Stitch

I felt pretty confident starting stitch, as it is what I have done most of before, and found it a relief after the new skill and challenges of knit and weave. The hard thing about stitch for me, is the broadness of the subject. There are so many possibilities that it is hard to know what to do. I started by carefully studying my drawings, looking at the pattern and colour and how I can translate them into fabric. I selected some paintings of a small section of rust on a ceramic piece, and drawings of mottled glass. I thought the uneven lines and tones could make interesting, organic stitch samples.

Isabelle told us to go fabric shopping in Shepards bush which I really enjoyed, but found difficult. I took my reference drawings with me as it can be hard to select the right colour from your head. Still though I feel I came away with fabrics that I’m not completely happy with. I find it difficult to find quality fabrics without a plasticy sheen for cheap prices. Like the orange fabric above, the colour was perfect and the transparency made some really interesting effects, but not a nice texture. Next time I am going to pay more careful attention to what the fabrics are made of.

I started by using a broken needle in the machine to break and blend two fabrics together. This is a simplified process of embellishing or felting, it creates a really interesting surface texture and the results are unpredictable based on the strength and qualities of the fabrics. I then embroydered  on top of a broken needle sample which worked well, giving another layer to my work. I also found that using muslin with a very fine transparent fabric is interesting, as the muslin broke apart very fast, it gathered and frayed.

This is a hand-stitch sample, attaching felt fibres to a piece of solid felt. I think it’s a very successful experiment, as I didn’t plan on only stitching half way but the edge of the stitch is the most interesting part. By securing a such a loose material, it’s almost like felting, and the more stitches, the flatter and smoother the surface becomes. To develop this process further, I would try some machine stitch, although I think the light delicate quality would be lost. I could also try using denser and thinner bits of felt, and different thickness of embroidery thread.

I also started experimenting with gathering and stitching. I was trying to add more tone and depth, looking at more 3D ways to create pattern. By stitching at either end of a strip of fabric, I created a raised middle. I want to explore more ways, similar to this, in which I can make pattern through shape, by manipulating.

I looked back at my drawings, and noticed the irregular and overlapping lines, I wanted to find a way to create these organic patterns, but not simply in a flat stitch. I started twisting bits of fabric and yarn and use zigzag stitch on the machine to create bendy but slightly rigid cords. I utilised the frayed edges and uneven stitching to show the irregular lines of my drawings. I experimented attaching them to a base fabric in different ways, but found that I was placing them too randomly and the composition didn’t work. In particular I liked a part where I had stitched a section down, then folded and stitched a part so that it stuck up right, then stitched the next part flat again. I tried doing this to create a series of sticking out bits, with lots of cords lined up together. It was difficult as sometimes the fabric would manipulate due to the stretch of the cord, and sometimes it would lie flat. I needed to make a choice between the two and make the sample consistent. For the colour scheme, I extracted main colours from the drawing, and then expanded them, selecting fabrics and threads in similar tones. I think my colours worked well, they are all quite muted with hints of bright and darker orange and red.

We were asked to produce 4 final samples, which I thought would be fine but actually they are proving to be very time consuming. For the first one, I selected a moderately thin piece of light purple fabric. I wanted it to be thin enough to get some shape from the stitch, but not so flimsy it would completely distort and loose the pattern. I then made my cords in a variety of fabrics and yarns with different coloured threads. I have moved away from metallic thread as it was just so cheap that it snapped a lot and in the end only could sew about an inch with our breaking. I am pleased with this sample, I used thicker pieces then before and it created a really interesting 3D shape. Kind of wacky, it reminds me of a cartoon see creature. However, with more refined and muted colours it could look more sophisticated, and maybe a grey or cream would have been better than purple for the backing colour.

For the next sample I wanted to make something bit more delicate and simple. So I used 5 threads of white yarn twisted and sewn with white thread on a dark purple backing fabric. Although the thinner quality of the strips worked well, the white against dark showed up every thread and looked messy, whereas on previous samples the uneven stitching seemed and was deliberate.