Irish Dance Dress–Design Ideas

This is rather a long post as I have wandered around a lot trying things out over a few weeks and did not want to write it up until I had a clear design to put forward.  I hope the timeline makes sense – I realised I couldn’t always remember the order I had done things in when I just had a pile of loose bits on the table and a few photos in the camera.  I have tidied up now!
The initial idea was to look back to the work on braids and celtic knotwork done for module 2 and use them both as a design and method of working.  Talking to Sian last summer, we also floated the idea of printing fabric with some scanned stitching to provide a change of scale, and of having a bodice decorated with braids that undo to form the skirt.  I could see how this would work with a soft skirt made in panels and a very low dropped waist. However, my daughter really likes her current dress (below – photos 1 and 2) and wants to stick to the classic stiff skirt style, fashionable or not.  She also wants black velvet as the main fabric.
Photo 1 Front and photo 2 back.

I spent some time during January scribbling different ideas, but I kept feeling defeated by what seemed to be acres of plain black fabric and how to take a design down into the pleated skirt. Essentially, the pleats break up the surface of the skirt leaving 3  flat triangular sections on the front (narrow at the waist and very wide at the hem).  At the back, the middle triangle is split in two by the zip and back seam, which may be partially covered by the shawl or kite.  The usual solution is to fill the centre front panel with a triangular design and have smaller designs on the other panels, but I want this dress to look more contemporary, for example by using asymmetry.
Photo 3 sketchbook pages
Photo 4 sketchbook pages – notes on construction.

Photo 5 sketchbook pages – I have added for inspiration a photo of a dress by Gavin Docherty that uses a plain black background and a colourful asymmetric design, in particular the treatment of the sleeves.
I had by this stage drawn up a pattern and made a calico toile to get the basic dress shape fitted, and you can see in photo 6 that I started to play with printing out some knotwork  and pinning pieces onto the dummy.


Photo 7 sketchbook pages – we both like emerald green, yellow and orange/red as contrast colours so I pulled out some threads to use for braid samples. The right hand page is another design idea which I thought would work but my daughter didn’t like.  By now, I was starting to draw dresses in my sleep.

Photo 8 – samples of braids made on soluble backing using variegated perle threads and built-in machine patterns.

Photo 9  - this scrappy piece of paper was the only thing to hand when I was eating breakfast and doodling, so I apologise for the quality– I did try redrawing it neatly but it isn’t the same.  We both like this shape, taking the idea of dividing the bodice in two with knotwork but using a curved line and having sail shapes on the skirt panels that echo the shape of a draped shawl. It isn’t something we have seen before, so we are using this as the starting point to work from.

Photo 10 – First attempt at filling the space, this is a full size pattern piece for the front panel of the skirt with a 2p coin for scale.  Rejected this as too similar to many existing applique designs.

Photo 11 Second attempt – sorry the pencil lines are a bit faint – I have gone over one section with pen. This was drawn on a tapering grid to draw the eye to the corner (A4 sheet) and I also envisaged grading the colour from light to dark as it narrows.

Photo 12 – Using part of the last drawing to try machine couching threads using various stitches and changing the colours.  This sample is on white satin as I thought white panels could be a possibility (but my daughter is determined on just black). 

My concern with this design was that the knots were going to become very distorted over a larger area on the bodice which would mean either bigger gaps and spindly lines or making the braids thicker as they spread out.  I wasn’t happy with either of these options so I decided to start over, this time beginning with the bodice.
Photo 13 Full size pattern for bodice front,  I drew on tracing paper over a grid (I use the method developed by Andy Sloss in How to Draw Celtic Knotwork which makes it very easy to do rough sketches knowing it will fit together and the crossovers will work out correctly).  I used a regular grid to keep the braids the same width but broke the symmetry and let them wander around freely.
Photo 14 – some samples of braids arranged in fragments of the pattern.  Top left is threads couched down with the machine; top right and bottom left are variations made on soluble backing and hand stitched in place.  Bottom right is an earlier sample for the wide knotwork as in photo 8.

Photo 15 – samples and design pinned in place on the completed bodice lining.  Also shown is a larger knot outline – I was thinking of  possibly using it as a contrast scale on the skirt pleats (only seen when the dancer is moving).

At this point I was looking at the samples and thinking that they aren’t quite what I’m after, Normally, I am very happy with irregular edges and soft lines but for this dress. as the knotwork pattern is complicated and irregular, I would like the lines to be sharp, and they also need to be clearly visible from a distance. With this in mind  I used the free programme Inkscape and a font that consists of parts of knots to translate my design into a scaleable drawing, opened the file in Embird and digitised it for my embroidery machine. As it is so large, I split the finished design into pieces small enough to fit my hoop. The next batch of samples are trials with different filling stitches.
Photo 16– Part of the design that would sit on the right shoulder using a horizontal fill, the machine was stopped to change colour manually to create a gradient. This is too flat and not giving a contrast to the matt surface of the velvet. It is also slightly too small as I miscalculated the measurements and thirdly, the velvet shows through the stitches.

Photo 17 – With the size corrected and using a different part of the pattern, this sample tries several variations – the same fill with lines on top for texture; the horizontal fill worked in two layers; two layers plus the lines in another colour.

Photo 18 – On the left another version for the bodice (this part belongs to the bottom left side).  I have changed to satin stitch, increased the stitch density and made the lines narrower which gives a rounded effect. This is the same rayon thread as in photo 16, but the stitching reflects more light so it stands out more strongly from the black. I had initially avoided satin stitch as this is what everyone uses on dresses, but working these samples does confirm how effective it is for this style. I used 5 colours to change from red to yellow, again, I haven’t programmed the changes so I can stop the machine wherever I like (the hiccup in the middle is where the reel ran out unexpectedly).  The plan is to start with red at the shoulders and fade down to yellow.
I would like to try Sian’s suggestion of scanning in some stitching and having it enlarged and printed for a contrast fabric which I could use for the pleats, skirt lining and shawl – I would change the colours to bring in the emerald green.  If this doesn’t work then on the right is plan B – satin embroidered with a larger version but a very open fill  - again trying  out a few different shades of green.

Photo 19 (and the last I promise) shows a template for the complete bodice design pinned to the lining with the sample in place.

So my proposal is to continue with this dress design, using similar knotwork sweeping across the skirt panels as suggested in the rough sketch in photo 9 and going over to the back of the shoulders.  I need to think about the sleeves but I would put more decoration on the left one.  I think the shawl should be the same curved sail shape and will experiment with creating a contrast fabric for the shawl. pleats and skirt lining

Urchfont Manor

 

Regular readers will know that for the last few years I have been going to the Distant Stitch summer school at Urchfont Manor near Devizes in Wiltshire and how wonderful it is there, a I am sure many have also been there themselves.  The manor is an adult education centre run by Wiltshire County Council offering day and residential courses, but its future is now under threat.  My tutor, Sian has explained the position on her blog post here – please take a minute to read it and then contact Wiltshire County Council to support the rescue plan.

Module 5 Chapter 2

Creating lace effects by removing the background and by joining small shapes.  I have grouped the samples here by inspiration rather than the order of making, (with a 2p coin for scale) and I decided to stay mainly working with white.  The photographs are ones I gathered as part of module 1 work and have referred to before, some converted to black and white to emphasis the patterns of lines.

Photo 1

Clockwise from top left – the photograph is the old Sevalco plant in Severnside

• trails from hot glue gun forming a grid, coloured with gold and black acrylic paint.
• stitching on dissolvable background using built-in stitches (some layered on top of each other) combining the grid with arcs taken from the bell movements in photo 3.  To be honest, the arcs have lost their curves. they could have done with more anchoring.
• Grid stitched on zeelon (a new one to me, a non-woven material from the makers of lutradur etc but much thinner and softer, it drapes like fabric) with some filled in areas, cut out with a stencil cutter.

Photo 2

 

From left

• trails from a hot glue gun join up spare clock hands (left over from making Cogitation).
• snippets of thread were trapped between layers of zeelon, then shapes outlined by machine, cut out and rejoined with machine stitching.

lines of machine stitching using built in patterns on soluble paper – a few areas filled in with patterns of stitching.

Photo 3

• left – machine stitching on soluble paper
• right – three layers stitched separately on solusheet dissolvable using different thicknesses of thread and layers of built-in patterns on top of each other.

Photo 4

Patterns taken directly from the needlace design drawn in chapter 1 – clockwise from top left

• heavy free machining on vanishing muslin.  This should have burnt off with an iron (and has before) but proved very stubborn this time.  the scorch marks are where I was a bit heavy handed with the heat gun.
• same again on zeelon cut out with a stencil cutter – much lighter stitching supported by the outer border.
• glue gun trails.

Photo 5

Three samples that don’t really fit with the others

• left -   joining scraps of paper with machine stitching across the gaps.  The scraps are from the setting up instructions for a computer.  I have just thought that I ought to have made more of the content – eg turning it into a flowchart, making a line to follow – so I will have another look at this one.
• right – trailing glue onto greaseproof paper leaves a definite right and wrong side as the back is flat, so to get around this I tried drawing with the hot glue gun into a dish of cold water.  It solidifies as soon as it hits the water and makes more delicate, rounded lines.  However, it tends to swirl and rotate so I couldn’t control it enough to make a planned pattern, but I like the random creations.

Lost in Lace– Gas Hall, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

I spent the day visiting this way back in November – so another very late blog post.  It is a marvellous bit of luck that this exhibition is on (it runs until 19th February) just as I am starting module 5 which is all about  lace and transparency .  One of the features I really appreciated about this exhibition is that each artist has supplied a small handling sample with a brief note on materials, and the accompanying book includes exchanges of emails between the curator and the artists, which gives a real insight into the technical challenges of mounting the exhibition.   Here are a few of my personal highlights, but there is much more – I have included links to images on the artists’ pages.

 Piper Shepard  Lacing Space – a remarkable piece of work hanging from floor to ceiling between  pillars, inspired by a piece of point de gaze lace in BMAG’s collection. the holes have been hand cut from the cloth.  The edges have been shaped around the pillars so that if it is shown elsewhere, they will appear as negative spaces. I was awed by the sheer amount of work as well as the beauty of this piece.

Liz Nilsson The Latticed Eye of Memory – a group of rectangular panels cut with a regular grid of circular holes hanging in layers, appearing to float.  The grids and shadows line up in different patterns as you walk around; the central layer is more colourful and can only be partially glimpsed.

Suzumi Noda Juxtaposition – constructed from jacquard punch cards, lacquered and knitted together.  these cards were used to control looms to weave cloth in a given pattern, and as such were the forerunners of computer programs. It all comes down to ones and zeroes, holes and solid areas, on and off.   Standing next to this piece, I had the odd feeling that it was trying to tell me something and I wanted to be able to read the code.  This is another piece that casts interesting shadows, this time across the floor as the daylight changes.

Tamar Frank A thin line between space and matter.  A deceptively simple concept, a 3d mathematical drawing in threads which is stunning on a large scale (do you remember drawings curves in school maths lessons by joining grid points with straight lines like this?

it is the same idea).  You walk into a small room lit from below by coloured LEDs then as the light fades, the phospherescent threads glow and the effect is  disconcerting, like falling into a tunnel.

Visiting the exhibition prompted me to look up other ways in which lace is being more generally used in design, contrasting the softness and delicacy of lace with hard materials .  Dutch design house Demakersvan  make lace industrial fencing and Cal Lane cuts into, among other things, steel beams.  Architects are also making use of lace-like facings such as the recent John Lewis shop in Leicester and the new central library in Birmingham (under construction).

Module 5 Chapter 1–Researching Stitched Laces

When I said that this would be my next post, I meant in the next day or so – still what’s six weeks between friends?  I have gathered images and notes onto  four A3 sheets – the photos are not clear enough to read the notes (despite several attempts) so I have cut and pasted them underneath.

Sheet 1 - Punto In Aria

Reticella
Made in buttonhole stitch supported by a grid of threads left after cutting squares out of the linen ground (about 1/4 to 1/2 “ apart). You can see the grid in photo 2 giving a tiled effect. This developed into punto in aria in two ways 1) by replacing the cutwork grid with threads laid on parchment, which frees the lace from the grid structure and 2) by using raised work. This example of Venetian gros point has padded borders made by laying down thick threads and working buttonhole stitch over them – this type of lace has a right and a wrong side.
Captions for  photos clockwise from top right 
1) Venetian needle lace, 17^th century, linen thread. Probably a border for eg a tablecloth. Note the edges are different – the footside is bobbin lace.
2) Italian early 17^th century, cutwork and needlelace across the spaces of the linen ground. This type of work was used especially for collars and cuffs, so this may be part of a collar.
3) Venetian gros point.
4) Italian early 17^th century, linen thread, border for fine furnishing.

Sheet 2 – Needlelace Designs by Federico Vinciolo 1587

 

A selection of designs from the 16th century (see references for full details) and my drawings of some of the details.

Sheet 3 – Stitches for Needlelace

The most common stitch in needlelaces is detached buttonhole with a straight return. Loops are made in one direction and the thread returns in a straight line underneath to become the support for the next row. It makes no difference to the final result if the loops are worked left to right or right to left, or if the motif is worked from the top or the bottom. The stitches may be left with gaps or worked tight together.
For a firmer texture, a knotted stitch is used – this is seen on lace from the 17th and 18th century. The return can be straight or whipped, in which case it twists over each loop.

Captions clockwise from top right -
Needlelace in tudor fashions. Portraits of Elizabeth I and Lady Mary Sidney show how collars and cuffs were worn.
Worked sample of variations of buttonhole stitch supported on black felt and to the left, diagrams of these same stitches.

Sheet 4 – Lace effect from punched or stamped patterns.

 

Decorating fabrics using these techniques is considerably quicker than making bobbin or needle lace and so relatively cheaper. 
Captions from left to right -
1) Detail of silk waistcoat stamped and embroidered, English 1785-1790.  Compare the pattern with this pricking of a traditional Bucks point bobbin lace design. 
Holes made by stamping, probably using a wheel to get the repeats. The fabric would be starched before stamping so that the holes keep their shape. The stamp pushes aside the threads without breaking them.
2) A large scale, contemporary use of punching by Piper Shepard for Lost in Lace at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.  Based on a piece of point de gaze lace in the BMAG collection.
3) Top right -  Detail of yellow silk gown, English 1760s. This shows pinking – making decorative holes with a metal punch. To do this, the folded fabric would be put on a block of lead and the punch struck with a hammer to make a pattern of holes.  Below -  My sample of pinking using a hole punch on folded calico, trying different size punches  - hard on the hands.


References
Historical Fashion in Detail 17^th and 18^th Centuries, Avril Hart and Susan North.
A Dictionary of Lace, Pat Earnshaw, Shire Publications 1984.
Bobbin and Needlelace Identification and Care, Pat Earnshaw, Batsford 1983.
Lace pricking taken from Bucks Point Pattern Pack, Pamela Nottingham, Batsford.
Lost in Lace Transparent Boundaries, Lesley Millar , BMAG 2011.
A Walk Through the Beginnings of Lace, copyright Robin L Berry 2004, www.bayrose.org/AandS/handouts/reticella_ rev.pdf
French National Library – I Singolari E Nuovi Disegni Di Federico Vinciolo, 1909 Italian facsimile of 1606 editions of pattern books first published in Paris 1587, available at belovedlinens.net/Patternsbooks.html
Chats on Old Lace and Needlework, Emily Lowes, London 1908 – Project Gutenberg ebook 2008, www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26120.
Portrait of Elizabeth I from the National Portrait Gallery, London

Images of punto in aria from Victoria and Albert Museum, www.vam.ac.uk

Irish Dance Dress (Functional 3D Item) - Background Research

I agreed with Sian at summer school that I would make my elder daughter a dress for her Irish dancing as my functional 3d item. That seems an awfully long time ago!  Since then, I have been concentrating on making one for her sister using commercial embroidery designs as a kind of trial run (you can see it here on StitchDance) and doing lots of reading and looking at dresses both on the web and in real life.  In a moment I will be showing photos of my notebook, but I thought it would be useful to start with some notes and a glossary.

Glossary

Feis (plural feiseanna) pronounced “fesh” – lit. festival, an Irish dancing competition.

Class dress –  a distinctive costume associated with a particular school.  In An Comdhail competitions that we attend,  dancers competing in age groups under 9 and below, and beginners of any age are not allowed to wear solo dresses, so they will either wear a class costume or a plain skirt and top.  Class dresses are also used for team dances (figures).

Solo dress – competitions mostly focus on solo dancing - although dancers usually perform three at a time they are each doing their own steps - and dancers aspire to wear a solo dress designed and made for them (but most will buy second-hand).  Every dress is unique; although there are distinct styles and colours that go in and out of fashion, a particular design will not be repeated exactly.  Solo dresses are more elaborate then class dresses. NB although referred to as dresses, costumes may be made with a separate bodice and skirt.

An Coimisiun le Rinci Gaelacha (CLRG) and Comdhail Na Muinteoiri le Rinci gaelacha  (An Comdhail) – two major governing bodies for Irish dancing. 

The history of the development of the dancing schools and the costumes in the first half of the twentieth century is  closely bound up with politics and Irish nationalism. For anyone interested in finding out more background, I would recommend  The Story of Irish Dance by Helen Brennan, pub Brandon 1999, and Irish Dancing Costume by Martha Robb, pub Country House.  I found it very helpful to see how the styles have evolved and the invention of ‘traditional’ dress.

Permitted Costume Styles

CLRG published updated rules on costumes in September 2010 – you can access the complete list here but the key points are

• Necklines must be high enough to cover the collarbone.
• Sleeves to start at the shoulder and end at the cuff.
• Skirts no shorter than mid-thigh.
• Costumes must have a full front, back and sides (i.e. no cutaway or transparent panels and skirts must have a full backing).

In essence, the basic shape is a long-sleeved, short skirted dress with a dropped waist and back zip.  

These pages show second-hand dresses offered for sale at a feis – a good way of seeing a mixture of styles.  On the left-hand page, the dark blue dress is in what is referred to as traditional style – large areas of  satin-stitch knotwork on a plain dark background, and a stiffened box pleat skirt.  These often had white crochet collars.   The other three are more up-to-date and you can see how at times there is no reference to traditional motifs.  On the right hand page, there are two dresses with ra-ra skirts which are very popular (apart from looks, they are considerably lighter than the stiffened styles). The dress with the violet bodice, which was made in 2011, has a puffball, plisse skirt and also shows the move towards building up decoration by repeating small knotwork motifs (this also gives you an idea of prices).

The back of the dress is also important.  These styles have developed from the traditional shawl pinned over one shoulder.  A few years ago, there was a fashion for dresses in the classic stiff-skirted shape but made entirely in glittery fabrics using applique rather than embroidery, and these have a stiff ‘kite’ on the back as a reference to the shawls.  Most new dresses I see now have either a sash across the back or a shaped shawl (attached with Velcro), although some have a large bow at the dropped waist. There is also a trend to attach the shawl further down from the shoulder  and to continue the embroidery around the back of the dress.   All the photos in these two pages have been collected onto a board on Pinterest which anyone can see here (and this also credits the sources).  A quick trawl on ebay will also come up with many dresses for sale.

 

A collection of images from dressmakers websites recording some of the various current skirt styles.   The older-style stiff skirts  have brightly coloured contrasting linings which show as the skirt moves and the girls wear matching lycra or satin ‘kick-knicks’ underneath.  Irish dancing is popular in the USA and fashions cross the Atlantic as competitors meet at international competitions – a good site for US fashion updates is  http://feisonista.com/

Armed with all this background information – the next step is to start thinking about the design.  But first I want to sort out my notes on lace for the beginning of module 5, so that will be my next post.

Module 4 Artist Study

I am continuing to collect notes and images of interesting artists.  For this exercise, I thought it would be interesting to compare two textile artists who have used a similar process and starting point, and whose work relates to my theme of industrial landscape.  Both Michelle Loughlin and Clare Lane take photographs of urban decay, print them on fabric and add stitch, but their motivations and the resulting work are very different.

The photographs in this post show the notes in my sketchbook; images of each artist's work can be seen at the links given under references.

Michelle Loughlin

Michelle Loughlin is an American textile artist who  made a series of work using hand stitching on photographs in 2007/2008.  Urban Weavings is a collection that celebrates the urban landscape in her home city New Jersey City, NJ, using photos of sites that are interesting historically or important to the community.  These could be demolished or abandoned buildings, or buildings being redeveloped all of which Michelle recorded before they changed as the area became gentrified.  Her motivation was personal, a reaction to feeling helpless in the face of rapid redevelopment of the place she lives in and knows well.

 

These are small works, less than 20cm square, and mounted very simply.  The photograph is printed onto cross-stitch fabric and then stitched freely, with bright threads adding colour, texture and life.    Rather than simply recording the scene, she responds to it and uses the stitches to complete the picture, to make it more beautiful and vital.  She has said of the building that inspired her piece 410 Bergen Lafayette that she 'would drive by and think how can I make that prettier?' Her stitches have a boldness and simplicity to them, as if doodling with crayons, highlighting selected areas; a stitched intervention into the street scene.  

References

Home Sweet Home, Embroidery Jan/Feb 2009

http://www.artslant.com/global/artists/show/25395-michelle-loughlin

Clare Lane

I first heard of Clare Lane when I visited her solo exhibition at the Stroud textile Festival in 2008, and  I was immediately taken by her hyper-realistic  images of urban and industrial sites in decay ; I was struck too by the emptiness, the absence of people. 

The stretched canvases on show were large, over a metre each way, displayed unframed, and showed photographs that had been digitally manipulated, simplifying the colours into chunky blocks.  These had then been stitched in some areas with matching threads, creating a change of texture and depth.

Clare describes what she does as 'unashamedly process driven', starting with walking the streets and taking hundreds of photographs.    The next stage is to work with the images in Photoshop.  She may use a single image or create a montage, cutting elements from several photographs to create her composition.  She may also add layers of scanned images, for example drawings, painted backgrounds, paper cut-outs, text, and apply a variety of filters.  The key part of the process is digitally overpainting the whole picture, concentrating on colour and shape and working at such a high level of detail that she may spend hours on a tiny part of the image, looking at it as an abstract arrangement of colour and shape.  Because of the size of the finished canvases, she cannot see the final  effect until it has been printed on fabric.  Then comes the stitching, using an Irish machine to fill in solid blocks of colour on parts of the image, which relieves the flatness of the digital print.  This is so subtle that on first glance you may not realise it is there, and it is not always apparent in photographs of her work.

Clare Lane came from a background in architecture and surveying before studying for a textile degree, and her inspiration comes from urban dereliction, our contemporary ruins, which are rarely looked upon as kindly as those that are hundreds of years old, yet they hold the same stories. She describes how she is interested in the 'visual cacophony' of the urban landscape, the way that buildings are surrounded by all sorts of other things that are there without an overall design - rubbish, street signs, road markings.  

  

References

Urban Fabrication,Clare Lane,  Design-It issue 76 (Computer Textile Design Group),2011.

Toil and Rubble,  Jo Hall,  Embroidery July/August 2008.

Stroudwater International Textile Festival Catalogue 2008.

www.urban-fabric.co.uk Clare Lane's website.

 

Finishing off Module 4

Just the artist's study left to do (which I am working on) so to finish off the module, here are my additional notes on health and safety when feltmaking.

Wet Felting

• Ensure a safe working area by mopping up any water from the floor immediately.
• Be aware of your hands becoming sensitive to prolonged exposure to soap/detergents and choose products with care.
• Felting is a physical activity - be careful when rolling the felt to avoid strains to your back and wrists from repetitive movements and take regular breaks.

Needlefelting

• The needles are very sharp, take additional care to keep your fingers clear from the points.
• Store hand felting needles with the barbs covered (eg with a small piece of foam) to avoid cutting your hands.
• Use the guard on the machine and ensure it is adjusted correctly each time.
• Stop the machine as soon as you feel any unusual resistance and clear out the lint regularly.
• As with any machining, watch your posture and take regular stretch breaks.

Finishing Chapter 11 Resolved Samples

I decided to concentrate on three of the samples from my previous post and leave aside the yellow one.  Firstly, photo 9 shows the 3d double-sided sample, inspired by the paper sample from chapter 9 shown in photos 10 and 11.  I had intended to copy the paper version by bending the shapes in the same way, but this didn't work well in felt ( I think it is too thick and soft - the design calls for something crisper).

Photo 9

Photo 10

Photo 11

Then the last two needle-felted samples after stitching.  I have had trouble photographing these as the colours are so delicate - there is more contrast in real life.  Photo 12  - the shapes have been heavily hand-stitched so they seem to grow out of the background.

Photo 12

Photo 13 - the slips have been secured in place with a scattering of detached chain stitches and more stitching has been added to the background.

Photo 13