Thursday 10 November 2011

Bonding Applique



A great opportunity to play!  Enjoyed this exercise at it used up a host of bits and pieces I had been hoarding from previous chapters and, as you will see on the last sample, previous projects in making fabric.  The use of bondaweb seems more effective than the bonding  powder but as it had been in my store cupboards for a while set off to use it up and ended up with a small diversion from the module ...make a Christmas fabric to be used for cards!!


Fabric Selection and Decoration

Ref 20a)  numbers 1-12  from left top               Ref 20b) numbers 1-12 from left top
In my fabric selection I used a range of fabrics over my four key colours, these included dylon dyed muslin 20a 1 and 20a 3' mop' dyed muslin 20b 1 and 2, dylon dyed felt 20a 2. Felt 20a 4/8/9 and 20b 9. Shop purchased printed cottons 20a  5/7.  Dupon silk 20a 6. Sateen 20b 5/10.  Polyester organza 20a12, 20b 6/8/12. Cotton calico 20a 10, 20b 3/4(mops), 20b 7. Polyester sheen 20a 11.  Polyester with sequin 20b 11. 
The 'mops' were made during the paper colouring exercise.
The printing effects are shown below:
Apologises that they do not appear in the same order as the original board!! But all samples have been attached with original fabric details.
Ref 21 a,b,c,d.  Organza proved to be the most difficult fabrics to make an imprint on but when overlaid against self coloured papers the results proved more effective.  Felt fabric needed more paint as it absorbed.  Silks and cottons appeared to take prints more easily and effectively.

Monday 7 November 2011

Design Shapes -revisted

Following contact with Sian four new designs were completed by setting  shapes out as a asymmetric sequence.  The two sequences, Ref 19 i and 19j. each show the inclusion of original design 17/4/q  but you will note that the original pattern had four squares filled - to allow a more open lattice these squares were removed thereby allowing some interweaving of shapes to be considered. Despite trying many options the designs appear a bit static and think that design options were limited by putting two designs on each page...I was trying to enable a flow through templates- the restricted colours were chosen to enhance this but the pictures show that some addition colour contrast or texture was needed.
The exercise, however, honed me in on considering how stitching and the width of the lines shapes would translate into fabric stitched samples.  Ideas on the potential of a raised or slipped surface through layers of fabric ( i.e. one two or even three layers of muslin, organza as a background)  or padding mulled around my mind.  The placement of stitch helped me consider which designs would be better suited for reverse applique, padding or fraying detail.  Also the idea of making samples to see how small areas of stitch within the body of the fabric using contrast /complementary colour was noted for later chapters. particularly when using a build up of one colour over a variety of shapes and layers. 


Reviewing the shapes, Ref 19 a-h, the dynamics of moving shapes beyond the background paper was enjoyable.  Thinking of how these would be transferable to future fabric samples also alerted thoughts of stitching lines. 
 
I was fascinated by looking at two of the designs, 19b and 19, using the two mirror image.  The revelation of addition shapes added an extra dimension!

 I was fascinated by looking at two of the designs, 19b and 19c, using the two mirror image.  The revelation of addition shapes added an extra dimension!

                                                                 Ref 20 a Page 33                                      Ref 20b Page 33

For the coloured papers selected, see Ref 18.
The variety of shapes Ref 17 a – t were influenced by original thoughts outlined in Chapter I and shapes made during Chapter 3.


Experiment was absorbing and in many cases I became more interested in cut shapes rather than accurate measuring, the result in some cases is acceptable but in some cases the lines looked a bit crude. When translating these black cut out designs to the production of coloured and layered shapes this crudeness became exaggerated.






NB all images are A4 unless otherwise stated