Textural contrasts

Letting ones fingers judge the quality of the pieces gives a certain novelty... having been felt it seems to  release the imagination to 'see' the texture and contrast.

Ref 5.7.1

Labelling the grid pattern, made on a backcloth of calico, the items are set out to achieve a contrast in texture, colour tone, height, shape and profile.
A 1 Cream sateen cotton cloth with a sheen that gives a smooth feel. Textures of undulating tucks that form grooves and shadowing
A 2 Soft white cotton  cut on the biased, rolled and frayed to give a light initial touch that has a firmer core of gathered fabric. The folds reveal light and shade in the swirls. 
A 3 Tubes of plastic and wood captured in a coloured, firm cotton which has a fleece wadding.  Initially machined stitched the tubes are held in place under alternate sides of the fleece by perle cotton thread.  White emulsion was used to dull the colour back.
A 4 Soft white cotton and linen thread knitted into a tube rope with alternate plain and purl surface wound into a spiral that encourages rubbing and dipping.
B 1 A springy nylon knitted fabric under a coarse nylon net that has been randomly caught with thread gives a rough surface that lifts from the surface.
B 2 An open weave cotton is frayed and then two circles, that are hand stitched, are gathered and stuffed to show the soft rounded quality of the base thread
B 3 A  double layer of light, coarse calico which has been machine stitched and trapunto filled in two triangles. Sting attached with zig zag stitch to contrast the smooth quality of the padding.
B 4 Extended elasticated nylon lace machine stitch mounted on folded cotton muslin and then allowed to contract leaving a softly ridged surface.
C1 Smooth cotton poplin that has been hand gathered to prepare a surface which could be used for textural stitching for display/ornamentation.
C 2 Sateen cotton that has been pleated and then snipped with loops folded in different directions to provide a sculptural fabric which emphasises light and shade rather than the flat non reflective fleece in C 3.
C3 Snipped knitted fleece fabric attached to folded cotton muslin to form a circle that can be manipulated into different shapes.
C4 pleated acrylic felt that is folded and caught with thread. Assorted fabric remnants placed in fold to add sharp interest to shadows in folds.
D 1 Four grades of rough linen and jute canvas stitched and decorated with rolled selvedge
D 2 Tyvek and nylon lace pleated onto metal skewer and gently melted over candle to produce a bond that gives a structured but flexible surface that is also flexible
D 3 Stiffened even weave linen that has had threads pulled but not withdrawn to a grid pattern that results in crumpled, bulbous shapes in centre
D 4 gathered nylon patterned lace placed over silk tops that sits on nylon fabric.

The sample 'checkerboard' has shown a quick way of testing out ideas for the placement of sections in a finished piece. While I'm not sure that 16 different techniques will be used  this technique helps to establish how the surfaces work together. The following photos  help to hone in on smaller sections.

More detail of A and B                                      More detail of C and D

 These photos have been re taken to try and improve on the images in close up

Quilting, padding and stuffing

Preparing the variety of fabrics, for padding and top and bottom layers and the trapped items made my work space look like a rather strange laboratory, with interesting exhibits...the task to make them come together in a way that would move my ideas along into making fabric with a texture that would respond to touch as well as the eye. 

Ref 5.5.1b

Ref 5.5.1a

 For first 'quilt' I went for a traditional design with same cotton cloth top and bottom over a fleece padding.  Machine stitching the quilting lines I then decided to fray the fabric as this was a fabric samples which had not been used in Chapter 4

Ref 5.5.2a

The second machine quilted piece using a silk variegated top thread on a cotton organza fabric again padded with the knitted fleece. Using photos to inspire the shapes or stitch lines for the samples but trying to not be too concerned about a literal translation...

Ref 5.5.3a

Ref 5.5.3b

In these hand quilted wadded pieces two different weights of cotton fabric top and tailed a fleece wadding. A 60 crochet thread was used for the stitching. For sample 5.5.3a  pattern I wanted to vary size of the unquilted sections to try and replicate the idea of layers and strata while keeping a grid like pattern. Ref 5.5.3b

Ref 5.5.4

Ref 5.5.4 sample proceeded to use a variety of threads on muslin over fleece for a more angular sample.  Sadly lost my way - having made a simple pattern once into the stitching went off piste; it must have been the excitement of the Winter Olympics that took my mind away from what I was doing.  

Ref 5.5.5

Ref 5.5.6

For the next two samples the inspiration came from the Broch of Gurness but two different techniques were used.  The initial one 5.5.5 was a random hand stitched quilting stitch whereas 5.5.6 used wooden insets for shape quilting. Sadly my mind was still on wadding  and I failed to read notes correctly and carried on with three layers! The error continues on to sample 5.5.7 when I suddenly realised my error and did a 'rescue' and you will see how some of the wadding has been cut away from the wood sections. For 5.5.7 I trapped some feathers between a layer of net and cream cotton organza and tried to define their shape with hand stitched outlines.

Ref 5.5.7

Ref 5.5.8a

Ref 5.5.8.b

For the padded sample 5.5.8a I decided to alternate the padding in each section, using string (central space), knitting wool (bottom left), thrumbs or waste threads (top), found wool fleece (bottom right) and two sections of cotton fibres. The see through layer of cotton was backed by a coloured polyester fabric to add depth. Picture 5.5.8.b shows the reverse and each of the stuffing contents.

Sample 5.5.9  inspire by my stone/shell from Coral Beach on the Isle of Skye could fall between a shaped or padded exploration using melon pips and a cheese cloth top fabric

Ref 5.5.9b

Ref 5.5.9a

Ref 5.5.10b

Ref 5.5.10a

For cords I have show reverse and front sample 5 5.10 where a twin needle was used to make channels in which pipe cleaners were placed with wide spaces between to allow larger cotton tops for padding.  In pushing the cleaners and padding into the spaces the original clean lines made by the twin needle distorted at the curves, but while it showed up errors in the sewing and turning of a curve with the twin needle I decided to keep the sample as it seemed to enhance a natural element!
Samples 5.5.11 and 12 again explore cording with piping, zig zag and a knotted string in an attempt to replicate the erosion of the  Arbroath Abbey wall

Ref 5.5.12

Ref 5.5.11

For a finale  and following an inspiration regarding tea bags on the Distant Stitch Facebook page, thank you Sian, I looked at my morning mug of tea and thought ...I wonder!!!  The original teabags were square but mine... well they were triangles! So here they are top and bottom which is which? There were a multitude of options that I tried but opted for classic shape.  I have a feeling teabags will become another thing to save as the option of tea dyeing was starting to occupy my natural dyeing tendencies.