textiles

for assignment 3 they suggest we try working with tyvek. I tried one experiment a couple of weeks ago, based on a tutorial I saw on December 2014's workshop on the web issue. it said to iron the tyvek then paint it with acrylics afterwards. well, I tried it and didn't like how the painted version turned out. at all. I really liked the plain, white ironed tyvek - the shapes are amazing. very organic. like pebbles in a stream, or cells in the body. I like the ridges on the reverse side also. but I must have painted too thickly with the acrylic paint so I think I ruined them. then last night Hanna posted her watercolour painted versions on the textiles facebook page and they looked amazing. she'd made them look so fluid. she said she painted with really watery watercolour, then used a heat gun to shape the tyvek. so I tried again last night using watercolour, ink, charcoal, brusho, coloured pencils, pastels - this time painting them first, then ironing to get the shapes. much better! I like these attempts much better than the initial ones. Barbara mentioned you can use silk dyes too (setasilk) and stitch them before heating too. that makes more sense as the tyvek I have is soft like paper originally but once heated becomes like hard plastic, so I'm not sure how stitching it afterwards would work.

making some geometric fabric folds on cotton since my copy of "Shadowfolds" book by Jeffrey Rutzky and Chris K Palmer arrived. this one is called "Fujimoto's twists" — it's a mixture of stitched squares, triangles and lines, and is a bit like smocking. I need to iron the front side flatter, but happy with how it turned out. I'd drawn the pattern shapes freehand instead of tracing the pattern as the book suggested, so the shapes are slightly uneven compared to the examples in the book, but I'm OK with that. makes it a bit more organic.

they don't take too long to make either — I made this sample over a couple of hours whilst watching tv.

front side:

back side: (actually I like this also as a front side — might do another)

Shadowfolds book:

I sat down again to my stitch noodling frame today to relax and play and tried some thinner cotton. this time double stranded sewing thread. tried some button hole stitch — still my favourite ever since discovering Junko Oki's work — especially her circles, last year. the first row is a row of straight edged button hole stitch. for the second row, I noticed the thread was settling into the fabric in a more organic way, not wanting to stick to the straight line. so I let it go, and it made this really nice organic, jagged line which I really like. it's a bit closer to an open (loose) cretan stitch, but also looks more like a heartbeat, or simple audio waveform. sometimes it's worth letting go of your plans to find the better line.

I'm trying techniques for the fabric manipulation part of assignment 3 and came across this note called gorgeous fabric manipulation (velvet) so I tried it. I only used very small fabric samples to make initial tests, and I should have used a heavier weight fusing/interfacing as the velvet is heavier fabric than the light fusing I tried. apparently this works well for silk too

Use a cooling rack that has both horizontal and vertical grids. place velvet upside down and with a pencil push little bunches of fabric through. Take a fusible interfacing and then place on top of tufted velvet (wrong side) and iron. The grid should have little feet on sides so that the velvet is not crushed.

at first I couldn't understand what she meant by using the pencil — I thought she meant to put holes in the velvet, so I only tried this on a very small piece, in case it didn't work out. which it didn't. but I did like the grid indentations in the velvet, so the experiment wasn't all lost. I was going to try a metal collander also but the holes were too small for the velvet — perhaps silk would be better for this as it's lighter fabric, though it would also be a hard surface to iron.

folding. like origami paper folds memory
memory of clothes and sheets and other home linen as you grow up with it
the article about newborn baby cloth wrapping
memories of clothes, the feel of fabric. comfort. protection

expand later. initial notes

created http://www.haptichuman.com to collect info about these ideas

making squares and rectangles using contemporary smocking from square wave patterns. it's based on the lozenge pattern. getting the hang of it. I drew the square waves by hand so they're not perfectly even, so the squares sometimes don't line up perfectly. but I like the 3D shapes they make. I need to iron/press these too to see the effect. I like the puffy (un-ironed) version also

I saw this cool photo of waveforms placed next to nature waveform patterns, so I wonder if an audio waveform pattern could be used as a smocking guide also. worth a try to see what happens

next I might try some shapes like Matija Čop used in these 3D architectural based garments. there's so many fabric manipulations on pinterest too. I've pinned some on my textiles page to remind me to try them also

textiles

- make a mind map & taxonomy of craft vs art (fine art?) & map textiles into this
-- applied function, purpose
-- containers, coverings, adornment, tools (hand), machines

- plato's forms

- machines - sadie plant article

- craft objects found all around the world from archaeological digs. in the future will they find all of our landfill, rubbish and think it was our art/ craft? how much will dissolve/break down?

- early. biomimicry by humans let us survive and evolve. look at bee flower petal nest

craft as biomimicry
art as self

http://www.textilecentermn.org/art-speaks-art-vs-craft/
http://australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/contemporary-te...

I've been making dragonscale (reverse smocking) using Michele Carragher's instructions (she is the game of thrones' embroiderer). I finally got it to work, after unpicking the first few attempts (& realising I've done it on wrong side of the fabric - right side for regular smocking). I'm using this as part of the fabric manipulation topic in assignment 3 work. I'll use this page to add more details and summarise it (with other samples) on the assignment page later.

notes for the pattern:

first attempt - I had only drawn the dots, not the triangles and became a bit lost, so these two didn't work out. I unpicked them and started again.

next time, I drew the triangles as a template onto the fabric also. this helped a lot, and I managed to make it correctly this time

the right side of the fabric - this shows the smocking pattern, but the "dragonscale" uses the other side, so I actually made the whole piece on the wrong side of the fabric. oh well. know for next time.

the wrong side of the fabric - showing the dragonscale. I need to iron/press it to flatten it, though I like the puffy pattern also.

some more progress

this weekend in the UK the "Subversive Stitch Revisited: The Politics of Cloth" conference was (is being) held. as it's a bit far to go from Australia, I missed out on attending the lectures. their twitter feed mentions the sessions will be uploaded as podcasts soon, so I shall try to take a listen to them. I have a copy of the original book, "The Subversive Stitch: embroidery and the making of the feminine (1984)" by Rozsika Parker, though I have only browsed through it. I hope to read more over the Christmas break (along with Colour book).

here's an image of the flyer:

event details, from the ticket site:

Keynote Speakers include: Professor Griselda Pollock, University of Leeds

The Subversive Stitch Revisited: The Politics of Cloth will explore the legacy of Rozsika Parker’s groundbreaking book, The Subversive Stitch: embroidery and the making of the feminine (1984) and two landmark exhibitions from 1988 that developed Parker’s ideas. It will consist of a two day event held at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and an online resource that will include documentation of the event. The Subversive Stitch Revisited will be dedicated to the memory of Rozsika Parker, who died in 2010.

tonight I've been taking a look at embroidery by Junko Oki - she has some beautiful pieces. I love her use of circles and lines.

I emailed her to order a copy of her new book, "Culte a la Carte" (I think her first book has sold out), and mentioned I was doing a textiles course and had been enjoying embroidery. I asked if hers was all stitched by hand or mixed with machine embroidery too. she responded,

"I'm glad to you interested in my work.
My work is stitched by hand all.
I do not have that you have to study about embroidery .
I have the feeling produced in like writing a picture."

the circles are intricate rows of fine blanket stitch, with lines in running stitch and some feather stitch. lots of "sun" themes. I'm really loving it. the imperfections and textures created by the stitching mixed with the choice of textures and colours of the fabrics as the backgrounds. I'm looking forward to the book arriving so I can see more of her work.

I love some of the backside stitches, ie via February 2012:

from Dee's Hall from October 2012 - a lovely portrait of a woman's profile.