Creating surfaces for stitch with plastic carrier bags. I used a mixture of heavyweight bags and the very thin, scrunchy sort and joined them by ironing between sheets of baking paper.
Photo 8.1
I scrumpled up two bags and cut strips, letting them fall randomly on the background. The thin pink bag gave the most interesting results as the layers show through.
Photo 8.2
Shavings of wax crayons were melted in a clear bag which was cut up as before and ironed onto a background. I added a layer of pink on top for more colour. I like the way the hot wax has made the plastic melt and distorted the text, and also made holes in the background.
Photo 8.3
Strips of lime green and light blue ironed onto dark blue and then cut up and applied to another background.
Photo 8.4
More of these strips applied to a striped bag (this over heated and distorted rather a lot) and a couple of experiments with folding and ironing the striped bag. (At this point I feel I should be awarding points to anyone who identifies all these well known shops!)
Photo 8.5
Three samples adding colour with thread ends. On the left, threads ironed between layers of clingfilm then ironed onto the back of the handle from the lime green bag. As this is another thin bag, the threads show through as a texture. I cut circles from the remaining ‘fabric’ and ironed one onto another piece of the clear bag.
Photo 8.6 and 8.7 (detail)
Incorporating stitch onto resolved samples. I noticed that the well worn bag handles are the same ovoid shape as appears in formline art so I made a sample inspired by that style. To represent the grid structure I created a patched background by ironing and emphasised the lines with machining, letting the colours spill over. I ironed the handles on top and machined around the outlines.
Photo 8.8 and 8.9 (detail)
This sample was made with some tiny bits of bags (left over from a previous project) applied to a supermarket bag. I made a patchwork again and machine stitched around some of the shapes. These bags were all very thin so some of the writing comes through from the back and the layers give additional colours. I changed to a thicker top thread and added some of the key shapes used in earlier chapters, taken from a Mexican bag.
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