MA asked a question on my post yesterday, so I thought I'd answer here in case anyone else was curious. She wondered how I transferred the detail onto my fabric as I go about tracing. I'm hoping that the two photo sets I'm offering here will help visualize my explanation.
As I'm planning to cover the bodies with felt to pad them, most of the detail would be covered before I even begin to do the embroidery. So, on the left of each of these sets of photos, you can see the detail I drew onto my paper under the fabric. The lightbox brightens the image so that I can see what I need to trace.
On the left of the photo set, you can see how little of the detail I actually transferred. I use a very sharp point (.05) drawing pen to transfer the lines. It's okay that it's permanent, because my padding and/or threads will cover all the lines in the finished piece.
You can see the same in this set of the bird in flight. The body will also be padded here, but not the wings, so I drew more detail into the wings for later reference.
Before I begin the actual embroidery, I'll draw in a few more reference lines with my brown pen, but I'll also have my reference photos off to the side of my work. I'll look at them from time to time to make sure my needlework makes them even more realistic.
I hope that answered your question, MA, and helped everyone else visualize my process at this point. I'll share my padding process tomorrow, as I'm going to be working on it again today. See you then!
Interesting.
ReplyDeleteGreat progress, you are so talented!
Marilyn
Thanks, honey. I'll share photos tomorrow of the padding portion.
Deletexoxo
Donna
Thank you Donna! I was curious to know how you transferred the design onto the fabric and you explained it well. A further curiosity - do you use a Micron pen? I've read about some sort of dissolvable film that you can either trace or print a design onto and then it simply rinses out (sorry I can't come up with the name of it offhand...Solvy perhaps?). Don't think it would work for doing this process though and likely would be better for regular embroidery. I generally use crumpled up tissue paper when I do my landscapes but picking all the little bits of paper out after the embroidery is a pain. Using a lighbox wouldn't work for me either because there's too many layers of fabric by the time I get to the embroidery part of the project.
ReplyDeleteHi MA:
DeleteYes! It is a Micron pen in brown, but I couldn't remember (s**t) yesterday when I wrote the post. lol Because my drawing actually gets covered by padding and needlework, I think there are too many layers on top for the Sulky™ Stick and Stitch to be appropriate. I'm just real spare with the pen and make sure to cover all those permanent lines when I do the embroidery portion. If in doubt about how I want it to look in the end, I just use fewer or no lines (like the bug the bird is feeding to the babies in this piece). When all is said and done, I just let my creative muse take over in the stitching, which is mostly long and short stitch. It's served me well so far. I think your tissue idea works well for your application, but I personally don't like dealing with all the bits I'd have to remove at the end. (I avoid it always, except when paper piecing my quilts for accuracy.)
Thanks again for the question. Padding info tomorrow.
xoxo
Donna
sherry of createology: Donna this is the best tracing tutorial. For my watercolors I must trace and I need to do a lot more detail because I lose a lot when I paint…of course my lines must be very light pencil because they will show through the watercolors and cannot be erased after painting.
ReplyDeleteHi Sherry:
DeleteThank you, dear. One of our daughters-in-law is a painter. I've seen all her lines when she first starts a new project, so I understand what you're talking about. It's also a wonderful process, and I also find that the tracing helps me get more accurate renderings than if I drew it freehand. I'm not THAT artistic with a pen. lol
xoxo
Donna