Embroidered Tesselations Part 3

With my success with the 260mm x 360 mm hoop and my mathematical art project, I was ready to move on to the 350mm x 360 mm Husqvarna majestic hoop.   The challenge with this hoop is that the machine can only embroider half of it at a time.  To get the other half, the hoop must be turned 180 degrees and attached to the machine at a different point on the hoop.  Effectively, each design must be split into two halves and those halves must be aligned very precisely.  My previous experiments with the hoop resulted in alignment problems so bad I had to re hoop the fabric.  That wasn't going to be acceptable with my complicated and dense design.

I started by creating a design in the larger size.  This involved quite a bit of rework of the smaller design.  New details could be added and everything had to be more precise.

The next problem was splitting and alignment.  I decided to start with something simple -- the outer circle of my design.

It took more than a few tries just to get a circle where the two halves matched.  I learned that representing a complicated design as just some run stitches was helpful.  You find out that you messed up so much quicker.

Finally, I got to the point where I could stitch the outlines of the fish and make everything match.

This was to be the real deal.  I bought some special new thread that I thought would be better.  I was having some issues on the boundaries between the two halves, but things really came apart where I started using the green thread.  The color change went from being every 2-3" to a longer interval.  I started getting stripes in the fills.  This is NOT the effect I was looking for.  I gave up on this one.  Fortunately, I had enough of the old thread to make another design.

I used the Floriani Heat and Sta stabilizer again, since it worked well with the smaller design.   I also used the Floriani Medium weight tear away to make sure the design stayed really stable.  The bigger the design gets, the more slight stretching in the fabric can cause problems.  I also alternated embroidering on different sides.  That meant a lot of reorienting the hoop.  It took parts of three days, but the design was finished!

It's a long path from this image:

Come back next week for a completely different project!

Embroidered Tesselations Part 2

I have been working for months on embroidering a complex image that fits the description of mathematical art.  I knew that it needed to be large to get good detail.  The largest single position hoop for the Husqvarna Epic sewing machine is 260 mm x 360 mm.   I've used this hoop for projects like the stuffed fish and had great success with it.  The next step in scaling up the image was to create the largest embroidery that this hoop could support.  It took about 2 weeks to produce a embroidery design that I thought was good enough for this project.

This design is very dense.  The entire circle is covered with one layer of stitching and sometimes more.  It needs a heavy fabric to support it.  I chose plain cotton duck canvas.

Cotton fabrics do stretch, not a good thing for a project like this, but there are ways to deal with the problem.  I used Floriani Heat n Sta stabilizer.  It is ironed on to the fabric and holds it tight.  I chose to use a second layer of regular tear away stabilizer under that.

To make sure everything stayed in place, some of the lines in the design were sewn before any of the stitches that show.  Here, the machine is just beginning to sew with colored threads.  Just as I was choosing colors, I was struck by inspiration and chose variegated thread rather than a solid thread.  This has the effect of emphasizing the direction of the stitches.  I carefully oriented the stitches in each of the fish to follow the symmetry of the design and this last minute choice makes that more obvious.

With all of the colored threads done, the design looks like this:

Now it's time to add the white and finally the black.

I was very pleased at how this turned out.  I though it was very acceptable, but I was still wanting to use the larger hoop to make the largest possible design.  Come back next week and learn about the tribulations in getting to the final finished design.

Embroidered Tesselations Part 1

It all began with a phone call from my aunt, the very talented quilter.  A mathematical artist was looking for an embroiderer to collaborate on a project.   Was I interested?   Life can take you done some interesting paths when you say yes at the right moment.

This was the image that my collaborator, Doug Dunham of Duluth, MN created.

You might recognize it as very similar to some images by the artist M.C. Escher, famous for images with mathematical foundations.  This is a tessellation, also sometimes called a tiling.  The fish shapes, all identical, completely cover the surface.   Wait...  all identical?  This can't be!  Some are large, many are small and they aren't all the same shape.

In fact, they are all the same shape if you see this not as a regular two dimensional circle, but rather the Poincare disk, a hyperbolic geometry, where the distance between two points depends on how close to the edge they are.  In fact, it's an infinite distance from the center to the edge.

The question asked whether this image could be rendered in embroidery in some pleasing way.  Making this work would require many days with Floriani Total Control, my embroidery design software.  It was also obvious from the beginning that with an image this detailed, the larger the embroidery could be made, the more details could be included.  I knew from the beginning that the Husqvarna Majestic Hoop, at 350mm x360mm was going to produce the best results.

Here's a version of the image in embroidery at 4"x4".  Not much detail is included.  As the fish get small towards the edge, there's no way to render them.  However, as a first crack at the problem, it wasn't bad.

Come back next week and see what can be done with a 260mm x 360 mm hoop.

Warm Coat Part 2

Last week, I was describing the coat I'm making for a winter trip to Baltimore.   Here's the coat, all complete and ready to go.

The coat has a lining of ripstop nylon to help it be windproof.  Fleece may be a very cozy fabric, but a strong wind will go right through it.

The coat is double breasted; there's a lot of overlap between the two front pieces.  There's a hidden button closure on the inside flap of the front.  It's exactly underneath the decorative button on the front.  

This coat also features a notched collar.  These are a bit tricky to get right, but fortunately, fleece is a very forgiving fabric.  If it was made from wool, then a steam iron can be used to make wool do just about anything.

Come back next week and see the project I've been working on for months.  It got invited to a major academic math meeting, which is why I'm headed north in the winter!

Warm Coat

I'm headed to Baltimore in January to show off one of my sewing projects.  You'll get to see that and the process of making it soon.  I know just how nasty Maryland can get in the winter and I need a warmer coat.  I have this lovely purple boiled wool sitting in my closet, earmarked for a warm winter coat.  I thought I even had a a pattern picked out, McCall 6800, the one I used to make this coat.  There's just one snag -- the sleeves.  After careful measurements, it turns out the sleeves aren't big enough.  That's not a problem with the green coat, where the fabric is a stretchy fleece, but with the wool it would be. This green coat looks warm, but it has the problem that neither the outer fabric nor the lining is particularly windproof.  It's great on a still night, but get a breeze and a windchill and it's not so warm.

It's certainly possible to modify a lot in a pattern, but my experience is that making two piece sleeves wider is pretty tricky and I certainly don't want to ruin the the wool.  It was time to start over and get a new plan.

I found this pattern, Vogue 9289.  (Fortunately, Vogue patterns were on sale that day.)  It's got two piece sleeves that are cut quite a bit wider. 

This sort of pattern isn't very efficient on the fabric, so there wasn't enough of the wool to make this work.  My local fabric store had literally no heavy, windproof fabric that I liked.   But, fleece was on sale.  I reasoned that maybe if the lining was windproof, the result would be reasonably warm.  (Yes, I know you loose some of the insulating properties of the fleece by doing it this way.)  

I picked an astronomical print for the coat.  It's got lots of planets and spiral galaxies -- perfect for someone like me!

For the lining, I chose ripstop nylon, a thin but very windproof fabric for the lining.  It's used for back packing tents and sometimes windbreakers, but I've never seen it used as a lining before.


Just cutting out the coat was a challenge.  Because the side front and side and back pieces are so wide, the fabric could not be folded and cut.  It had to be laid out on the floor and each piece individually cut.  I had just enough room in my living room to make this work.

Come back next week and see how it turned out!

Looks Like a Leather Jacket

It looks like a leather jacket, but it isn't!  It's made from a scuba knit that I bought at Walmart.  This relatively new fabric is a heavy knit, something like a lightweight neoprene in weight and drape, hence the name scuba knit.  Compared to leather, this fabric is quite a bit cheaper and has a nice stretch to it.  It's likely not as durable as leather and I certainly wouldn't choose to wear it as personal protection on a motorcycle!

I started with Kwik Sew 3764.  There's two versions of this jacket, one with all the fancy zippers and features and a more stripped down version.  I made the fancier one.

In addition to the the asymmetric zippered front, the jacket features zippered pockets.  The zippers are exposed and part of the look, so I used shiny brass zippers to extenuate them.  Lining up a bunch of black fabric was a bit of a challenge.  I found that adding extra light at the ironing board was very helpful.

 The sleeves also have zippered gaskets at the bottom.This is the first time I've tried this technique.  It's easier than it looks.  The fabric on the inside is a separate piece.

The jacket also has epaulets.  These are not sewn into the neck seam, but are sewn on separately afterwards.  With many layers of heavy fabric, even my sewing machine was finding it tough going.  I ended up sewing them on by hand.  I needed to get out the really big needles, the ones for sewing sails.

Here's the finished project.  It's a nice addition to my look.

Come back next week for a new project!

In The Hoop Christmas Ornaments

Christmas is a great time for fun little craft projects.  You can make things that are pretty, but don't need to stand up to the rigors of daily, year-round use.  It's also a great time to experiment with new techniques.

Embroidery Library has quite a collection of in the hoop Christmas ornaments and they add more every year. These little gems are all made with the embroidery unit.  There's no regular sewing involved at all.  I will buy some each year and try them, like the free standing ornament from last week.  My tree is now mostly covered in hand made items.

Unlike the free standing ornament, these are made with felt.  A tear-away stabilizer is used.  (A water soluble one is a bad idea in this case, because you don't want to get the finished item wet.)   All the fancy stuff is sewn on the front, then another piece of felt is added to the back. 

You can even note on the back which year you made it.  Finally, the item is lightly stuffed with a tiny bit of polyester fleece.

Some designs work best with white felt, others do better with colors.

There are even designs that are not stuffed at all, where ordinary fabric can be used.

Best of all, most of these fit nicely in the 4" square hoop, so they can be made with just about any embroidery machine.

Merry Christmas to all.  Come back next week for more fun with a sewing machine as we explore a completely different project.