Chapter 9 - Traditional and modern

I attended an exhibition by Grassington branch of the Embroiderers Guild whilst I was working on this chapter and there on display were two authentic molas!

I added photographs of the  real thing and having tried this for myself I have to say that I'm filled with admiration for the women who make such intricate designs. My own very small attempt has four layers of plain cotton fabric in alternating colours. I do like the finished article, wish I'd added more layers so the design ended up bigger, but how they work out designs such as the bird is a mystery to me!!

My three contemporary samples all use the same five-sided star.
Sample A has the outside shape stitched first and the fabric cut away inside the stitching. The edges were frayed back to the stitching.
Sample B has the inside shape stitched first and then the fabric cut away outside the stitch line. The same stack of fabrics was used as in Sample A and it is striking how different the two appear.
Sample C has some fabrics which did not form complete layers in an attempt to show different colours around the star.

I really like the star shape that I used for these last three samples but I learned that if I had left a bigger gap between the stitch lines I could have frayed the fabrics more which would probably have given a more pronounced result. In Sample C several of the coral coloured fabrics were very similar in colour and more contrasting fabrics would have helped the finished effect.

Chapter 8 - Layers of stitch

The following six samples use padding and stitching to indicate the star shapes  - some more successfully than others!

First, the one that really didn't work. I treated myself to a new sewing machine, one with lots of set embroidery stitches, one of which is a row of stars. Well, I had to give it a try didn't I? But as you can see it proved impossible to manage the stars around the corners of the design so it was back to the drawing board and straight machine stitching.

 Sample 1 has a printed cotton background and a machine stitched cotton layer topped with the same four pointed design stitched at 45 degrees in Holbein stitch. I added long straight stitches in the arrow heads couched in place and a double cross stitch in the centre.
Sample 2 is a soft silk fabric shape machine stitched onto plain cotton with diamonds of long straight stitches added to form points in the corners.
Sample 3 is a star of transparent voile bonded onto a printed cotton fabric outlined in running stitch. A second star is stitched off centre outlined in running stitch and filled with fly stitches. I'm very happy with this sample as I think it looks quite delicate.

Sample 4 - I bonded transparent voile onto handprinted cotton and outlined it with two rows of machine stitch before trying out one of those fancy stitches again. I'd learned my lesson though and just put four short straight lines down the centre of the arms. I worked a second four-pointed star in chain stitch and added a web stitch to the centre.
Sample 5 has two strips of contrasting voiles bonded to hand-printed cotton and a five-pointed star based on one of the starfish images from my initial research outlined with three rows of running stitch. The centre of the shape was padded from behind and seed stitches added using the same two threads. I really like this sample - maybe its the padding, maybe its the shape - it's probably both!
Sample 6 is a complex 8-pointed star in silk fabric bonded onto plain cotton and filled with machine stitching leaving the centre free to be padded. I stitched a four-pointed star on top with several rows of running stitch. I like this one too so maybe it is the additional dimension of the padding which appeals to me.

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.