Nancy Prince Thread Painting - Stitches with Attitude!

today I would like to invite you into my studio to show you a short demo on the difference between a straight and zigzag stitch now many of my students or even attendees I meet at quilt shows indicate that they couldn't possibly thread paint like I do because it just looks too difficult well today I am here to show you that this thinking is just a myth and if you have just a few minutes I would like to show you just how simple thread painting can be now I have to admit the finished product can look like it was difficult to do but if you will just follow the few short steps I'm about to show you then you too will be master of thread painting and no time at all so let's not waste any more time and let's get going the only stitches that you use in thread painting are a straight or a zig zag stitch now the look of the straight stitch remains the same no matter how you rotate the hoop or in what relationship you are to the hoop and I'm going to show you exactly what I'm talking about in just a few minutes you can turn the hip 360 degrees with a straight stitch and you'll get the same look now with a zig-zag stitch you can vary the width as a stitch and you can get different looks just by varying that width now it doesn't matter where you set the links on your straight or your zig-zag stitch because you're controlling that length by how fast or slow you move your hoop are the speed of your foot pedal so let's see how this works and the first thing you're going to need to do is you're going to need to get your supplies together and make sure that you have everything that you need in order to get started now the first thing we're going to work on is going to be on a straight stitch and the first thing you need to do is you need to pull up your thread from your from the bobbin now a lot of people will say well why do you do that well I do that because I don't want that little rat's nest of thread that you can get sometimes when you leave when you don't bring that thread up now I will tell you that those of you that do have an automatic thread cutter that once it cuts to thread it may cut it so short that you can no longer pull your thread to the top and that's okay so what I'm going to do with a straight stitch is I'm going to take a few stitches to secure my stitch now if you have a needle up needle down this is a really good time to use it because what that needle is going to do it's going to hold my hoof in place while I cut my thread here so what I'm going to do is I'm going to move the hoop north to south now remember I'm working with a straight stitch and as long as I move this hoop north to south I get this look right here now I'm going to stop and I'm going to rotate the hoop a quarter of return and I'm going to move the hoops east of us this time instead of north to south I still get the same look no matter where the hoop is a relationship to me or how I turn the hip now I'm going back north or south again and you can see the same thing when I get ready to do a little this is what I call a scribble stitch I'm going to come over here and I'm just going to make some scribbly little stitches I'm going to stop rotate a quarter of a turn I'm going to come over here and I'm going to make some other little scribbly stitches and you get the same look no matter what it when you've got a straight stitch now when you're working with a zig-zag stitch it's a little bit different now again I'm going to pull my thread to the top unless hopefully it'll come up here yeah there we go now let's assume for purposes of discussion that the seed doug's up and we all know that the feed dogs are going to be down when you're in free motion but for purposes of discussion we're going to assume that the seed dogs are up this is what your zig-zag stitch is going to look like now here again I need to stop cut my thread and this is what your zig-zag stitch looks like when you are when your feed dogs are up now I can decrease the width between the stitches and I get this look here in other words I've got more spaces between the zig and the zag so I can get this look right here I can also come in and I can reduce the width on the zig zag stitch and make it much smaller so that's what your zig-zag stitch is going to look like when your feed dogs are up now let's go back to free motion the seed dogs are now down brain I take a couple of stitches again to hold the thread in place cut my thread tails and this time what I'm going to do is I'm going to pull the hoop slowly towards me and when I do that I get the same look from here to here it looks the same all I have to do is increase the speed of the hoop and I get more space between each stitch I can also reduce my width and I get the same work here so with a set with a zig-zag stitch I can have I'll have the same look as long as I'm moving the hoop north-to-south here is with the seed dogs down here's with the feed dogs up so I basically get the same look no matter what I'm doing when I'm using a satin stitch now when you're when you're using a zig zag stitch and we change the direction of the hoop you get a little bit different look now what I'm going to do this time is I'm going to come down here and I'm going to put my needle slightly above this line right here now in thread painting if you'll remember one thing the line that your thread painting which is going to be this line right here as long as that line is parallel to this table edge you'll always have a straight line of stitching now I'm going to stitch above this line because it makes it a little easier for you to see what I'm talking about remember last time when we were doing the zig zag stitch we move the hips north to south and that's what gave us a satin stitch well now this time if we move the hoop is to west we get a straight line of stitches and this is what's called a filled stitch just by moving the hip east of us you get a straight line of stitching now I'm going to come down here and I'm going to fill in this little area right here now you can also see how quickly a zig-zag stitch fills in it didn't take me any time at all to fill in that area right there so now you think okay well I've got the idea I'm doing a straight line this shouldn't be a big deal to go in here and spread paint this what if I got what if I have a line that changes direction on me okay not a problem we're going to come up here in this time I'm going to stitch again with red paint right above that line take a couple of stitches to anchor my stitches and cut my thread now remember the line that I'm thread painting the only area don't do this at home I'm just doing this so I can show you what I'm talking about you see there's a Larry right here between my presser foot that's the only area that I'm concerned about when I spread paint is I'm keeping that line parallel to me now when I get over here to where the line starts curving up I'm going to stop and I'm going to rotate my hoop if I need to bring the width down a little bit I'm going to do that so I can successfully make this turn and I know it's going to be hard to see with a camera but this line right here is what I'm trying to keep parallel to me but take a few stitches stop rotate the hoop right here is that line I'm trying to keep parallel to me now I can come up through here until I get to the top and I'm going to need to stop rotate the hoop here again here's the line I'm trying to keep parallel until I make the curb now I have a straight line again so I'm pretty easy here on the straight line I'm going to get to the other end rotate again got to keep that line parallel to me and I'm going to come down here and all I'm going to do is keep moving the hoop and I have successfully completed this line now I can make a circle with a zig-zag stitch as long as my stitch width is narrow enough so again the one thing that you have to remember the line that your thread painting as long as it's parallel to you you'll have a straight line of stitches now that you've seen the demo take a few minutes to practice and you too will begin to understand how simple thread painting can be now many of Myra students remarked that I must have practiced for years to achieve the quality of work on my quilts well that's just not so it only takes a little bit of practice to actually get good at this it's like anything else whether you're in quilting or in life the more you do the better you get at it I want to thank you for spending a few minutes with me today but as a reminder don't forget to print off the PDF documents that accompany this workshop also we the we being my husband who is Manning two cameras myself have tried to produce the video as professional as possible however making videos is not our profession and there may have been a few oops and a few sooo pause here and there so now face I think we're going to get better at this and again thank you for spending some time with me go grab your hoop get yourself a cup of tea turn the stereo on and get going

Channel: Nancy Prince

Views: 170,981

Rating: 4.9180722 out of 5

Keywords: thread_painting, thread painting, free_motion, embroidery, nancy_prince, art_quilting, art_quilts, quilt_embellishment, quilts, quilting, sewing, workshops, lessons, classes

Id: SW05okFI4uM

Length: 9min 29sec (569 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 17 2008