Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Last Bit of Chapter 5

Finally finished playing with these braids, rearranging and layering them to make an acceptable presentation. I wasn't happy with the backgrounds I had done so I tried again and came up with this by stencilling using folded strips of freezer paper and Markel sticks on a previously dyed piece of cotton.



And then added the braids...




From left to right we have
1) Scraps of dyed scrim decorated with built-in machine patterns using soluble fabric as a base, stitched onto a braid made by wrapping a long thin wire frame made from a coat hanger with lots of yarns and strips of fabric (actually more like a fringe because I had to cut it off - looks quite cute as a bracelet, perhaps I should make some more).

2) Free machining on felt to make spiky cog shapes cut out with soldering iron, threaded through with a short piece of free machining on soluble and longer strip of built-in pattern stitched onto fabric and paper.

3)Free machining on felt triangles (relate to pylon shapes from earlier work) threaded through with another piece of braid from 1).

4) Free machining on felt circles threaded with short piece of braid from 2) and longer piece made with threads/yarns laid out on soluble fabric and secured with built-in patterns.

5) 2 wide braids made by combining lots of thinner ones using all the techniques above. The orange piece also has a sheer fabric decorated with French knitting made with a very fine metallic thread that is very loose and loopy held down with a machined pattern, and the blue has a twisted centre strip of fabric-wrapped wireform.

Finally, I cut up the two wide braids and rearranged them to create a new textile piece.



And while I had the paints out, I decorated the cover of my knotwork/braids sketchbook using the same stencil and Markel sticks over acrylic paint. Here it is drying before varnishing.


4 comments:

Trekky said...

This is lovely. I really like how you cut up the piece to rearrange it to a rather different image.

I'm still rather new to the world of freezer paper & markel sticks - great technique - must have a go!

Fibrenell said...

Your stencilled background is beautiful. I love it- very Georges Braque feel about it.

Heather said...

Love the new background and sketch book cover. The braids sound very time consuming but are well worth it. You deserve to get a good result.

Jane said...

Thank you all for your comments - I also thought the background had a cubist look to it. I love the way a really quick and easy technique gives complex patterns. If you try it Trekky, the trick is to rub the markel stick onto the stencil and use an old toothbrush to brush it off the edge, then move the stencil and change colours. It doesn't look very interesting until you remove the stencil. The freezer paper is good because you can iron it onto fabric for a temporary hold, but masking tape and cut edges of cardboard also work very well. Have fun.