Does Mood Affect Speed ? 29 Faces continued

As most of my blog readers know, I am completing the #29 Faces Challenge - this challenge is to create a face a day for the month of February - any art medium.

I chose to stitch faces, using free motion machine stitching - basically it means sketching with a sewing machine by moving the material around while the machine stitches. ( different from the computerised machine embroidery where a design is pre-determined and completed automatically)

This week I have been monitoring the speed I use my sewing machine as my sketching tool during the creation of the stitched faces, experimenting and using different ratios of speed - hand:foot - some of the results have been good and others not so fantastic.... my aim is to get better control, so it seems to be a matter of coordination, too - a bit like rubbing your tummy and patting your head at the same time.

I referred to another stitching blog ...

Expert advice from Tigley Textiles, UK :

You may well be an experienced stitcher, in which case your brain is used to seeing the fabric move quickly the harder you press the foot pedal. With free motion machine embroidery, you have to forget that relationship. My motto is – Fast foot, Slow hands. It seems so strange at first, but after a while you’ll see that you don’t have to move the fabric quickly- but it helps if you keep the revs up. You are aiming for a smooth drawn line of stitching. If you move the fabric too quickly, the stitches will be too long, equally if you leave your fabric in the same place and continue to stitch, the stitches will build up to create a raised blob of stitches. The success of your stitching totally depends on the synchronisation of the speed at which you move the fabric, with the speed at which you press your foot down. This does take practise, but do persevere. Don’t feel like it’s running away with you, you are in control. Once you have “clicked”, you will always pick up that speed next time you set up the machine, it is just like riding a bike.

Remember that free machine embroidery is supposed to be quirky and whimsical and free looking. If it’s a bit wobbly and jagged, just go over the shape a second time, make it look like it was meant to be. Quirky is good and gives your work character. The main thing is that you need to play! Just go for it and see what happens- yes you will make mistakes but that’s the only way to learn isn’t it?

The comparison of machine speed to the speed and fluidity of the manual handling of the fabric obviously affects the stitching, but I suspect there may be another factor... mood. I have also been registering my mood as I work the machine faster or slower and the way I move the fabric around.... One of the days this week I felt very stressed and I seemed to work a lot faster and ironically, the sewn "sketch" was in fact a lot better, I thought - as per the advice above , " Fast foot, slow hands"! While the speed ratio is important, I am beginning to think coordination and being in the right mood or frame of mind seems to be pre-requisites for free motion machine embroidery.

I wonder if you can tell from the different faces which might have been stitched when I was sad, mad, happy or relaxed?

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Is it a mutant? Is it an alien? It's an octopus - or is it?

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Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

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