Chapter 7 - Embroidery at last!

So good to have a needle in my hand at last! But first things first ... a photograph of me working on my coursework, which I've kept forgetting to add.

I think that the following six samples are self-explanatory with the notes alongside, but just in case ...

I used three different designs for the first three samples - one symmetrical, one with two symmetrical shapes placed off-centre and one completely asymmetrical also using a negative shape.
Sample 1 consists of two layers of printed cotton and the top turquoise star is a painted wet-wipe, stitched with running stitch in stranded cottons.
Sample 2 has two layers of purchased patterned cotton fabric with many rows of running stitch in perle thread. One of these rows is in orange to add contrast . The top layer is painted cotton attached with small cross stitches.
Sample 3 uses the starfish shapes with a background of printed cotton, a negative shape in satin fabric stitched with running stitch and straight stitches at right angles over the edge of the fabric to enable it to fray. The top layer is silk dupion stitched with backstitch. I buttonholed around the edge of this sample as the fabric was fraying so badly.

Samples 4, 5 and 6 all use the same design in three different colourways and I really like the way this has impacted on their appearance.
Sample 4 consists of two printed cottons and one painted cotton, stitched with running stitches and french knots in stranded cotton. This one is my favourite - I'm pleased with the effect of using contrasting coloured thread to stitch each layer and the slightly more muted colours are more pleasing to my eye.
Sample 5 - I decided to use three blue fabrics this time, two of them printed and the top one made with painted bondaweb. I used a mix of chain and running stitches using orange perle thread for contrast but I think the thread is too thick on the middle layer and the orange somewhat too bright.
Sample 6 has a dark orange silk background with two painted cottons on top stitched with french knots and running stitch using perle thread. the orange thread is variegated and, although it's the same as used in sample 5, it looks less offensive on the orange fabric.
  

Chapters 5 & 6 - Progressing to fabric

I've not taken a photograph of my fabrics as there are so many small pieces of sheers, nylons and silks. I also had great fun using my gelli-plate to do some mono-printing, I painted bondaweb and ironed it onto fabric, and I made a snippet fabric from small pieces of threads and ribbons. The results will be seen in all the samples that follow.

So ... onto Chapter 6 and my bonded samples

Fig. 1

A symmetric design based on the Islamic tiles using plain cotton as background fabric, topped with a monoprinted cotton and finally a pale blue/grey silk.

Fig. 2

Another symmetric design, this time using the silk as a background with another monoprinted cotton as a first layer, topped with my snippet cloth (threads sandwiched between cotton and a fine net.

 Fig. 3

The background fabric for this asymmetric design is a piece of muslin which I had used to clean up my gelli-plate, topped with yet another monoprinted cotton and a piece of baby-wipe which again had been used to clean up after a painting session. Once attached with bondaweb the baby-wipe feels just like fabric and the paints have made an interesting pattern.

Fig. 4

Yet another monoprinted cotton as a background for my starfish (who in this piece appear to be dancing!). The large star is the cotton topped with painted bondaweb and the smaller star is a piece of white chiffon which I dyed with Brusho.

Chapter 4: Black is black

 Fig. 1

 Fig. 2

 Fig. 3

 Fig. 4

Fig. 5

I don't have much to say about this part of the chapter - other than that it's finished. I can't say that I enjoyed the exercise at all, though I think that some of the designs have turned out to be OK. 

 Fig. 6

 Fig. 7

Fig. 8

Aah ... so it was maybe just the fact that it was black paper that I didn't enjoy (let's not think too much about why that might be!) as this exercise was much more fun. Again I'm sticking to the Islamic tiles for the symmetric designs and the starfish for the asymmetric ones. I did make a couple of asymmetric designs from non-starfish shapes too though. I enjoyed trying to find ways to put my stars together in asymmetric ways and I think that, again, those where I've used negative spaces have produced some interesting designs.

Chapter 3 - Design development

This chapter was all about making patterns out of the stars I'd found in the last two chapters.

 1: some rough sketches

2: Design sheet A

The designs on Sheet A were relatively easy to manage though I'm not sure how successful the distortions into other shapes were. The star has fitted into the triangle but I wouldn't personally see this as a star shape any more, but as I was no happier with my other attempts (in picture 1) these are what ended up on my page.

3: Repeat patterns

4: Design sheet B

5: Design sheet B ctd

I am trying to follow my two main strands of inspiration within these sheets - the Islamic tiles which I saw at the British Museum, and the asymmetric starfish so I tried out border patterns using both sources.

 6: Design sheet C

7: Design sheet C ctd

 

I found some of the suggestions for patterns difficult to get my head around - particularly when it came to the complex counterchange for Design sheet C. For this one I started by trying to replicate the example in the course notes but even found this tricky to do for some reason.

 

Although the Islamic tile design at the bottom of image #6 is a complex one consisting of several different 8-pointed stars, I'm much happier with the patterns that have resulted. I also think that some of the patterns made up from the negative space pieces left over from earlier designs (in image #7) are quite interesting.

Stars in Your Eyes - Chapter 2

 2-1

Image 2-1 shows the papers I coloured for this chapter, including the 'recipes' used. Along the bottom edge is a row of images made with the stamp I cut, though I've not included images of the papers which I printed with the stamp.

 

2-2

Image 2-2 shows the star shapes cut and torn from my coloured papers. The cut stars were made using scissors, a craft knife and a cutting wheel though I do not own a wavy cutting wheel nor a pair of pinking shears old enough to use on paper.

Stars in Your Eyes - Chapter 1

Chapter 1 - Research on stars or crosses:
The basic difference between the two shapes is that a cross has four 'arms' whilst a star has five or more.
Dictionary definitions:
Star = a graphic design having five or more radiating points; an emblem shaped like a conventionalised star often used as a symbol of rank or award; asterisk
Cross = a structure or symbol consisting of two intersection lines or pieces at right angles to one another; an emblem of christian religions.

I have decided to base my work for this module on stars, and did a bit of a brainstorm which produced the following ways in which stars are used in everyday language -
stardust, stargazing, shooting star (all relating to astronomy); starry-eyed and star-crossed (relating to love); star-studded, superstar and starstruck (with connotations of celebrity); star fish, star of Bethlehem and snowflakes (in nature); stars and stripes, star-spangled banner; seeing stars; star of David; star chamber; wish upon a star; star sign (astrology).

I split my research images into two categories: hand crafted stars and nature's stars

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 1-2

 As you can see from image No. 1-2, the images of hand-crafted stars were taken from my own photographs, magazines, the internet, cards and papers, and include the following:
part of a textile machine at a local museum; the base of a basket; the gates at Hampton Court Palace; a biscuit tin lid; a ceiling in Edinburgh; a stained glass window; a motif from the wallpaper in my hallway; an advent biscuit; hanging ornaments and Moroccan tiles in the British Museum. I found the latter particularly inspiring as in real life many of these tiles were bright turquoise and terracotta in colour which brought me to choose my colour scheme for this module.

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 1-4

The flower photographs in my Nature's stars collection were taken in my garden and at Kew in London. The starfish were found online and I loved the asymmetrical starfish in particular so they may well show up again in later chapters.

 

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 1-6

The line drawings were taken from a number of books as you will see from the list in image 1-6 above, and I can only say I am very grateful to Jan Messent!

The rubbings were made with brown charcoal on white tissue paper of the base of a basket (the same one photographed above) and some snowflake shaped pastry cutters.

 

 1-7

 The colour wheel took a long time to complete as yet again I found mixing the colours really quite difficult to achieve to my liking. The two complementary colours I have chosen to use are turquoise/peacock blue and reddish orange. Turquoise is one of my favourite colours though I've never used it with orange before. I've ventured as far around the colour wheel as lime green and purple in the past. In fact orange is not a colour I've used much at all, so this choice will ensure that I stray some way outside my comfort zone.

Finishing line

 Colour mixing exercise

Sample #1 above is stitched in rice stitch worked mainly in stranded cotton, though as I worked I became curious about the effect that perle thread would give as the second step of the stitch so the lower half of the sample has a grey perle 8 thread used to stitch across the corners of the base cross. I felt that this was very effective at changing the base colour, especially when the whole stitch is worked in stranded cotton.

Sample #2 is Milanese stitch, again worked in stranded cotton. I mixed several different colours in my needle (six strands in total but in varying combinations of colours). I felt that this was probably the most effective method of mixing a shade, though it does give a slightly less textured effect than the rice stitch.

Sample #3 is double elongated cross stitch in perle 8 threads. I used a different colour for the second half of each cross and found it was more effective when a pale colour was used on top of a darker one - especially when worked on white canvas as the paler thread seemed to get lost against the background.

Resolved samples

I had felt really unhappy with my collage attempts at first, as recorded on my last blog entry,  but the following day when I returned to them I was actually much happier and long before I had received feedback I had decided to take a smaller section from Collage #1 as the basis for my two resolved pieces.

 

Section of Collage #1

I chose this composition because I liked the range of colours and the juxtaposition of the different shapes.
 

Resolved sample #1

My first piece was worked in canvas work and a mixture of some of the stitches and shading techniques I had discovered in my various samples. The canvas was first coloured with a mixture of greys and green so where the fine grey thread is used to depict the mortar, which surrounds the coloured stones it doesn't look too stark a contrast. I achieved texture by working the pink section in a variety of square stitches in different scales and mixtures of threads, and on the greenish stone by working wheatsheaf stitches on top of each other in different directions.

Resolved sample #2

For my second resolved piece I decided to work in needlelace - a technique I have used a lot in the past few years. I first monoprinted a piece of calico using fabric paints in green, black, white and yellow, then used hand dyed threads to make my lace. I stitched the lace in a completely random fashion, adding a second layer to some sections to depict the textures and the shading on the actual wall. As the calico was not really strong enough to hold the final piece of lace once it was removed from the frame, I bonded it to a piece of pelmet vilene. With hindsight I should probably have done this before beginning to stitch as the action of pressing the fabric to bond it to the vilene has flattened the stitching somewhat.