A Check on my Work
I have been playing around with embroidery designs on white bleached feed sacks. These particular feed sacks are 36″ x 36″. The set of designs were to stitched out at 2.5″ x 2.5″. They would almost be lost on the size of towels that I have. I did use a program to enlarge the design to 5″ x 5″, much as I did when I enlarged the designs when I made the quilt squares for Kersten’s Pokémon quilt. The designs in the cat collection stitch out at 13,000 to 16,000 stitches. It is quite different from the hand stitching when perhaps the outline had been embroidered with DMC floss. Machine designs can be quite compact. I needed to check on my work and see what would happen if when these towels were given away, used and then laundered . . . how would they look. Would the 16,000 stitches become a mass of puckered stitches on the towel? Before I began a second towel this towel was pitched in the laundry with other white clothes and then dried in the clothes dryer. No special treatment before, during or after . . . no hot iron put to it for smoothing it out. I would be comfortable giving this towel to someone to use and having it remain much like the day I stitched it. Quality control needs to be checked from time to time. I also do test runs to see what type of stabilizer works best with what type of fabric I will be stitching on. Choices, choices. I enjoy my stitching, but I also need to make sure it will pass the time of use. What does it amount to in time and energy to get that result? . . . It doesn’t matter as it is my joy.