Personal Development | Embroidery

In the embroidery workshop we tried out a few different techniques to use on the sewing machines. First was a basic straight stitch with the straight foot - we played around with different stitch lengths and swapped between straight and zig zag stitches as well as practising back stitching to seal our work. It was a good refresher on using the machines after not doing so for so long! I also played around with some hand embroidery which is a personal favourite of mine and something I've been developing in my own time over the years.

Whilst out exploring Digbeth, I came across The Custard Factory car park entrance which is basically just a load of rusty crushed car parts, but the effect is really something special and fits in well with the industrial vibe of the area.

I really liked the textures and colours of the rust and all the different parts of the cars and thought it would be perfect to experiment with similar coloured fabrics, building them up to create different effects just like the rust. 

I used a lot of varied fabrics and layered them up, while using free machine embroidery to stitch over the top and create ripples and tears in the fabric. It was a really fun piece to produce as I could be as creative as I wanted and I think the end result is really effective! 

I think it's a good example of just what you can achieve using free machine embroidery and proof that you can experiment freely with fabrics and textures and not everything has to be perfect. I mixed up straight and zig zag stitches to create different stitch patterns, and slowly built up large areas of stitching which manipulated the fabric underneath. 

I purposely added holes into the sample achieving a raw, frayed finish by using an unpicker to create an effect similar to the holes in the rust, which I think looks really effective.

I'm excited to see what else I can produce using these techniques as I make more samples and my skills broaden.