Machine Embroidery Play Day with Sheila Conchie

We were treated to an enjoyable and stimulating day with Sheila, where we all learned so much about our sewing machines and were urged to just 'have a go', with some impressive results.  

Sheila brought along some of her own work, giving us something to admire and to aim for! 











To start with, we were shown how to use straight stitch and zigzag stitch to make patterns on fabric, and to couch down threads:

then Sheila showed how to use the sewing machines' decorative stitches to create circles, using nothing more technical than a drawing pin!

 
We were then ready to 'lower the dogs' (feed dogs) and have a go at free machine stitching, and we were also introduced to soluble film.  We created our own 'fabric' by making a sandwich from pieces of sheer fabric between soluble film.  This was subsequently free machine stitched and we each created a beautiful and unique piece of free machine embroidery:

We all had a great day, learned a lot and took home our enthusiasm to continue experimenting with free machine stitching!