Amy Grief is the soul of patience. I asked her to try some more machine stitched Shibori, so she brought her antique Singer 66 Hand-crank Sewing Machine, and set about the difficult task of accordion pleating fabric then hand guiding the fabric through her machine while cranking the handle to create a stitch line. She really got creative. She also used 10 layers (5 mountain and 5 valley folds) to stitch through Before you try this, remember to adjust your stitch length to as long as possible. Remember also that the denser the stitching, the more difficult to get good dye penetration to the center of the folds.
On each of the examples shown, you can see the type of stitch design used on the left and right dark edges, and the results of the pressure of the thread on the interior portion of the designs. It can help create variety of color and design if that is what you are looking for; but if not, then you will have to adjust the number of folds, or the pressure on the fabric while sewing. The folds are two inches widee, but for rank beginners I would not advise anything less than 4" for the folds.
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For those of you with a needle down option on you machine, this would be very easy design, but this is an antique Singer 66 Hand-cranked machine, so it was very tedious getting this design. |
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Simple diagonal pairs of lines, but again no needle down option, so more tedium. |
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Just for the heck of it I asked Amy to try a stacked Check mark design. Bless her heart she did it.
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This was the most difficult of all, a free motion stitch pattern really limited in space to move around and hand cranked all the way through. The stitches were also really difficult to remove, and you can see how tightly they held the internal layers, not allowing the dye to penetrate the interior.
Thank you so much, Amy Grief for your generous patience and time.
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