Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Thread Magic with Ellen Anne Eddy

This past weekend, my local guild, Illini Country Stitchers, was host to Ellen Anne Eddy, author of Thread Magic and Thread Magic Garden.  I had previously blogged about these two books.  I have been anxiously awaiting to meet her in person and to learn more about working with threads!
Friday was broken up into two half-day workshops.  Friday morning was "Gilding the Lily".  Here we took a large print fabric, and augmented it with thread!  It was hard to pick a fabric...and even harder to stop thread painting!  I got carried away and did a lot more than was really needed!  But it was totally fun!
Friday afternoon was a class on bobbin work!  It was so fun to work with those heavier threads that can't go through the needle.  I used some of Ellen's hand-dyed perle cotton for the leaves, and Razzle Dazzle by Superior for the flowers.  We also learned that Sliver, and other metallic/mylar threads, are best used through the bobbin!
Saturday was Thread Magic, and for me, it was pulling it all together from the previous days.  I decided my quilt was going to be a bunny hiding amongst the hosta leaves, with a canopy of coneflowers.  Using a pattern that Ellen had brought, and some brown variegated Sashiko thread, I bobbin work made this bunny.  The variegated thread made easy work, without having to do any shading.
Of course, a garden is going to have  insects, and mine has a dragonfly!  I used lime green Sliver in my bobbin to make those cool eyes!  Angelina is on the wings to give it some shimmer!
And here is the finished product!  I had lots of fun thinking this project through.  I used Texture Magic to give dimension to my large hosta leaves.  And I used her corded buttonhole binding technique!