>More "On the Surface"

>This is my favorite piece that I did when “On the Surface” book came out. There was a quilt in the book with a lot of white background and I really liked it. I had some left over squares from another project and decided to use them to try to achieve the look of the one in the book. This one is 22″ x 26″. I did many layers of stitching, probably about 8 hours of stitching, then washed it and then added the roses on the corners.
Then I stitched over the roses but with only one color thread instead of the variety of colors everywhere else.
I washed it again after the roses were added. With all of this stitching it doesn’t lay really flat.
Some steam pressing helps, but this amount of stitching will definitely distort a little.

A couple close up pictures of the stitching. I had been saving all of the “almost gone” spools of thread in a bag and used all of them first. Then I had to get into my regular supply of thread.
All of this stitching is done with the feed dogs up and a regular presser foot, forward and back stitch, over and over and over………
This last one is a little table mat that I used to try the procedure.

>Lots of stitching

>In 1997 Wendy Hill’s book “On the Surface” was published. I have always loved the stitched line and lots of them all over the fabric really got me excited. I made several small pieces using the technique and then decided I would do a vest. Well 11 years have passed and I still have the stitched vest fronts laying there. At this point I am considering cutting them into a purse of some kind. I just laid hundreds of little scraps on a muslin base that I might have sprayed with a temporary spray. It has been so long I’m not sure but that is how I would do it now. Then I stitched base lines that held the pieces loosely in place.
Then many more rows of stitching were done, forward 2″, reverse 3″, forward 4″, reverse 3″ etc.
This method used up a lot of those bobbins that just had a little thread left or a color that I knew I wouldn’t be needing again. For the top I used up all of the spools with only a little thread left on them, and then used colors I just wanted to get rid of.
The top rows of stitching were with colors I liked or that contrasted nicely. I used some of the fancy stitches on the sewing machine, and also the heavier straight stitch that goes forward and back a couple times. It is time to do something with these pieces.

It is cold again, not even 40 degrees yet this morning, lots of rain last night. It will be a good day to finish cleaning and for sewing.

>Prismatic Garden Design Time

> This is how I design these pieces, one triangle at a time on a flannel wall. I thought I might have something good going at this point and continued working on it all day.
At the end of the day I had created a piece this size. This is one week later after piecing some more strip sets in med-dark range because it was too spacey looking. I am still not completely happy with it. It is still just triangles on the design wall so I can take it all down and start over if I want to. I think the reason I am still unsure about this one is because my strip sets aren’t as multicolor as in previous pieces. I may just need to sew another 20 strips.
This one isn’t considered part of the series because it is a playtime thing. I took all of the leftover triangles from one of the projects and sewed them together. Then following Wendy Hill’s “On the Surface” book I did a ton of stitching on it. It would make a great table topper.
A close up of the stitching, and below the back of the small quilt.