Pin Tucks & Tucks

I have been working extremely hard this week with my work, and thought I would share a few bits and bobs with you. The lesson for this week was on pin tucks and tucks which was very exciting as we had to use a special grooved foot and a double needle!! Apparently there are different sizes of the feet and needles- small, medium and large- which you use depending on the weight of your fabric. I was using a blue linen so used the larger size to make the pin tucks more prominent (if I used the smaller size the fabric wouldn't bunch up significantly enough for you to notice it).
I was kind of working from previous drawings and sketches where I was looking at the knots in tree bark, experimenting with using both the front and the back of the pin tucks to create different textures, as well as incorporating strips of other fabrics to add colour and layers.
Here are my pin tuck samples...

Ah, I loved doing the second sample! You stitch your first stripe and then for the others you keep the first stripe in one of the grooves on the foot and the next stripe lines itself up perfectly!! You may wonder what is happening to the non-stitched bits on the samples; well I will show you as I have taken the first sample a bit further, adding some reverse applique and some hand embroidery.
What do you think of this?

 Now that I have discovered I can do french knots, they are appearing everywhere!! Ah, when I think of the tangles I used to get in!
I'm not sure whether this sample needs anything else added to it- any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

We also had a look at tucks, although this wasn't quite as exciting as I have done them previously and you don't need a special foot or a double needle, it is literally a case of folding the fabric, stitching along the fold and then unfolding it. You can get interesting results if you do a curvy fold or start overlapping folds though. Both of the samples I am about to show you need some work done to them and some interesting things added- there are a few ideas floating around in my head but nothing concrete yet. Again, if you have any ideas....

I was thinking of doing a bit of smocking in the first sample with things oozing out of the folds- maybe a bit of stitching on water soluble fabric to create interesting shapes should do the trick!