Final week of Sampling!

Being inducted into the Pin Tuck foot this week has helped me to round of my project nicely. It uses a double needle to pull the fabric together and form 'tucks' or ridges in the fabric. It creates a good background for other techniques, but has a lot of interesting uses too.

I enjoyed using this foot to couch chords, and in the sample below, I cut off parts of the fabric to reveal the dark leathery chord underneath.

I have managed to incorporate 3D elements by using the same method as above, but pulling the chords up through the gaps to create loops which I thought added another dimension and texture.

I also found that the back of the pin tuck samples were interesting as they created small dots and lines. In the sample below, I couched a bobbled yarn, so the result on the back was this intricate piece, which I then embellished.

This foot also sparked some ideas of how to relate my hand and machine embroidery, which I have wanted to do since I started machine embroidery, as shown in these two samples below.

If I had more time on this project, I would definitely look at more ways to link the different techniques which I have learnt in machine and hand together, to create some interesting pieces of embroidery.

Nava Lubelski

Lubelski’s works create a tension between destruction and sewing’s traditional role as a dutiful act of repair. Her stitches refuse to stay in their proper place; they reject usefulness, instead perversely rejoicing in damages and defects as occasions for celebration and delight -- Los Angeles Times

My work explores the contradictions between the impulse to destroy and the compulsion to mend. I juxtapose rapid acts of destruction, such as spilling and cutting, with painstaking, restorative labor. Embroideries are hand-stitched over stains and rips, contrasting the accidental with the meticulous, constructing narrative from randomness and mistake. -- Nava Lubelski

I think this artist relates well to my work because her work is graphic, whilst also being textural. I could also consider the idea of making stains and tears in my fabric to create another texture before embroidering into it.

Machine Embroidery Week 2!

This week we have been inducted into two new machines (the embellisher and the tufter) and a new foot (tailor tacking foot).

Although I like the pile created by the tufter, It doesn't seem that relevant to my work, so this week I have mainly been creating different samples with my knowledge of the Tailor tacking foot. However the few samples that I did do relating to the tufter were quite successful. They have a nice shape to them and were created by tufting along pleats in the fabric.

I feel that this piece is one of my most successful this week. The black top stitch of the tailor tacking foot blended with the background whilst creating texture, and the low tension on the white spool thread created these small bobbles. The shape reflects the shape of my chromatography experiments.

I have also experimented with layering stitches. This sample consists of layers of different taylor tacking stitches in different colours ontop of ice wool to give my fabric a textured quality.

I have also enjoyed trying out different ground fabrics, that I wouldn't already use such as this stiffer, gauze like fabric. This is actually the back of the normal taylor tacking stitch but I like the mix of tone between the bottom and top threads.

This fabric had a loose weave allowing me to pull our the warp and weft between stitches.

This Resida cotton bump fabric allowed the stitches to almost be swallowed by the fluff of the fabric, making the stitches look ghostly. The pattern was created by me marking the starting and ending points of ink at different points in my chromatography.

I have enjoyed experimenting this week, so for the last week of the project, I would like to create more machine samples with the techniques I have learnt, whilst linking them more to my data as this week, some have been solely technical.

I would like to experiment further with the idea of representing how the ink drags up the paper, and representing the movement of ink using lines rather than representing the shapes. 

I would also like to try and link my hand and machine embroidery together so they arent two separate bodies of work.

A car window drying!

This weekend, we took advantage of the weather to wash the cars, but as it was drying, I spotted this lovely pattern forming on the window, which I thought looked like my chromatography work. The colours of the setting sun make this pattern even more interesting.

Machine Embroidery - Week 1!

This week I have started machine embroidery. As I haven't done much work on machines before, I spent the week doing lots of small samples to help me get to know how they work and the kind of techniques that can be achieved.

We were inducted into the machines with the number 6 Bernina foot which had a small hole in the centre to couch narrow chords. This is shown in the example below where I have cut away some of the zig zag stitch to reveal the chord.

I did couching on this sample with satin stitch, creating small ovular shapes at intervals along the chord.

I also experimented with this fabric which was easy to manipulate. When it was pulled apart, threads were left behind which also added to the texture. The fabric naturally became 3D, however I stuffed the natural shapes to re-enforce this.

 

Towards the end of the week, I tried to incorporate chromatography with some of my samples.

For this sample, I stitched pieces of cotton onto a base fabric so that they were free standing to create a 3D sample. They also had different heights to create a rippled effect with the fabric, which I then did chromatography on top of. I liked how vibrant the colours ended up, and I also like the 3D aspect of the sample so I would like to develop this further.

I also wanted to see how lots of line stitch would be effected by chromatography. I used one continuous thread as I wanted to see how the colour would travel. I placed the ink on the left hand side (where there is a high concentration of purple) and as you can see, the colour travelled all over the sample due to the linking threads behind the sample.

Throughout the next week I would like to develop my chromatography with machine stitch, to create some bigger samples.

Shelley Rhodes

After starting machine embroidery this week, I wanted to have a look at artists who used machine embroidery in their work. Shelley Rhodes combines stitch, paper, drawings and prints. She gradually builds up layers, editing and altering as the work progresses. Her recent work focuses on what happens to a surface through wear and tear, manipulation and distress. She focuses on the marks, patterns and colours found on discarded objects and fragments.

This piece in particular reminds me of some ink experiments I did at the start of my project. It incorporates stitch sophisticatedly to create these long hanging pieces. 

I also like these delicate luggage tags with stitch holding together various collaged papers. As well as liking the look of this piece, I like the arrangement of the tags. As I am representing my chromatography data in a similar way, I could now consider creating multiple small, similar samples, and present them in the same way.

Sketchbooks V's Blogs - weekly meeting 3!

Since starting at University the idea of having a blog and a sketchbook has been a new and interesting challenge, yet more recently, if anything I've been confused about how the content of the two differ. At points I felt like I was overlapping the content, or wondering if certain content was more appropriate for one rather than the other. This lecture cleared this up for me and I learnt some key differences:

Sketchbooks - Subjective, fill with daily stuff, help to keep the projects momentum

Blogs - Objective, post once of twice a week, reflect key moments of practice.

As the blog is supposed to be more reflective, I am going to plan 2 or 3 posts a week rather than filling it with everything I do! I also think I need to loosen up a bit in my sketchbook: previously, I put any rough sketches, plans and ideas on scrap paper to throw away after use, but from now on I am going to try and put all of this information in my sketchbook, so it acts as a library of useful information rather than just a pretty book. I also intend to fill my sketchbook with anything that interests me or that I 'feel like doing' rather than just focusing on the project at hand. I think it's good to make myself aware of other things that influence me rather than restricting myself to the project, which could make me narrow-minded.

Developing my hand stitch with chromatography!

This week I have finished my 3 weeks in hand stitch. Towards the end, I really got the hang of linking my chromatography with stitch. At the start of the 3 weeks I tried to represent the chromatography data in my sketchbook with stitch but this week I have incorporated the two much better to create some lovely results. 

For this sample I did chromatography on white embroidery thread and used this to sew with.

I did another example in the same way; with some white thread, and some with chromatography on. I then added drops of more water to make the ink run. As the fabric underneath was water resistant, the few threads that did absorb the water created this lined pattern.

I then worked out that if I washed the fabrics with washing up liquid, I could make them absorbent which is what I did with the following example. I wanted to see how different stitches reacted with the chromatography.

I liked the french knots in the example above because they look on colour at a different rate to the surrounding fabric. I therefore did a sample with just french knots. 

In the left sample, I did chromatography on string and sewed a pattern representing inks movement through chromatography. The sample on the right had the same pattern but in white thread, which I then did chromatography on top of.

The french knots in this sample had a lovely range of colours

The french knots here really took on the vibrant colours of the ink.

When I move onto machine stitch I will be experimenting with the same ideas, seeing how different stitches and fabrics act when I apply chromatography.

Hand Embroidery Data Samples

This week our task was to produce samples samples samples! I enjoyed linking my embroidery techniques to my data, as I didn't know how I could do this until I got stuck in. It took me a while to get into the swing of things, but I managed to link my data well!

As I have two tangents to my project, being chromatography, and oil and water, I am very glad that I had both of these ideas to work with. The circular patterns of the oil and water provided a good base for stitch, whilst I could also use patterns from Chromatography. I also did Chromatography on paper and fabric and used these in my samples. I'm now glad that I can link the ideas that I had from both of the tangents in my work back together in my embroidery samples to show development.

At one point in my sampling, I started to zoom into some of the patterns created by my resist chromatography, and represent this in stitch.

One of my favourite experiments from my sampling involved doing Chromatography on Scrim. It's an easily manipulatable fabric, meaning I could pull holes in it easily, and stitching on top of this proved to be one of my favourite techniques, tying my whole project together.

I'm happy with the samples that I have produced but after doing these samples I felt as though all of my ideas were exhausted and stuck for inspiration. After various feedback sessions this week my ideas have been growing and for my next ten samples I am going to employ some of the following ideas:

• Use stitch to show the path of chromatography (e.g.take it out of the water half way through and sew where the ink is up to)
• Stitch a piece in white first and then add chromatography to see how it affets my work
• Only put chromatography on part of my fabrics and add stitch to emphasise its pattern (e.g. just a little dot of chromatography)
• I'll also try dipping an inked sample in water, letting it dry and then trying to re-do the chromatography with the existing line of ink.
• Try resists on fabrics