April by Judith Baines

In April the blackthorn was in full bloom and I found a lovely natural arrangement down in the wood,  I chose to interpret it by making a greeny background of vertical mixed threads linked by machined zigzag and then applying “bracken” and “blackthorn blossom” made by free machining on dissolvable fabric.  The latter technique is great fun to do. For free machiningyou need to be able to drop or cover the feed-dogs on your machine and then, using a darning foot, just draw with the needle as thought it was a stationary pen and the fabric, in this case cold water dissolvable taut in a ring, is moved under the needle in circles or up and down or side to side as required – ie moveable “paper”!

The Dandelions have a felt background with the edges damped and pulled with a needle to distort the shape then free machined in green to indicate leaves.  The flowers were made by stretching calico in a ring and drawing round a twopenny piece, cutting out the circle and free machining backwards and forwards many times across the hole!  When you have done one cut out another circle and repeat.  When you have enough flowers release the fabric and cut the flowers out just inside the fabric.  Fluff them up and apply to the background

Click pictures above to see them in more detail.