Brief:
Translate the qualities in your drawings into material and stitch explorations and further develop your textiles and yarn concepts into textiles results.
I decided to experiment by returning to one of my materials - a gauze-like ribbon - to explore its qualities further and see how I could manipulate it into different forms:
I liked the way the creases in the ribbon and its wiry base yarn material gave it a certain stiffness that made it possible to form a tube, as well as being able to sit up when formed into waves and machine-stitched to the fabric.
I also experimented with gathering the ribbon in order to emulate the qualities of my earlier wax resist mark-making:
I also returned to the printmaking that I had done earlier in order to develop this further, in particular I wanted to develop my own collagraphs, here using textured braid to suggest the V-shaped marks made by the needle through the layers of tracing and tissue paper from my earlier stitched sample:
I tested this by printing on different papers and fabrics, using acrylic paint (above: bottom row) and decolorant to make lighter (above: top right). I found that my repeat worked quite well, even though I had not really focused on matching this up when making the stamp.
I then attempted to simplify and enlarge the motif further and experiment with rotations and overlaps, printing the decolorant onto navy linen and drying in the sun, followed by a light iron (medium hear, no steam) to only lightly remove colour:
I also experimented by combining some of the processes and by doing them in a different order. Here I decided to stitch first - onto foam board using hemp yarn and waxed bookbinding thread - to create my stamp, then print on paper (below: middle) and muslin (below: left):
Here I decided to take the result of my monoprinting session in order to translate it simply in stitch. I worked from a monochrome copy of the print focused on trying to created the stripes and negative spaces of the monoprint.
It was quite difficult to accurately match the rise and fall of each 'wave' stitching freehand but I found that I quite liked this variability, as juxtapositions of regular and irregular appeal to me. I also like the semi-opacity of the muslin fabric base, as it meant that the reverse could be seen at the same time as the intended front.
I also experimented with producing the central motifs in machine stitch. A needle threading error resulted in a really interesting radiating design on the reverse of one piece and the fact that I was using layers of muslin and not stretching the fabric taut made for some unforeseen results in terms of texture:
Further experiments included machine stitching the wave motif onto several layers of unbleached muslin, in order to get a slightly quilted effect. I then painted the waves using sepia ink and ultramarine Brusho paint. Again, the reverse is somehow more interesting than the intended 'right 'side.
