Module 3 - Chapter 3 - Fabrics and Threads

My colour scheme, as chosen in Chapter 2, is Magenta & Lime.

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A collection of beads, sequins, fabrics and threads that I already had in my 'stash'.

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Purchases from the Festival of Quilts at the NEC. Threads, beads and buttons in magenta and lime, plus plain fabrics and threads to dye.

 



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I collected a selection of buttons, curtain hooks, tile spacers, washers, matchsticks etc that I thought might make interesting embellishments. I put these into a jar with a small amount of magenta acrylic paint, and gave it a good shake. The result was very pleasing!

I set aside an entire day to dye my fabric and threads. At 9am I started to prepare the soda, salt and dye mixtures. I used turquoise and lemon yellow to achieve lime green and a citrus greeny yellow. I tried to mix a darker shade of green, but only achieved an ugly mid green, so used avocado as a darker shade of lime.

For the pinks, I used scarlet, fire engine red, magenta and marine violet.

The threads were a selection of silks, cottons, rayon floss and string.

The fabrics were cotton (pfd), cotton voile, silk dupion, habotai, noil, and linen and were all cut to approximately 'fat quater' size.

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'greens'

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 'pinks'

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 'pink and green mixtures' mostly random dyed. Top row centre, and bottom row left were dip dyed.

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 threads

12 hours later, I was still ironing my fabrics dry, but have never enjoyed ironing so much before! I was exhausted, having spent more than 4 hours just rinsing out the dye, but the results were amazingly rewarding!

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 Monoprinting was fun. I printed some with one layer, some with two layers, and some with three layers of paint (acrylic mixed with fabric textile printing binder).

Module 3 Chapter 2 - Design Work (Spiral 'Warm-up' Exercises)

The complimentary colours chosen to work with throughout this designwork are cerise and lime.

Papers were sponged randomly with shades, tints and adjacent hues of cerise and lime, and then cut up to translate some of the images from Chapter 1 into the following 2-dimensional shapes.

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Of all of the above 2d translations, I find the buildings to be the most interesting. The Gherkin has very interesting spiralling lines, and Orbit (the viewing gallery building from the Olympic Games) is fascinating with its double spiralling effect.

Carefully using a craft knife, strips of corrugated card were cut and rolled to make 3-dimansional spiral shapes.

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 Sixteen A4 sheets of paper were coloured and then monoprinted once, twice and in some instances, many times with spiralling print designs to create complex and exciting layers of pattern.

I mixed acrylic paint with fabric textile printing medium (binder). This kept the paints workable for longer.

My favourite method of creating pattern was by rotating a small square of sponge scourer. This gave a lovely rose pattern. Ideal for a first layer of print.

Twisting a zig-zagged cardboard comb in round swirling patterns gave a good effect, and hand drawn scribbles with a rubber blending tool was very successful as a final print.

Lime green paint was not very noticable over layers - very subtle, however I did find it useful for bringing prints back to a lime colour if the had gone too 'milky'.



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Spirals created on the computer in Illustrator.

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 Spirals created on the computer in Photoshop

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My current thought for an accessory is a bracelet, spiralling around the lower, or even upper arm, with a beaded chain somehow loosely spiralling and hanging, inspired by Orbit???????



Module 3 Chapter 1 - Research for Spirals - Man Made & Natural

NATURAL SPIRALS

MAN-MADE SPIRALS

SPIRAL DRAWINGS

SPIRAL RUBBINGS

 

the rubbing on the left is from the back of a chair, top right is a home-made rubbing plate made from spiralled string glued to card, bottom right is a rubbing from a fire surround.