Metalwork

I'm being a bit slow with the blogging, for which apologies! Without further ado, here are some pics of class work from last week.

First up, we have been busy making collages with sari silks, foils, and any other glisteny sparkly textured bits we could lay our mitts on:

Carole

Morag

Jan

Libby

Fiona

Maggie

This last piece of work belongs to Rosa, our newest student, who was a bit taken aback when we started the session with "how to heat copper tiles over a gas hob". For some reason she came along expecting to stitch?!

Anyway, we put the copper to one side and made a start on her first strippy collage. The idea being to investigate all the automatic patterns our machines will do, to warm up both machine and our own creative muscles, practise using transfer foils, and create a background for further embellishment.*

And those who were itching to stitch on metal started a simple sampler with feed dog up/normal presser foot, and feed dog down/free machining. Here are some in progress:

Sue

Jill

Di

Kathy

These are all stitched with 0.002" copper shim on felt - you must use a thick-ish background to absorb the sharp pointy bits of copper created when the needle penetrates the metal (but it doesn't have to be felt). This also protects your machine bed from scratches.

Fiona laid some organza on top of her tiles before stitching then blasted it with a heat gun - so effective!

*for transfer foils in large quantities at reasonable rates I am selling them on Facebook at Frugal Foil - if you are not on Facebook but would like some, just email me. Plug over!