Shock & Distress! Part 2 : Deconstructing Emb Stitches

Here is my first small sample to try out the suggested stitches for deconstructing and distressing embroidery to give an aged effect to the fabric. I have used a varity of stitches and colours and worked over a smallish area on some red and white cotton fabric.

The reverse side is fused with interfacing to trap the stitches after they are cut, slashed and hacked at!

And here's what I used! little scissors to start off with before going for the embroidery stitch remover (like a moustache trimmer - a gadget of my late Mother's for her machine embroidery mistakes) a large pair of scissors to use the back of the blade to rough up and generally distress the embroidery yarn and scrape off the excess as trimmed with medium scissors - I kept (sad isnt it?) all the little ball of fluff as I thought it might come in handy! (actually I think I was rather more impressed with that than the actual item!)


And here we see above and below two shots of the finished sample - below is after washing and scrubbing slightly to further distress it but not yet dried and ironed.


I enjoyed this, it took a while to embroider the stitches and seemed strange to then deliberately cut and slash at it however the effects are much nicer in reality than perhaps the photo's convey!