Drawing in stitch

According to the World English Dictionary, a BUTTON is

a disc or knob of plastic, wood, etc, attached to a garment, etc, usually for fastening two surfaces together by passing it through a buttonhole or loop As a button is usually stitched to a garment with threads, it is a natural choice to use cloth as my substrate for this book and stitch for the text and possibly the drawing as well. I thought I would experiment with free stitch on the sewing machine. It gives a loose, raw feel to the line which is imperfect in many ways as would be a hand-sewn garment. Buttons are also tactile which I want this book to be. Part of the joy of having a button tin is being able to play with the buttons, sort the colours and try and guess what they were once attached to. These images show my experimentation with substrates as well as drawing in stitch. Here I have used four layers - Calico, batik, pastel paper and my guide photocopier paper.  layering up putting papers in order   pinning in place   Drawing of  But in stitch Substrate experimentation Drawing with stitch on calico, batik and paper proved successful - the stitching didn't catch and it glided quite easily over the surface. I then tried sewing on an empty tea bag sewing on tea bag  The paper ripped easily and the threads got tangled underneath, forcing the machine to stop frequently. I tried putting a piece of Calico behind the teabag material and this proved more successful Stitch on teabag on top of Calico - a much better result  Then I compared it to stitching on felt and cotton:  Stitch on felt and cotton  I liked the texture but there was something less refined and raw looking with the previous example. So using the teabag and Calico, I tried drawing (in stitch) some buttons that may appear in the button tin drawing buttons in stitch As the teabag is transparent, I could see my original drawings to get the initial placing. It is very difficult to see the outline however during the process of stitching, so I have to rely on memory as well. I quite like the idea of the shadow behind. I will have a go at using Ink Intense pencils on the teabag material tomorrow to see how effective this is. This will help But, a bland button, stand out more.