THREAD PAINTING

Our cable service provider keeps adding or taking away channels unexpectedly.  Recently, I found they added another shopping channel, but about a month ago, I came across another PBS station from the mid-west area that was new.  A whole hour was devoted to sewing, dying material, painting on material, how to use a spinning wheel to make your own yarns; which I found very interesting, always wondering how those spinning wheels worked, crafting, knitting, crocheting and quilt making and the history of quilts.  There are guest speakers and demonstrators and I've made it a point, every morning, to tune in. 

One segmet I was really interested in were artists who paint with thread.  They free-motion sew with their sewing machine.  They thread their machines with different kinds of threads, mostly embroidery threads, which have a shine to them, drop the feeddog on their sewing machine, hold the material on both sides with their hands or in an embroidery hoop and with a free motion, continually fill in a design or picture with the thread very densely.  Sometimes they have even dyed their own material or have painted either a background or a design on their material.  This takes a lot of time and a lot of very expensive thread, material and/or batting and stabilizer underneath the material.

I've also learned that these sewing machines now, which are computerized, can be very expensive.  The, what they call, the long arm machines, are even more expensive.  These machines you hold on to with two handlebars with a long arm (hence the name long arm machines) and guide the needle over the layers.  They work at very high speeds and are used mostly for quilting, but some of these ladies have found various other creative uses for these machines.

I've tried small samples of this technique myself before ever seeing this form of creativity on TV, but these very artistic people have brought this technique into new levels.  The techniques take a bit of practice before venturing into it with your materials you will actually use for your final project.

I guess since the rain will be with us for a while, I'm going to be practicing some of those ideas.  I purchased the embroidery threads and materials a while back and  am excited about what I'll be able to achieve.

If anything I do is worth sharing with you, I'll take a photo and show you.

Wish me luck!