Virtual Challenge June 2020

This months challenge is to try drawing simple line drawings.

No shapes. No seam lines.

Just lines I could embroider in stem stitch using needle and thread.

Recently I found some hand embroidery blocks I had intended to make into a fabric book, and I thought I would try drawing them in Electric Quilt while contemplating what I will do with them.

The originals were drawn with pencil and paper, and I pretty much wanted to use simple lines which could be stitched with stem stitch to draw Christmas trees, then decorate them with French knots and a few bows tied with the thread. The more I embroidered, the more I tried moving the lines around, and I think I used an eraser several times to make holes in the paper in the process.

I have 24 embroidered trees.

In EQ I opened a project file, and started drawing … first with straight lines, and not really referring to the stitched blocks, and without adding decorations.

I just wanted to get the lines where they looked OK and get to learn what to click on or drag to get the results I wanted. If I was to publish the patterns for the embroideries I would scan the blocks, then trace them in Electric Quilt.

As I got more adventurous I added gentle curves, sometimes starting with the straight lines and converting them to curves, sometimes using the Bezier Curve or the Freehand options.

In Electric Quilt this is how I have sometimes added embroidered details to applique designs. I had never concentrated on drawing lines rather then shapes, and have mostly used applique and pieced block designs as quilting motifs.

This was a reasonably steep learning process as most things are on a computer, and will be doubly useful as once I have the designs in digital form I can convert them to machine embroidery.

When you have something to show after trying some new skills, or simply having fun, you can share your results in Virtual Quilt Challenges, a closed Face Book group for members only. You will have to answer three questions so I can decide if you can join.

I am hoping to get some virtual French knots added to some of the trees to share later this month.