About Dionne
Dionne paints with stitches to create dynamic, vibrantly coloured textiles. Her needle becomes her pen and thread her ink. The scale, emotion, and energy of her landscapes are inspirational.
Dionne is a graduate of Goldsmith’s College, London University. She has a Masters in Textiles from UCE. And she has been recognised by the industry for her incredible work, e.g. Shortlisted Finalist in the Fine Art Textiles Award at The Festival of Quilts 2020.
Now based between Yorkshire [UK] and Abruzzo [Italy], she exhibits and tutors internationally.
You can watch Dionne demonstrate how to use free motion embroidery to create a range of patterns, textures, tones, and shades in an episode of The Makers Studio series, brought to you by Janome and justhands-on.tv.
Signature Technique
Painting with stitches
Top Tips
- Use a vibrant mix of thread weights, colours, and styles to build up a more dynamic texture.
- A machine with an extra wide throat makes it easier to manipulate your piece.
- Cover your hoop with fabric to give it more grip. You need the fabric to stay drum like as you manoeuvre it.
- Drawing your subject first, with pencil on paper, can help improve your observation and knowledge of your subject – try not to work from a photograph.
- Practice by stitching your signature to get started. Your muscle memory will help you.
- Think of painting with stitches as an orchestra with the sewing machine, threads, fabric, hoop, and you (!) coming together to work as one.
- Don’t be afraid of the machine. After a few hours of speed sewing it becomes second nature.
- Try not to have a set image of the outcome. You are not stitching an exact replica. The result is where you get to. There is no wrong in there. Enjoy the journey.
Videos
Patterns
Posts
Printing images onto fabric
I wish to make a cot quilt for my expected grandchild and would like to make some of the squares personalised by printing images from my computer onto the fabric. I see there are several methods of achieving this and wonder if in your experience you could recommend a tried and tested way. As this is for a baby, it will obviously be subjected to washing so the method needs to produce waterproof squares Answer: As far as I am aware the fabrics that have been designed to go through your printer for use with your computer work well - and I am not aware that the brand makes any difference. These should be readily available from your quilt shop (or www.creativequilting.co.uk).
You could also use a method which uses fixing ink - but that is a little messier - but used by the textile girls a lot and I think produced by a company called Electric Quilt (who design computere software) and I know is stocked by The Cotton Patch and possibly Art Van Go as well as they are great suppliers of all things required by textile artists.
Does the Microtak gun make holes in the quilt?
Well its a yes and a no; the original gun did have HUGE tags that made really nasty holes and I refused to use or stock them (I owned a quilt shop at the time); however the current generation has a much smaller needle and tiny tags which hold the layers better since we have moved to flatter wadding and don't make holes in the fabric. I use them all the time and despite having several 000 in each box seem to be constantly running out!!!!
TIP: do invest in a tack remover as well as this will keep your quilt safe from little snips from your scissors and also stop you being tempted to use your best scissors to remove them (and spoil your scissors) NB: all these products are in the shop
Another great filming day with Jennie Rayment
From bunting to pincushions; waistcoats to neck bands; Serging to Pineapples - we had a great day and Jennie as always was on good form; lots of great content for the site - you will just have to keep watching!