After struggling with my ideas (or lack there-of) and my sewing machine, I think I finally have made a break-through. I probably shouldn't shout so loud just yet, because I havent' quite finished testing things out yet, but at least I am happier about my progress.
I have been working on creating my "ball of trees" and came unstuck last weekend as I battled with my sewing machine. After countless broken threads on my machine (each less than 1 minute apart), I then attempted to use the machines at school, breakinga needle within the first 5 minutes. I then took an hours drive to collect a Machine that a friend was lending me, only to find that it too wasn't going to cut it.
My problem is that I am using free-machinging to create a texture resembling burnt bark of trees. This in itself is ok, except that I am also trying to create a 3-dimensional piece and therefore need to have a certain amount of strength and structure in it. There-in lies my problem. All of the machines I have tried can't handle the thickness, yet I can't reduce the thickness because it just won't stand up...
So I picked up a scrap of fencing wire yesterday as I was about to throw the whole thing in and attempted to stitch that onto a piece of fabric. I think that this would work but would need to be extremely careful not to go too fast as a broken needle along with potential eye damage could be on the cards. But then I figured that I could probably hand-stitch the wire onto the ground fabric - after some fidling I have found that if I wrap the wire first, then attach it to both sides of the trees I get a quite strong piece that has a really good bark texture.
From there my mind has started running. I have a few ideas of how I can create a better ground fabric. My tests yesterday were onto a piece of macihne stitched tulle with soluble vilene between it. I am going home this afternoon to have a play with sheer sandwiches, painted bondaweb, scraps of fabric, machine stitching, and melting. Wish me luck!!
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