Stitchy Snippets - Silk Webs

Paint drips, splashes and a burst of colour darned together with threads which dart in between like spiders dancing across the canvas and weaving webs in purpose designed spaces. Textile artist Nava Lubelski creates wonderfully vibrant pieces. I am fascinated in how she bridges the gap between a once throwaway and often damaged piece of textile and to transform it into a work of art. Nava talks about her art: "My work explores the contradictions between the impulse to destroy and the compulsion to mend. I juxtapose rapid acts of destruction, such as spilling and cutting, with painstaking, restorative labor. Embroideries are hand-stitched over stains and rips, contrasting the accidental with the meticulous."

In our current age, where resources are becoming ever scarcer, innovative restoration techniques such as Nava's are extremely relevant. To take a seemingly damaged piece of fabric and convert the fault into a feature shows real ingenuity and the results are beautiful.

Thimblenest Thursdays: Embroidered elbow patch tutorial

Regardless of which hemisphere you're in right now, the season in most places is cardigan-friendly (not too hot, not too cold). The following tutorial will show you how to brighten up a cardigan or sweater with embroidered elbow patches.

Materials:

• knit or woven fabric for patches (minimum 4" x 6"/10 cm x 15 cm)
• cardigan or sweater
• embroidery design (the clover design I used is found here)
• lightweight interfacing
• pinking shears
• embroidery thread
• water-soluble fabric marker
• patch pattern (mine was 3.5" x 5.5"/9 cm x 14 cm)
• seam roll (or a rolled up magazine, catalog, etc.)

Prep Cardigan & Pattern/Embroider

Try your cardigan on and mark your elbow point (and where you will center the patches) on each sleeve using a pin, chalk, or fabric marker.

In Word, Inkscape, or another program, draw and print an oval the size you want your finished patch to be.

Cut out the patch pattern and trace its outline onto both pieces of patch fabric.

Transfer your embroidery design to the center of each patch oval. Make sure there is at least 1/4" between the outer edges of the design and the entire outside edge of the patch.

Embroider your design.

Prep Finished Patches

Cut close to traced outline of your patch, leaving a little extra allowance. 

Adhere interfacing to the back of each patch.

Carefully cut out the patch with pinking shears, cutting directly on the traced outline.

Find the center of each patch by folding into quarters and mark.

Center the patch over the elbow point you marked on the cardigan sleeve.

Sew Patches to Cardigan

Pin or hand baste the patch securely in place.

Sew the patches permanently onto the sweater using the Twisted Lazy-Daisy Edge Stitch, blanket stitch, running stitch, or another of your choice.

Tips

Originally I planned to make my patches with knit fabric, but ultimately I loved the subtle gray and white stripe and woven won out. I think this project would work well with either knit or woven fabrics. 

Sewing patches onto a preexisting sleeve was more challenging than I expected. Inserting a sleeve roll into the sleeve allows you to use both hands and maneuver the pieces more confidently as you stitch.

Because of its circular shape, the patch will want to shift some as you stitch. Try and go with it, but make sure you keep the centers of your patch and sleeve aligned.

If you use this tutorial or any other project from feelingsstitchy.com, please be sure to share them in the Feeling Stitchy Flickr Group.

Foxy Mittens

Well! I am duly impressed. Miss Laurel MJ Jamieson didn't just embroider some mittens, she up-cycled them from a Gap sweater, trimmed them with fleece, and then embroidered them (I should say, I'm sure she did the embroidery before she transformed them into mittens. That'd be kinda hard.) But just look at them! No, I mean, go to her livejournal page and just look at all the photos of how cute they are! The little unsteady-on-its-feet fawn is just too much.

Link