Make a splash with paint, silk, and stitch to create your own bright and beautiful crab.
BY JACQUI PARKINSON
PREPARATION
1 Assemble your materials. Cut two pieces, roughly A4 in size from the linen/cotton sheeting. You want one to be slightly larger than the other. 1
TOP TIP!
The more textured the top layer of sheeting, the more interesting the finished result.
2 Using the red thread, tack the two layers of linen/cotton sheeting together with the wadding sandwiched in the middle. Ensure the top layer is slightly larger than the two layers underneath. 2
YOU WILL NEED
MATERIALS
• Linen or cotton sheeting
• Wadding
• Red thread for tacking
• Thick black embroidery thread
• Assorted dyes and paints in sea colours
• Fabric strips for background in sea colours • Fabric pieces for crab:
- Bright red/deep orange
- Orange
- Black, for the pincers
- White, for the eyes
EQUIPMENT
• Sewing machine set up for free-motion embroidery
• Scissors
• Needle
• Paint brushes
• Pencil or pen
• Lint roller or sticky tape
Finished size: 30 x 21cm
A ready-to-make kit for the crab is available to buy from: www.jacqui-textile.com/shop
GET PAINTING!
3 Paint blue, turquoise, green, and silver wavy water lines onto the top layer of sheeting using fabric dyes or acrylic paints. Don’t try to get neat lines. Allow your work to dry. 3 4
4 Cut seven to ten 40-46cms long thin strips of fabric in similar colours, on the bias, to follow some of the curved painted lines of water. Silk and metallic fabrics give wonderful, frayed edges but other materials can be used. 5
TOP TIP!
Cutting the strips on the bias makes them easier to manipulate into curves. If you cut the strips straight, they will pucker when you try to work with them.
GET STITCHING!
5 Pin, then free machine stitch the strips into place with a thick black embroidery thread – ideally you want a thread with a silky sheen. Allow the ends of the strips to run over the edges of the work. They can be trimmed to line up with the edges of the work or left. Remove the tacking stitches. 6
HAND OR MACHINE SEW?
This project can be done either way. If you opt to use your machine, you’ll need to make sure your feed dogs are lowered, or the darning plate is covered. This means the ‘teeth’ of the sewing machine are disengaged so they don’t hold (or bite) onto the fabric. Then the needle simply goes up and down while the stitcher moves the fabric and, in so doing, chooses the direction of the stitch. Equally you could choose to stitch the crab by hand with embroidery thread.
6 Transfer the crab template to tissue paper using a dark pencil or permanent marker.
7 Along one edge, pin the template of the
