I spied our Sue at work last week wearing this cotton leopard print (not ours ...ahem!) A-line skirt that had the hem trimmed with hot pink grosgrain ribbon and the loveliest embroidered pink and green flowers. When I asked her where she got the trim from, she told me that our other Sue (remember?) had embroidered the flowers and added them to her skirt especially! I just love the mix of the pretty with the animal print!
So I emailed Sue straight away to find out more about her amazing sewing machine and how she went about the design etc.....this is what she said:
'My machine is a Pfaff Creative Vision. It's a normal sewing machine as well but also does beautiful work as an embroiderer.
The design is from a CD called Roses for Mary and is the work of Jenny Haskins who is - I think - the queen of machine embroidery. Jenny designs lots of embroidery designs - you will see on her site - and as well is owner/editor/brainchild behind a magazine called Creative Expressions which is a machine embroidery magazine distributed worldwide (which has featured quite a few of Sue's work).
This is how Sue did it:
'I hooped up 2 layers of soluble stabiliser with a layer of nylon organza in between. Then I embroidered the design in the hoop using Robison Anton rayon threads. I removed the hoop from the machine but did NOT take the embroidery out of the hoop. While still in the hoop I got my textile burning tool and using my finest tip I traced around the edge of the embroidery which burnt the stabiliser and the nylon organza right back to the edge of the embroidery. My designs fell from the hoop and I soaked them in warm water to dissolve the soluble stabiliser. When I felt that it was all gone I rinsed them in water which had softener added and then squeezed them out and laid them on a towel to dry.
Then I ironed them and placed them on my fabric and did a small zigzag stitch just catching the edge of the designs and the fabric. (It is much better to stipple them but I just cant get stippling right - need more practice I think)'
Sue (aka Noosa Girl) xx
Absolutely marvellous ....bet we've all got machine envy now...?Labels: Sewing, Skirts, Trims
