Sunday 19 December 2010

Inchies

Two weeks ago the Oxford branch of the Embroiderers’ Guild held their December meeting. It was one of two social evenings we hold each year. We usually have a members’ competition and this year the category was Inchies. We had been given a packet of scraps that we could use if we wanted, but it was not compulsory and there were no restrictions on what you could do.

I chose to use most of the things in the bag; a piece of red satin (approx 7 x 5 inches), a piece of red organza (roughly the same size) and a slightly smaller piece of gold lace. It also contained a length of cotton lace and a piece of stripy ribbon that I did not use but I added another piece of white organza from my stash and some coloured foil sweet wrappers.

I have not had much time for stitching lately so I was determined to do something that was not labour intensive. I allowed myself just one evening to complete the project. I tore the coloured foil into small pieces and trapped them between the red satin and red organza using FuseFX. I then trapped some more pieces between this layer and the white organza. I placed the gold lace on top and used free machine embroidery to attach it. I used a multicoloured GĂĽtermann metallic thread and stitched mainly on the solid parts of the lace. I’m not very good at FME, probably because I haven’t practiced it enough, but also because it involves random movement. On this occasion though I wasn’t trying to be too precise, I just roughly followed the pattern of the lace. Nor was I too concerned about the look of the stitches, I was trying to blend the lace into the background rather than create ornate stitching. As a result, I was more relaxed, the stitching went more smoothly, and I found it more enjoyable.


When I had stitched all over, I thought that foil showing through the lace stood out too much so I did more FME, this time in the voided areas using a gold thread. Actually, I used two Madeira metallic threads in one needle. I thought the one that I wanted to use might snap too easily so I combined it with another for strength. I fact it was the other one that kept snapping and I had to rethread several times.

The dense stitching meant that I was able to simply cut the fabric into one inch squares without finishing the edges in any way. I would have liked to embellish them a little, perhaps with beads but I’d run out of time.


The competition is judged by the members by placing a coin beside the entry (or entries) that we want to vote for. The one with the most coins is the winner. My Inchies attracted only one or two votes and I was not surprised by that. I had some fun making them and was pleased that I had tried to do something unusual for me but compared to the other entries they were a bit lame. That’s not just me being modest; take a look at the wonderful entries on our Branch Blog.


From the chatter, I could tell how much everyone had enjoyed this competition, both making their own Inchies and seeing what others had done.



Happy Stitching

2 comments:

Sue said...

Beautiful, I would have left you a coin :-)

Rachel said...

I would have had great difficulty with the brief. I think you created a delightful interpretation of the theme.