of it would show through the stitching.

I began to add free machine stitching to the tail area. I started with blues and greens.

I kept adding suitable colours and building up the stitches to blend in different areas. This takes a LOT of time and thread - be warned.

When the rooster was finally complete I added a little stitching to the rest of the piece to define areas and add detail.

If you want to see more pictures of this go to my etsy shop by clicking on the etsy mini at the top of the page.