4D Sketch

I played a bit with this software program today. The first start up exercise was very easy - I had done all the bits before and breezed through it.

I was looking forward to the second exercise which uses the decorative stitches on the machine - a function that wasn't available in the previous version. I must be very thick - I just could not get the program to do what it was supposed to do. So I gave up for the nonce and will try again, perhaps later tonight (though I have a new book calling me) or tomorrow morning and make sure that I don't skip anything. It is usually something quite small that messes up the result!

I loved the previous version and did quite a lot with it. Here is one of the A4 journal quilts I made last year for the Aus-NZ art quilters internet group. It is made from leftovers (test pieces for my entry to the Melville Art Awards).


I took some photos at the beach of vegetation that was thriving in barren beach sand, printed the photos on silk dupion and silk organza and used Sketch to make a freemotion design to stitch on top of the photos printed on dupion. One of the test stitch outs of the grass head was done on a piece of silk that had not printed properly, so I cut it out and appliqued it to a piece that HAD printed correctly but was not needed for the main piece. I also fused on a bit of an organza piece that was not up to scratch. The background is twin-needled to represent the furrows made by wind in the sand.

For me the best thing about this program is that you can use it to make free machine embroidery designs that you are happy with, then play with various backings and contexts and not have to worry about whether you will be able to replicate the work you have done. And if it doesn't work, you can always tweak it.