HQ Live - Couching with Helen Godden (November 2016)

hi I'm Vicky ha from hattie quilter and joining me today is Helen garden from Australia today everybody I love when you say that I love when you talk to Vicky but I touch normal yeah okay I've got the accent she hasn't we think that don't we all right so Helen today we have an awesome presentation on couching that doesn't mean sitting on the couch and watching TV that means sitting up at your sewing machine your quilting machine the sweet 16 and couching and you have brought some samples to show what couching is so what's your definition of couching well catching technically is to stitch over something that can't be stitched down so traditionally say the golden epaulets honor on a soldier's uniform or something I used to catch over the top so we're not actually going over the top we're actually stitching right down the middle of some yarn and attaching that to the quilt okay so the yarn is too large to go in the needle and so you'll have to use a like on your domestic machine a zig-zag stitch to go over the top but you're talking about stitching right through the fiber because we haven't got a zig-zag stitch where a straight stitch so we had to come up with some system that enabled that yarn to be taken right to the needle and he gives the needle no choice but to stitch it down so it's a bit like I was trying to do Bob and work with some of these fancier yarns because of course they couldn't go through the needle so had to go in the bobbin and that works quite okay you can do bobbin work then you have to turn your quilt over and you have to have it defined on the back so you know we're in stitches so you've stitched it twice once from the front to see where you're going once from the back to actually do the bobbin work but then you can only put say three yards you have to hand while ivan onto the bobbin so you just get started and just start to get excited you got to stop again so I sat down with my dad one day and was asking him how can I work from this whole ball of yarn and be able to couch from the top and get this yarn attached to the quilt and so my dad luckily is a retired engineer so off he goes to his garage and I gave him the foot that we currently had which was the closed toe foot and I explained to him what it needed to do off he goes comes back for his morning cup of tea and he's designed three little feet for me and so they were made from what I call perspex but you call that Plexiglas I think is that what you call it yeah flexi Plexiglas plastic of some cars and dad had made a little shape that inserted into the bottom of the foot and then I tested the idea it worked brilliantly so now handy quarter I'm making it and that's one thing I really like about this company is their motto is designed for quilters for quilters so they listen to us so when we come up with an idea and it's going to benefit all quilters they run with it so now we have the foot available and it's so you're talking about three of them yeah it's actually three different sizes for the different fibers that you may choose correct so when you get you a little set like this those three in there the first thing I recommend is to get your permanent marker and write on here one two three because there's three different sizes and otherwise you're sitting here trying to you know look at the little hole and work out which is which I'm not sure if the camera can pick up on this but it's like a little funnel a little funnel of plastic that channels that yarn right down to where the needle is going to be stitching so you have the different size hole so it's 1.5 mil to mil and three mil depending on the thickness of your yani I don't know if the camera can even see the difference in those from the largest to the smallest so 1.5 to three mil yeah okay so what which one are you going to use today you're going to just be using the smallest one you'll find you use that the most because although it looks very small your yarn of course squeezes down the fibers squeezed down to go through the hole and then sort of puff up again on the other side so in the main you'll use that smallest one but of course you can experiment with all different yarns there's the chunky bobble you sort of ones there's some that we call eyelashes they're sort of fluffy ones yeah now personally I don't like the look of those as much because they don't make such a defined because a real fighter rather and they're fluffy it makes a shaggy mess but if you were trying to create cat's fur or koala fur or something it absolutely will make that fluffy furry look for you okay so before we show how to install it or how to make sure it fits properly let's look at some of the things out there your squirrels that you have done and mmm amazing amazing so so this is fairly simple with a raw edge square on the background just ironed onto the cream fabric and then I've actually cut just with three different yarns here so this is a variegated acrylic so you get all those beautiful colors just changing which is awesome and then I've actually filled the couching so you can just do straight sort of open line work or you can actually fill and do like yarn paintings like thread painting but it's yarn painting beautiful gives it a real good to add a dimension to it you can't help but want to touch it everyone wants absolute yes and the thing is is that I can just it's all good it is attached it is all attached okay let's see the next one so then I started playing with the sparkly crochet I love it leans or does this kind of crochet yarn which I don't know what on earth you would crochet with it but it works really nice like everybody maybe but it works really well yes it does so you've done the quilting here and then you went back and added the bling the sparkle well I actually went the other way around you did there but it doesn't matter which way you do it whichever way your brain works but I actually did all the outlining first and then I came back in and so the beauty of the little couching foot of course it's a free motion foot as well so if you've finished the couching you can just keep sewing with it the only like and doing your free motion quilting but the only difference is that with the little plasticy insert it's a little bit harder to patch see-through so all we're trying to do micro work you will definitely just swap that foot out but you could continue but you can absolutely do that yeah it's just the same all right let's move on to the next bling aw but this is the Waratah which is a flower native flower of Australia it's a bit like a South African protea but it's actually not even the same species but it's like that this is a very big bloom and it's quite a plasticy flower or most and has these really spiky leaves but it's a beautiful flower but I really like the contrast of the heavy yarn and then the finer stitching they really enjoying the quilted line and I like the variegated that you put in that but for me it's all about the quilting is this one roll around or to notice one okay all right all right let's see some more well so this is based on our Australian gum blossomed from the eucalyptus tree so this is very much enlarged but that's something to remember about - when you're doing your couch in because the line we are placing down there is about a quarter of an inch thick it's not a fine line look we can create with our thread so when you're doing any of your stitching you're certainly not doing micro work because it's completely lost in the couch so you did micro it would just really fill it it's just not even you just really can't do that and in any of the designs you do you have to think on a bigger scale so if you were going to applique or couch some flowers you have to think on a bigger scale because it's like you're using a big fat marker rather than a fine pen to draw that picture let's say okay think bigger yes so on this do you match up your thread color with your with the fiber you're doing yes more than likely it does sink in so the thread color does sink into that yarn and so I'm pretty sure I probably use that tan color and then just stitched into here but quite frankly you can't even see the thread it's really just think seen it would only be if you're using a very pale colour or a white yarn then you would definitely use a white thread unless you wanted it to stand out I don't think you're bad don't think so okay let's see what else oh you've added the bling with just some is this acrylic or cotton yarn now this one is acrylic and I'm actually liking the acrylic yarn the best for a few reasons it's a very consistent thickness if you get a lovely hand dyed wool like a pure wool it's quite often varying in thickness the variations the the color combinations you combine the acrylic is there a huge range of them and best of all they're really cheap so inexpensive but what I've done here is actually use the couching for the applique so this is fabric with the fusible on the back I've cut that out and ironed it on and normally with your raw edge applique you're now stitching very closely around the edge well I've stitched closely around the edge but with the couching so it just covers a lot so it covers up the raw edge it gives us a decorative edge and it's quilted it all in one go but it's another whole technique in itself yeah so I have seen Mary Beth another one of our handy called our friends she's done this sort of thing but with black yarn on a light color and it gives that stained glass yeah yeah oh that would be yes okay yeah all right let's move on to the next one wait you've done the hole the hole mm-hmm no painting no fabric it's yarn has made it that's correct the couch yep so this really is yarn painting like you think of thread painting but the big thing with working on our piece where you're covering the whole surface with couching is there is going to be distortion because you're adding a lot of weight and tension on the top there so when you're doing a piece like this it's quite important to stabilize the whole background first okay I will have done this sort of sky cloud suggestion on the whole piece to stabilize it just you know stitching through the layers and then it's very much a matter of working from the background first so definitely with this I've started with this little mountain range and this one and this is unpopped because you'll want things to lay on top of each other so it just works your way forward yeah so definitely that tree didn't come into play until I was right down to here okay and then that tree actually stitched over the top of the other quilt couching because the yarn can just go over the top I like the way you left the sky and couched so the elderly is a recent to me this is what's got texture the sky hasn't gone the texture so there's a time and a place for the couch like I really think for foliage for fur for feathers the couching is really going to add interest to your art quilts maybe if you're doing a dolphin I'm not so sure a fluffy dolphin is what we're going for so I think there's a time and a place for the couching but for a landscape piece like this and you can see I've even quilted circles and all different patterns and things in there you sure did you not at all all right our last one here well is that what I'm sorry yeah this is a little blue rain it's a little Australian native bird who is only about an inch in size he is really small and large he's very big but he's always of course the boy with the beautiful blue colors the girl is just dull gray but he literally hops around the garden looking for bugs and things to work to eat but he's got these beautiful colors with the drama of the blue and the black so that's all done in the couching I like how you have this the layers here that you can see through it yeah it's so tight and you know you I'm sure you did this first and then you place this there and then that's how you've getting that dimension so you do have to think about your layers and the order that you do things in so even here I would have done that tail the blue and the black before that wing went on top so but Vikki this one here the blue rent and that previous landscape piece if you want to jump on line to Helen garden comm you can actually do this class with me it's an online class yeah you could print off you print off the pattern I then give you a requirements list of the sort of colors the colored yarn you need to do and then you'll watch alongside with me like I'm doing today and learn that the techniques and then be able to create that project yeah you get to use all that yarn that's at home you're the leftover from the jumpers sweaters and things yeah yeah okay so let's go to the machine now okay and tell us how to get it ready the machine ready to put that foot on hand and make sure it quilts properly so most of our people now have the sweet 16 or any of the handy quarter machines it actually works on any of them the Vontae etc that has the little conversion that little ankle on the foot section that enables us to swap those feet over this is called the conversion mount and if you don't have it you can purchase it on her at your retailer or on our website and it's the conversion kit which will give you the open toe foot and the clothes tofu which is the rule you need that for your rollers yes so the open you're going to use for your micro work and they close for the rulers but now that we have this ability to change feet we have nine feet yes yes we have echo feet glide feet a regular regular feed catching feed couch yes I am I love the echo feed for rulers and for echoing around designs so I like their pretty colors oh of course of course so but when you do first put that foot on something that's quite important the very first time is to lean forward on your machine and rotate that hand wheel and make someone rotate it for it some of us have got really long arms Viki yeah rotate that handle because you want to just ensure that that needle is absolutely in the center of that couching foot okay so in so when you've tasted that if it's not in the center so you don't have to put it all the way down just enough to go and just check it because what can happen worst-case scenario is that this isn't aligned and the little needle is actually hitting on the plastic so as soon as you started to so of course you're going to break a needle or a chip a little of the checker holes yes that's usually what happens yeah they're not centered so otherwise just this little what I call spanner and you call wrench and it comes with your conversion kit it will be in there so if the camera can zoom in on here we've got this little nut just here and that's what you would loosen off and just change the alignment so you're going to just barely loosen yet and and then adjust adjusted you tighten that back out you need to be really careful to hold the foot so that because you're going to tighten that and you need to hold the foot and turn it the opposite direction they you know don't distort or don't move and that only takes about a minute of concentration here but once that is right it'll be right for all your couching feet it's just that very first time you start to couch I just would like you to double check that for me please good yeah cuz you'll have success yeah that's wrong alright so now I know that's a really really tiny hole and I'm seeing the fiber that you've got there the yarns and I can't how are you going to get that yarn into that little tiny hole so you're imagining that I'm getting down here and trying to read that through there okay just what a very good friend of mine Vicky showed me how this is done this is a really good little trick here and this is the main part that you need to practice at home to really be confident with your couching it's just the how to get started is actually the hardest part of the whole thing and yet it's like it's easy when you've done it but it's the only part that people when I'm teaching it's the bit we have to practice quite regularly oh let's grab that foot it's a good idea to have the foot in place so as per usual I'm just going to do my foot tap or my little button up here needle down needle up and bring up that bottom thread that's just like we always do and you want where you bring that bobbin thread up you want the top thread to go down through the hole correct we'll do that so I have both threads now and between the foot and the material and I'm holding them out here to one side so you can kind of see that with the camera yep it's going down through okay okay so that's as per usual as if we would now just start stitching so now you get your yarn whatever color you want to use I'm going to pop that yarn through this large gaping hole here from the needle bar the presser bar to the needle bar so that's that big gap that's easy to find pop it through there pull it back on a little loop and this is the tricky bit is I'm pulling it slightly to one side can we see that okay all right you're just pulling pulling the thread across to one sides and now when I do a foot tap that needle goes down needle goes up I've actually done one stitch around that yarn okay so it's actually now sort of attached to these threads so now these two are going to pull that yarn through that hole so go ahead and pull that through right so now I'm pulling but I'm pulling and moving so you're not even you don't have a hold of that see how it's quite home you'll want it to be quite firmed because at that point there I was pulling through two thicknesses of yarn so it should be really quite firm but now that it's one thickness of yarn its firm but not hard to pull it sits in there okay and now if if this was a precious yarn that I only had a very small amount of I could pull that right back to the smallest little tail I want to leave but otherwise you can just start stitching how are you going to tie off that tail or bury that tail or what do you do with that tail so after a while you sort of start to think of creative ideas this certainly can be less sued back in so using the needle and thread and less suing that back in but that can be quite hard once a thick yarn so the easiest way to do it is just to think to yourself that you're going to stitch back over that at some stage but just loop back and stitch over it and then you can cut that tail off and you'll come up with creative ways of how to hide those tails and now you just start stitching and I will go back and over that tail okay so that's taken care of now you can take your scissors and I can get rid of that and what are you going to do with all this yarn out here right so this is the thing that you have to get used to is to have a whole heap of excess yarn unraveled ready to come with me it's got to be ready you can't have this tightly wound you can't answer it on our attention at all and believe me I've tried all different methods of putting the ball of yarn down the floor or attaching it up here or sitting it on my head whatever trying to find you can imagine now yeah that would be a myth but you really just have to have that loose pile of yarn ready to flow with you that's the least amount of tension possible on that yeah and what happens if you do have too much tension yeah okay so let's have a look at that so if I'm stitching along you can see how that just follows with me wherever I'm going but if now Bicky holds it okay it's going to start skipping oh yes okay so I'm trying to make it fail now you failed okay it's going to start skipping so if it does skip not hasn't skipped very well make it skip so what happened let me just think you let me make it skip so if I'm fast it this way here we go I'll make it fail well I think it right there we go it failed so I was holding it away can the camera see that yeah so the camera has I mean the machine has not stitched down that yarn so if you notice that it's usually because you've had your hand on it you haven't unraveled it it's got caught on a pin or something but if that happens stop stitching pull it back to where it last was attached right so I'd actually pulled the job back and now make sure it is loose and now I'll just stitch back over those stitches to catch it back down and then that's all gone okay it's going to kind of help you here a little bit it's nice to have an assistant but yes so then you can also stitch right the way across the top of your work so I've got this machine set to about 35 so I would suggest 25 to 35 as a top speed you don't want to be going too slow because when you do that curve that's the point where the needle might skip so if the needle is going out a little bit faster it might skip one stitch with the next stitch or it'll catch okay so I'm going to just help you with your hair there so much to look after I'm going to help you some more because it just as wanting to fall all over the place yeah so I can stitch over the top of myself completely so that works as well yeah so the other two things you have to watch for is that occasionally as we're stitching along this might do a little loop okay like and I've had that yeah that little loop and it's coming along and if you stitch through that little loop it's of course going to just make a jam and there'll be a point where you do have to just get your scissors and get in there and do surgery and literally just cut out that hole and start again okay so in other words kind of keep an eye on there as you're absolutely that's the one thing extra you've got to do is be watching that that is just flowing with you as you're going i watch this yeah let's let's watch and see what she's doing and I'll manage this so I'm not having to you know guide this in or anything it's I'm just it just follows wherever I go and so then when it comes to the ending how do we end that piece of yarn hopefully you know depending on the design you might be able to stitch across to the edge of your quilt but otherwise you'll just cut that yarn off and then stitch it back onto itself and you don't even see that and it's gone okay what a good idea and then the same thing if you have suddenly realized that back here that the whole area that it did actually skip and you'll think there's one area that's loose well of course I can just stitch back over the top with this foot on just stitch back adding more thread and catch that little section that and you won't see that double stitch because it just didn't it's all here now this is actually a very forgiving technique because this is actually covering up whether you've got nice length stitches or where the attentions a bit yeah it actually hides a whole heap of knotty oopss okay so this is really fun but I love the bling so we're gonna stop and have you rethread mhm and do some awesome blingy okay okay we'll be right back okay alright Helen we have the bling mm-hmm beautiful yes it is beautiful question back though on this yarn here I met I crochet and when I when I buy my yarn I always put it into a ball so you pull out the one hand which is all crinkly and then the other end and you start you know you put it into yeah which you probably recommend that crinkly how does that go through there because that's the Travelers part that's really yeah so if you were to pull the center out of this it can be quite wrinkly and crinkly so if you're just new to your couching that might cause a few little hiccups because it's just one more thing for you to be watching so maybe you'd just snipped that bit off but if you did actually rewind this into a ball one thing you can do is have a little plastic dish and have that sitting up the back there and that ball can just sort of tumble in that and that works fairly well but you just saw you'll pull some out and puddle yeah here yep and then just keep but there just has to be know as little as possible tension on that yeah so then that ball doesn't go rolling off and like this did that I have to real yes is the room these things roll everywhere so okay so let's have a look at this here first of all where do I get this well this is actually an Australian product so I know it's available on Colley porter designs we also have it on my website and you can buy it directly from crochet australia ok crochet australian here that's where you okay and i know the brand is called excel so EXC e l but of course there's a lot of shipping etc so I'm hoping you guys can find something similar here in America but otherwise us and there are many many colours of this yeah it's there's turquoise and Jade's the one I've used a lot is a a charcoal grace it's not black it's charcoal so it's an excellent one to use it's got white that's like an iridescent it looks like snow you can make snowflakes with it so yeah okay alright now we're going to just do this get it through the needle again or get it through the hopping foot so one more time and I've noticed you started stitching there aren't you going to clip your threads so you don't have to the fact that I've started stitching it's like those threads are attached already like we were we had them out here before so just from this position I've already been stitching so I'll just raise up that needle pop that through there again it doesn't matter if it go front or back it doesn't matter we're going to pop that over there and hold and it's that little bit of slack you have to pull that thread across and you can make it stitched and that stitch goes down sat in it and now that will still pull that through it sure did that looks easier than yeah other young oh this is going to be so so so blingy so blingy okay so we've got our paddle here yep so it's ready to go that's all sitting there and I just start stitching fun fun patriotic 4th of July push you're not a fourth of July girl but you have your own okay yeah fun Christmas anytime you want to add some sparkle to your quilts some dimension to your quilts I tell you what's also nice is you know I see some of these lovely quarters that will add a piping into their binding that little peepee I think well that's way too technical for me Viki so I do it with this I just stitch your piping so it literally takes about two minutes to do a straight line I can use the ruler if I need to and actually get that yarn to pick a yarn or a sparkle that picks up the colors of your quilt and I'll get that piped edge do I love that another thing that I have found one I use this is that I feel like I'm a better quilter because it's a thicker and you don't see any wobbles it just it's it is it is more forgiving you can't see my stitch length as much it's very forgiving when we just we had our class at academy there was certainly some ladies that were very happy with how their quilting looked with the bling it just added that extra dimension but particularly with the bling think about putting something on top of your designs are like adding stamens to flowers or adding a spiderweb in a garden or adding cat's whiskers adding that little bit extra interest so that people looking at your quilt have got that a little bit extra to look at and enjoy okay so I'm making a watermelon quilt right now that have that I need to either hand embroider the seeds on it around it or put buttons I am going to do the bling I mean not the bling I'm going to do that laughs you could catch yes black yarn and couch yep and it'll just give that all that just salt it'll add that little extra to it yeah beautiful okay look at that so I want to show you a few other quotes that I've done with the couching this is extreme couching yeah I see the one hain't both of the ones hanging back here are extreme so tell me about it so the one with the Eagle is actually the entire surface has been couched and I know from now a bit of experience that there is going to be distortion so for that one I've actually used a whole stabilizer underneath that couch in and I've used what we call buckram is that something that you use it's a it's a heavy tapestry light canvas that's quite stiff that traditionally would have been used to put a stiff brim on a hat or stiffen a belt okay so just some stuff it's a really it's a really stiff color it's white and it looks like a tapestry what you'd do a tapestry canvas okay so it cannot distort there is no moving so I literally worked out my design drew on there with a permanent marker and I'd already worked out my colors etc and had all my yarns all out all over the all over the place and then I've yarn painted that piece and so I definitely started from the sunset background to get that circular pattern happening knowing that the wings of the bird are going to be laying on top so it's again thinking about the layers of background and foreground and what you can't actually notice in that one is there's a whole section where below the bird's eye on his cheek I did a crimson colored yarn I didn't like it I didn't unpick it i just catched over the top of it so that out of more it's added a thickness to it but it just meant because the couching can stitch over the top of itself I've just hidden he colored it just recovered it no eres no yeah and I love the movement the yarn has really created movement in that piece so it's a pretty special piece and then I've done a couple of landscape pieces so there one of them is based on where Darren our lovely CEO lives I mean from Missoula Montana so it's depicting a whole scene and the blue in the background of this one is actually a graded fabric one of the so buttocks graded by fabrics so it goes from the light blue all the way down to the dark blue and I've let the dark blue just peek through down the bottom to get the reflection of the sky in the water okay so that was rather a nice piece and the other one has a slightly different look it's bleach painted so that's one of my signature techniques where I start with black fabric and actually paint with the bleach and that reveals usually a orangey terracotta color and so I've used that to create the Australian landscape in the background and then we've got the couching details which are right for would so you're getting that depth of field as well within a pictorial piece yeah so you can choose your yarn to have the really fine pale colors in the background or the chunky strong colored heavily textured one than the foregrounds you're really getting that change of texture to help with an illusion of depth a whole new art yeah it's a whole new pictorial way of thinking of oh wow oh thank you this is just mind-boggling of the things that you have done to create beautiful artwork award-winning artwork yep thank you thank you Andy quitter thank you for joining you all today and let's get quilting get off the couch get off the couch and get on here don't couch potatoes here excellent thanks Becky

Channel: Handi Quilter

Views: 41,651

Rating: 4.9556379 out of 5

Keywords: Handi Quilter, Longarm, Sewing, Quilting, Quilts, Free-motion Quilting, Finishing Quilts

Id: tWpts7S36NY

Length: 31min 57sec (1917 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 10 2016