Freehand Sewing Figures

After finishing with embroidery last week I made a plan to have a go at using a sewing machine in life drawing today, I started off using just a standard sewing foot which worked okay but I got a lot of straight and ridged edges - and I'm not going to address the terrible proportions but just say it was because it was extremely weird to try and sew a figure.

While Lizzy was trying to fit a free-motion foot on a machine that would work properly I just did a few sketches in my book with my water graphite pencils - you can tell that I didn't have my glasses because I made almost every sketch in colour.

This was the best sketch I got, despite the odd colour choice (that made her look like she'd been in a cage fight) I thought I manage to get a better 3D looking sketch then previous sketches, especially in the forearm area - also I drew a pretty good half-hand in this sketch as well  and I find hands are like THE DEVIL TO DRAW!!

Lizzy, bless her, managed to get the freehand foot on the machine working properly and I made my first attempt which didn't go to well but I think I can see the figure..... sort of. Using this freehand technique is so much harder then I thought it would be but I think its just getting out of the feeling of having a certain control when using a sewing machine.

Potato Like Figure

This was my second attempt at the same pose which turned out tons better, especially with the proportions and the readability but there's still a bit of overkill with the stitching near the feet - I need to learn to reign in when using the needle so there isn't to much of over stitches everywhere.

This one can definitely could use some more contour lines to show more shape and definition to the legs and feet, but there isn't as much overkill with the stitching.

Just like the other one this could need some more contour lines to make some areas more defined - I can also see on this piece that the tension on the sewing machine needed to be turned down since the back thread is showing a lot more.

This I think is the best one when it comes down to the shape of the figure and the proportions.

For a quick and final stitch I just focused on a small part of the model's body and I got a lot more detail in this.

I think that since I was sewing in such a small size that was why I couldn't get much detail in, but I think if I try and focus on a specific part of the figure I could get a better piece of detailed work, but I think that using freehand sewing isn't going to allow me to get a great amount of detail down anyway so I wont have to worry about that so much, so I think that I wont use this technique for long.