Let's reignite your creativity with stitches.

Lisa Chin returned to her childhood pastime hand embroidery and her quilting style exploded with creativity.

And Libby Williamson combines colorful inks with free motion stitching for a fresh artistic look.

Discover the stitch that strikes the creative spark in your work.

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[Upbeat music] Lisa Chin Is here with me today.

She's a surface design artist and you do a beautiful stamping, relief, printing and amazing embroidery on a lot of these pieces.

Thank you very much.

I'm excited to show it to you because I have been hand stitching since I was ten years old, which was many moons ago, and it kind of gone off and on.

And during the pandemic I decided to pick up stitching again.

And so I took some of my stamps and stamped them onto a piece of linen and made this little birdie.

Oh so you used the stamp as a starting point for the embroidery.

- Correct.

Correct.

And at the time there was, I was seeing a lot of big stitching as well.

And so I decided to make a little sampler quilt for myself of that, so that I could see what it would look like on the piecing that I was doing.

And I took another some of my stamps and made other pieces with that.

So the face is a beautiful stamp and you covered it completely with embroidery.

I did.

And as time went on, I decided that I shouldn't be covering up all of that beautiful relief printing.

And so I've used it more as an accent for my relief prints.

So here you can see all the beautiful details still coming through.

It's just enhanced by the embroidery.

Correct.

- Right.

And so sometimes simple is the way to go with this piece, which is called forget Me not the eraser of African American history.

So powerful.

- Thank you.

And it is three layers, but it's also a fourth layer of rust dyed organza on the top to simulate dried blood.

And the stitching here is very simple, but it makes a point about enslaved peoples being used for agriculture and to commemorate their lives.

And how beautifully you left the stitching.

The abroad is not here on these, the figures that are fading away in the background.

- Yes.

They still existed.

They were still there.

And we need to remember them.

- Yes.

So this has kind of minimal stitching compared to this next piece we're going to look at.

Which is called This is Their Land.

And it is more about the wildlife and the native.

The national parks.

And I have used a lot of different stitching and done a lot more to emphasize the print.

And the so the loss of habitat of these animals.

- Right.

But I love how you can still see a lot of this is part of the block printing coming through.

Right?

Correct.

- Yeah.

- Correct.

And so this was printed on multiple pieces of hand-dyed fabrics and then collaged together even back into like the print.

And then lots of stitching.

- Oh yes.

You must have had lots of weeks of.

Yeah.

Yeah, it took seven weeks to carve the, the block.

And then it's been another few months of stitching.

Yeah.

But I love hand stitching.

It's so meditative and relaxing.

It's so wonderful at night.

My husband thinks I'm spending time with him.

I was sitting in front of the television and stitching.

Yeah, you can be together and do different things.

- Exactly.

And so I was going to show you just a little bit of a few of my favorite stitches.

When I put things together.

I like to use flannel as my substrate.

Because you don't care if it's got prints on it, because it doesn't show.

It's not going to show through as long as I'm not using white fabric.

It doesn't matter if this was from something, you know, another project that I had left over.

So usually something that's small, I'll put it together with some spray.

That's the temporary adhesive - The spray adhesive.

and but if it's a little bigger, then I'll take little pieces of lightweight fusible and put them in between.

And they.

The super light.

The lightest you can get.

- Yes.

Yeah.

- And it will act as my safety pins.

- Nice.

Once I iron it all together.

So you put those little pieces in just enough, and then iron it Right.

- so that it's holding all the layers together.

Correct.

So I don't need to cover the whole thing, just little bits.

So in this piece, this little girl here was printed onto organza.

And then I was able to audition her on different pieces, like here to make her.

Exactly just right.

And this nice shape kind of draws you in to the to the center.

To her.

- Correct.

And so then I will stitch on her.

And usually if I'm making a piece that's not going in the wash, I'm not too worried about having knots at the end.

I could make knots, you know, make a knot.

Quilter's knot.

Or I can take a little backstitch.

Forgot to put my thimble on.

Oh, yeah.

We can talk about that in a second.

So there's no actual knot there.

- Nope.

You're just doing an extra little stitch to hold it.

- Yep.

And so that stitch will hold on.

That's good enough to hold it.

- Exactly.

But is not going to leave a little bump.

Exactly.

- Gotcha.

And so my thimble I like it's a silicone and fits over my finger nicely.

And so with this little girl I've done mostly just straight stitching on this other piece.

And straight stitching.

Of course.

Just up and down.

Up and down.

Very easy to do, but I can do multiple stitches on there.

And I like to use an embroidery needle that is a size three with.

And I like to use pearl cotton.

Pearl cotton's my favorite.

Yeah.

And so I will go ahead and stitch all over here.

But I kind of decided that maybe she's in a garden or something.

And so we need to maybe make a, a branch - Okay.

- of some kind.

And my favorite way of doing that is with a fly stitch.

Okay.

And so I will start up and then go down to here and come up wherever it is that I want.

These make little u's and v's the bigger they are the more v like they are.

- Oh okay.

And so I could just come down right next to that and.

Finish that just have one.

- Right.

Or as I want to do here to make her a little garden.

I can keep going.

Back and forth.

-Nice.

Oh, you can go both to the left and to the right.

Correct.

And so.

Such a simple stitch.

But yeah.

Fun.

- Yes.

And this is also a great stitch to put on birds wings kind of at the ends.

I didn't do it on that one.

But because it looks like a feather.

The tip of a feather.

- Correct.

- Oh, right.

- Yeah.

And so then with her, I would also take another color if this was a branch, and make some French knots to make Oh I love french knots.

- little flowers.

- Yeah.

It takes a little while to learn them though.

So you're going to give us some tips for that.

- Yes.

So it's I'm just going to leave that thread back there for now because we don't want to spend.

Time doing that.

- Yeah.

So you're wrapping.

So I wrapped it twice and then I'm going to go back down right next to that.

Where you came out.

- Yes.

- Okay.

And this is the tricky part.

You got to kind of hold everything together - Yes.

- and you have.

To pull it tight on the the needle and pull it through.

Because otherwise sometimes the knot is a little loose and it doesn't look as tidy.

- Correct.

And sometimes you want to do that to make those bigger.

Loose, fluffy.

- Loose.

Yes.

Because for a flower on this, one of those big fluffy ones would kind of look fun.

So I'm going to put it like four times around this time and make a bigger knot.

More times.

You loop it around the bigger of a knot, you get.

Correct and you can do as little as one wrap and oh yeah, do multiple wraps.

- Nice.

And they stand up off the surface so nicely.

They do.

And it's just make such a beautiful texture.

And I could also do a boolean stitch, which is one that people are always kind of in love with.

Oh right.

I don't know that I've ever done those.

So you come up and then you're going to go down and back up right where you would come up.

So defining the space that, that that stitch is going to sit in.

- Correct.

- Okay.

And so I'm pushing the needle out.

And now I'm going to wrap it as many times as is wide of that space that I just made.

Do you kind of learn as you do these.

How many times you have to wrap it around to fill that up?

- Yes Okay.

- Yes.

And so.

How many times do you think you've wrapped it?

Like 8 or 9 maybe.

- Probably.

And so it's about that wide.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

If I were to wrap it more then what the space is, it'll stand up a little more.

- Okay.

And so here again is the important part of pulling it kind of tight.

And you want to hold on to where that wrap is so that they don't come off.

This is when it's nice to have the silicone.

So you get to hold on to it.

- Yes.

- Yeah.

And then make sure they're all nice in line.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Then push it back down and hopefully you can see that, And then you go in where you can't come out.

And then go to the next.

But yeah, I've seen some of them to where they're much more they're bumpier and that's more stitches on the needle.

It is.

More wraps.

- More wraps on the needle.

- Right.

- Wrapped.

So that can make a beautiful flowers all over the place.

Or it's great for doing hair and lots of other types of pieces.

So I wanted to talk to you about the piece back here.

This is called murder in the garden because it's got four different rows on it, and it was made using three different hexagon blocks and printed and then hand-stitched embroidered for quilting.

Beautiful embroidery on the flowers.

- Thank you.

And the bees.

Just wonderful.

And then what about this one over here?

This another powerful piece.

- Thank you.

This piece is called blood on Our Hands.

And I used a satin stitch to make the blood.

And buried the tones in the reds to emphasize all the drips, and so that it can be kind of a war torn area, or just the fact that we need to help people.

Yes.

Thank you so much.

You use embroidery in such a beautiful way.

Thank you.

- We'll be back in just a minute.

I'm here with artist Libby Williamson, and today we're going to be making some inky stitches.

We are going to make inky stitches.

And this is a fun, experimental project that I like.

I love using different materials and experimenting with different things that I find and how they can be used in mixed media.

Fiber art and I have found this hybrid paper fabric material.

It's wonderful.

It's kind of durable.

It's used with bookmakers for the covers, and it's also made into wallets and bags - And handbags, - Tote bags.

But I thought I would use it here and experiment with with how I would like to use it.

And these are some examples of how you've used it.

And they're so gorgeous.

Yeah, I'd like to do.

What I'll do is we'll we'll be making small elements and then combining them to make a full composition.

Okay.

- So ready to get started.

Sounds good.

- Okay.

First of all, in this case I would pick a size a substrate.

Okay.

- And I've got a stretched canvas here.

So I know generally how I want to arrange a composition and what pieces I might want to make.

So I've got a very rough sketch, and then perhaps on a light table or at a window, I've gone over it with a black marker with some clean lines just.

Fine, and clean it up a bit.

- Yeah.

To clarify it.

And then it's important for me to isolate the different shapes.

They're overlapping here in this.

But what I want to do is have patterns.

- I see.

So here's your bird.

- Yeah.

Here's the wing of the bird.

- Yeah.

- Gotcha.

So that I can then trace onto this material.

- Okay.

And again I'm using a light table or a window.

And I'm using a water soluble marker when I paint these.

The water soluble marker is going to start to dissolve or erase into the ink.

And that will be fine.

So if you use a pencil you're you're going to see those pencil lines.

But with this they go away.

And you can use a pencil line very lightly.

And that will work as well.

So I'm going to have you play with me.

Okay.

- And we'll do some painting on this material.

This is acrylic ink.

It's not acrylic paint.

And it's very fluid.

Very liquid.

- And more transparent.

Very.

Yes.

Transparent.

And they blend beautifully.

There are different brands on the market.

They all play together well so they can be mixed and matched.

And we use water.

- Okay.

And these are some of the samples that I've already painted.

And you'll notice you can use either side of the material and the, the paint or the.

Excuse me, the ink really does absorb into the fibers of this material.

And there's a soft kind of a muted look.

- Almost suedy.

- Very much like suede at first.

The images might be they might look too light, but if you dry, if you wait until they're dried and add another layer or two layers of the ink on top of one another, you can get really rich color.

Okay.

So we'll play with what we want to do.

- Alright.

So you've got it looks like you've got a pear I'll do a pear.

- and I've got a bird.

Okay.

Just dig right in.

Maybe wet your brush a little bit.

- Okay.

And just play.

It's all about the play.

We can use this as a a wiping pad.

Do you like to have a good amount of this inky water on your brush?

Doesn't matter.

Recharge if you need to.

I want to make sure I hit that line.

Right.

You can, but if you don't, then it'll just dissolve later.

So if.

If a little bit of that blue line shows later, it won't matter.

After the image is dry, then you can go back in with a wet wipe and it'll go away.

So this is kind of a watercolor technique - Yeah.

- Where you let the colors bleed into each other and.

- Maybe leave a little bit of white.

- Oh, right.

Right.

And this is white acrylic paint - Okay.

- and the inks.

So sometimes you can add white to it to make it a little bit lighter.

- Yeah.

A little lighter, - Okay.

- more pastel or a little more opaque.

You are so fast.

You go go go.

Yeah.

And I can either, you know, I could paint a wing on this bird, or I might have a separate wing over here in a different color way.

- Okay.

And that way I can layer the two images when I'm building the composition later.

So let's call this.

The way I didn't leave any white, but - That's okay.

You can add.

You can add a little bit white.

That's right.

With that.

So really really quick and free and fun and no stress.

Just play.

Right like that.

So the white is an acrylic paint right.

Because it's thick.

Yeah.

It's more opaque.

But I just really just like to, you know, just add touches of color.

The black stitching that I'll add later really emphasizes the, the line.

- Yeah.

And we can add so much more detail later too.

So as it dries to the colors change at all or do they stay pretty true.

They're pretty true.

But they will look a little bit lighter.

So as I said, if this dries and I want to add a little bit more, I can do that later before I stitch.

Oh, it's so fun.

Yeah.

- It really sucks in the ink though fast.

It's it really does.

It's very absorbent, but a very fun material to experiment with.

Yeah.

So talk just a minute about, you know, your tip for adding a little bit of white and how you blend the colors.

Well, what I'll do is leave white on the right here.

Right there.

Leave that strip of white, and then it'll be a very pure white.

You can always go over it later with a little more paint or, you know, with ink if you want.

But that's beautiful.

Yeah.

And there's no stopping us.

We could just be here all day and paint.

Yeah.

It's fun.

Yeah.

- Okay, so what is the next step?

Do you let this dry?

- Yeah.

It needs to be dry thoroughly.

Okay.

And again, as I said, around the edge of my bird, I can see that blue line.

And there's a little bit of the blue line is even showing through the ink.

Yeah, - I'm not worried about that.

I can get it out later.

- Okay.

So if it doesn't come out as you're painting, not to worry.

And I went over the my lines pretty well.

I see a little bit over here.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

We don't worry about that.

You end up with something like this, and then we're ready to take this to the machine and stitch.

That's right.

Okay.

Sounds good.

- Should we do it?

- Yes.

- Okay.

So we did the inky part.

Now we're going to do the stitchy part.

Magic stitches.

So I am all set to go.

And my style of stitching is very, very loose and forgiving.

I don't I don't need to follow exactly the edge.

I tend to go a little bit quickly and just let let lines happen.

I don't often even plan ahead.

I might just stitch something in the moment.

Now that my line went beyond the paint, I'm completely fine with that.

- Good.

I can add some more detail here.

How much do you have to adjust?

Like the the balance of the machine when you're stitching just through one layer of paper?

This is.

Yeah.

This is actually different.

It feels different.

And it sounds different.

- Right It sounds kind of crunchy.

So you might need to adjust your tension.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

So now you want to make sure that you don't stitch too closely together because.

It'll just.

Fall apart.

Right.

It'll perforate.

- Yeah.

My stitch length.

It's not perfect.

It's not exact.

But it isn't close enough together that it would perforate the material completely.

The other thing I notice is that it looks almost like.

The.

It's set for the tension isn't correct, but what you're actually seeing is the punctures through the paper.

So you see the holes a lot more than you would on fabric because it heals up.

- Yep.

I added another little detail.

- Oh cute.

- Just Because.

- Okay.

Sounds good.

- Yeah.

So let's take this back to the table and talk about the next step.

Good.

Get cleaned up a little bit here.

Very good.

- I'll get the paint.

So we have space to work.

Okay.

So next thing what I'd like to talk about is prepping the background canvas.

Okay.

I again I have my 12 inch stretched canvas.

And what I like to do is cover it.

A lot of times I'll prep it with just a collage with old book pages.

And to do that, it's a super simple, very, very forgiving thing.

I use a fluid matte medium.

Just tear some papers into small bits.

I lay a fairly heavy, heavy layer of the mat medium below and then be sure to press down.

Put some more down.

- Yep.

And it's not working right now because we're just we're just - Just water.

Yeah.

But just layer over layer over layer and then wrap the edges.

Create such nice visual texture there.

Yeah.

- Okay.

Sounds good.

And then so your next step is.

We would trim all of these elements.

I've got some more that I've already stitched and.

And how much white do you leave around them.

Because that's part of what makes them so sweet.

Yeah.

- I do like to leave.

Oh, you'll notice this.

The blue tape.

I'll explain that in a moment.

But yes, I do like to leave a little bit of white echo.

- Okay And of course, I don't want to stitch cut through the stitching.

So maybe an eighth of an inch or whatever you feel like.

Okay.

Do you want to cut one out there and show us?

- Sure.

Let's do that.

And you got to make sure you don't cut through your stitches.

I don't want to cut through the stitches.

And this stuff cuts like butter.

And I might just wave the line a little bit, make it even more fluid.

Nice.

- Yeah.

And you're using paper scissors and not fabric scissors right now?

- Well.

I don't know that it matters.

- Okay.

Because it's half and half.

It's probably half and half probably be a safe bet to use paper scissors.

But yeah, the white margin separates the elements visually.

I think especially when they're layered one over another.

And that's what I like to do here.

So the blue tape is to hold them in place.

And that's how you normally work as you stick them down that way.

I've got all of these separate pieces.

Nothing is stuck down permanently, and many of them are just taped temporarily as I work with the composition.

So this is just a roll of any type of masking tape.

And so we'll play with the arrangement.

And I do love that some of the elements might hang off the edge a little bit.

That's great.

And I also play with what what edges might pop off the canvas vertically.

And when I'm completely ready I'll use.

Well let's just play a little bit.

Do we love the the balance here.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

We're looking at the composition.

You could maybe take one of these little blueberry guys and put it up here.

You could do whatever you want.

Let's put this little tuck, that little one in there.

And part of what makes this composition so nice to is these this strong black stripes on this, it separates it.

It gives it something different than just all of the bright color in there too.

Yeah.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Okay.

And then when I'm ready to complete, you know, when I'm for sure ready to attach things, I'll use a craft glue.

- Okay.

We're not going to stitch this down.

We can't stitch it because we're working on this.

It's already on stretched canvas.

- Right.

Yeah.

- Okay.

So I use a strong, thick craft glue and just big dots.

So I would take the glue.

I might add 3 or 4 heavy dots and just tack it down.

And I have this a little bit of wiggle room where I if I need to adjust something while it's not set, I can, you know, playing with the overlap and making sure that some of the edges.

Are popped up.

- Popping up - Yeah.

- a little bit like that I'm going to pull this one in too so we can talk about this.

Yeah.

Now you might notice something about this one that we didn't talk about earlier.

There's a little bit of whitewash in the background.

To push it back.

- Yeah.

- So it's not as obvious.

These other ones I use just the paper directly onto the stretched canvas.

But this one, I thought I'd mute the background a little bit, and that's just a little bit of white acrylic paint that just toned down that.

The book pages.

Right.

Right.

And here your 3D elements are really standing up.

Yeah.

Everything is.

And of course, it can be whatever you want it to move it up.

Yeah.

- So beautiful.

- Thank you.

- Thank you so much You're welcome.

Thanks, Susan.

We'll be back in just a second.

From applied design.

Theory to innovative technique.

Learn what fellow artists are up.

To within the art quilting community.

Join us for finishing touches.

Hi, Marcia.

- Hi Susan.

You've got some beautiful small.

Quilts for us today.

I did, we have some really charming ones.

This first one is basically a heart wreath, and it's got a window in the middle with flowers growing out of it.

I love how she did that opening.

And it's a kind of.

Yeah, very dimensional.

- Absolutely dimensional.

And the background fabric is only lightly quilted because I think the pattern on the background really already does the job It does.

- of taking care of this.

- Really nice.

- Lovely.

And then this quilt is titled as you can see it's time to.

And they've collected watch faces.

You can just imagine how or how many times or for how long someone wore each of those watches.

Yeah.

Yeah, the stitching looks like pinstripes.

Oh yes.

- It's such a nice effect.

Yes, almost like they're all men's watches.

And it's a men's pinstripe - Right.

- old fashioned pinstripe.

- With a black binding which is really effective.

- Very masculine.

Yes and this is hand embroidery too.

This one looks like it would go well in, like an old library or something.

- Yeah.

And it's got a very graphic look to it.

It does.

- Really clean and modern.

Well, thanks for bringing them.

You're welcome.

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