Drawn Thread Work Stitchery

Stitchery ideas for decorating fabric and needle weaving on bands of withdrawn threads
Ref 4.6.1a and b
A)Top row;variegated perle thread
Second row; procion dyed cotton tanne and cord thread experiment with letter shapes using weaving and buttonhole stitch -more practice needed!
Third and fourth row; As many of my pulled threads were short used them to knot threads together.  An 'm' should be visible in third row! Not sure if I am seeing things but in pulling  six threads into a horizontal 'v' shape in fourth and then catching them with a series of knots the image reminds me of  4 .2.21 scribbler 'calligraphy' image.
B)  Top row: Needle weaving and buttonhole stitch
Second and third row; fabric strip weaving and wrapping
Fourth row; diagonal fabric and jute thread wraps
Fifth row; herring bone stitch

                                                                                                                              Ref 4.6.2   Moving on from the dyed yellow cotton I decided to pick a looser, bulker structure of fabric.  Taking advantage of a friends dyeing session with procion dyes the following happened...an overwhelming green and pink. While pleased with the fabrics that came from the session I was concerned that they were not in this modules chosen theme, however made the decision to use the hessian  as I wanted to experiment on the looser weave!

Ref 4.6.3                                                                                      Ref 4.6.4
The diagonal stitching on bars sample, 4.6.3, shows threads that were dyed in the procion session, string, perle,cotton ribbon and strips of fabric.
In 4.6.4 diagonal stitching on cross sections shows variegated perle threads being used

Introducing  machine stitching into the next two samples, tucks being held with hand stitches in 4.6.5, left .  Dyed string being used to connect the machine caught threads in 4.6.6, right. For me this piece had a look of the Arbroath Declaration about it, see 4.2.3.

Having gone off piste thought it was time to return to a more charted territory and dyed some even weave cotton fabric with Brusho dye.  While painting a large piece of fabric, to allow me to obtain longer threads, I tried to ensure interesting blocks or strokes of colour where on pieces that would provide the base for combining more hand and machine stitching. Ref 4.6.7, on right was an exercise in diagonal step machine stitching which proved problematic and uneven.  Pulling out threads and then enclosing the remaining threads was difficult and at one point the title for this piece was - 'when you are in a hole stop digging'. But, not for the first time I persisted! I often find that lessons that stay in our mind are where you struggle and this would be a classic. Lesson one: pull out a very even grid, lesson two: make the width of columns to be stitched of a size that the zigzag stitch will cover. lesson three: Increase tension on stitch, lesson four: diagonal means alternate steps, and before filling the page with lessons oversewing doesn't make it better!

As progress was made on the next two samples the use of the wing needle was an answer to one of the lessons, however as in all this things I realised that the weave I was using didn't get the results from the wing needle.  While it did provide holes to stitch through the double weave held the fabric fairly rigid. A lighter fabric would have produced a more obvious hole.
                                                        Ref 4.6.8                                              Ref 4.6.9a

Ref  4.6.9b mounted

While considering the use of stitching to make lettering I was interested to find this advertisement from Audi.  It showed how missing lines did not detract from being able to see the meaning of the sentence!

Drawn Thread Work

The colours for this chapter were chosen from the yellow and manilla paper sequence with a highlight of the turquoise blue stamps; see samples on right.
Deciding to experiment with three different weights of fabric, I used a hand dyed muslin, a natural linen and a dyed cotton, the last two of which evolved as I experimented with brusho colours used previously in paper making. 

                        

First exercise: Using the coloured muslin and linen I pulled threads into grid patterns and experimented with loops; see ref 5.1b ,diagonal sequences: see ref ref 5.1b, 5.2c and 5.2d, eyelets; see ref 5,2b and frays: see 5.2d.  

Ref 5.1a and b                                      Ref 5.2.a,b,c,d

While realising the muslin was not the easiest fabric to start this exercise on I rather liked the pucker that resulted.  The linen was rather hard and should have been washed to soften it but the stiff structure prevented undue fraying. Once the first thread was pulled things became slightly easier!  But at one stage I did think an alternative title could be, 'Pulling Strings'!
Second exercise:The colour theme was based around the paper combination of manilla and yellow papers with the touch of the bright blue of stamps.  
For this exercise the linen and the yellow cotton were dyed.  The linen by painting with yellow and blue leaving some undyed ground colour. 

                                                                                              Ref 5.3a and b
The yellow cotton  was dyed by placing on paper that was given a yellow brusho ground with orange and blue brusho sprinkled and flooded, see right Ref 5.4 a and b




  Weaving and pulling back the threads to make shapes that went in diagonals, straight lines and curves proved to be fiddly and would probably need a touch of adhesive to make the 'g', 'u' and 's' stay in position! 
Ref 5.5a
Ref 5.5a and b

 At the end of this chapter I decided big weaves would be my next ground for dyeing!