Date again - 2/9/18

I feel as if I should post today, the date being 2/9/18.

I have been trying to come up with something for my Art Deco Now! theme. It is still not inspiring me hugely. But I have come up with a challenge for myself.

Having done a Kay Khan class a couple of years ago, having someone in our machine embroidery group (Chris Beehag) who does beautiful vessels, in a similar way, and having looked up lots of images, I have decided to see if I can make my own vessel.

So far, all I have is the inspirational image, found on Pinterest. There are so many images on Pinterest that it becomes a little overwhelming.

link here

I have used this image and a combination of others to come up with my template.
It is in pieces as I think I will do it a piece at a time and see how it goes.

I will have to work out how to actually make it stand as the template currently has no stable base - but that is for later.

The idea is to have separate bits for it so that it might be useful as a storage thing - textiles needing to be useful, or so people seem to think, given the question they often ask: What is if for?
That might be totally out of my ability range, hence the decision to start with the central piece only and see if I can make that much.

I have some old samples from furnishing books that someone was throwing out. I think they will be the surface of the central piece. I haven't actually got around to doing any of that detail yet, I am still at the stage of realising I need a front, back and sides design.
Waste not, want not - as they say.

I am finding this a bit daunting as most of the images I am using as inspiration are black and white, which do absolutely nothing to inspire me!! But the left-over bits of fabric are colourful, giving me some inspiration.

Making a vessel

Well, the vessel is made. Now to think what on earth I might do with it.
It took a bit of thinking to actually finish it.
I had sewn the paper layers to the thick background. I cut out a shape that I thought would stand up - but didn't actually measure it carefully or find any templates.
I cut out the two pieces, making sure that they were exactly (as much as I could manage) the same shape as each other.

I cut the strips to be the gusset.  The strips weren't big enough to go all the way around so I zigzagged them together, as we had been taught at the Kay Kahn workshop.

I cut some fabric on the bias to be the binding, I even remembered to print on the fabric using the acrylic paints and print block that I had used on the papers.

Then I sewed it to the side pieces and the gusset. I totally forgot that you were supposed to pin the gusset to the sides to measure the actual length you wanted, cut it to the correct size and THEN finish off the binding.

Being the patient person I am, I carefully cut off the ends I had sewn and resewed the bindings on the correct length gusset. No swearing involved at all!!
I remembered that Kim had said to coat the final layer of paper with acrylic wax, which I dutifully did.

It seems to have dulled it all down a bit. Next time, if there is a next time, I will try Golden Gel medium, which she said we could use instead. I painted the acrylic wax on the paper parts, not the fabric.
Today I spent a couple of hours sewing the pieces together and I am very grateful that I didn't put the acrylic wax on the fabric, it was hard enough to sew as it was.
Ta da!!

It stands up but not all that securely, I will have to be careful what I put in it. More research is needed on finding stable vessel designs. 

Experimenting with the two workshop processes.

I'm still working on combining my Kay Kahn and Kim Thittichai workshops.
I had a book of furniture fabric samples that I got years ago and I took a couple of pieces out to use in the support layers of Kay Kahn's technique.. I also had some felt from several years ago -no wonder I find it hard to throw things out!! I sewed them together, as we had been shown in the workshop. The size was determined by the sample pieces of fabric which were the same width as the newspaper page - very convenient. They were roughly square, so that is the shape I have ended up with.

Two layers of commercial felt sandwiched between two layers of furniture fabric. 

                                                    

The paper layer ready to be sewn on.

So I cut my paper 'fabric' to size and sewed it onto the four-layered background.  The paper layers stood up to the sewing, I had wondered  if it would cause perforations that might weaken it but so far so  good.

            

Kay Kahn workshop

I was lucky enough to attend a two day workshop with Kay Kahn on the weekend. She is a lovely teacher, patient, generous with her ideas and clear in her instructions. As it was only a two day workshop, she prepared some of it for us beforehand.

We laid out fabrics onto the base, sewed them on securely and decoratively.

Then we cut out the shapes we wanted. Kay didn't give out any notes which meant that she had to repeat her instructions over and over again as we all got to different stages at different times. We also had to design our own vessels. This was a challenge for me as I didn't have any clear idea of what I wanted to achieve. But it didn't matter, Kay could cope with any challenge. I stuck to a very simple design as it was my first attempt at this sort of work.

My small sewing machine, that I purchased for taking to classes, struggled a little with some of the thicker areas. I had only taken cotton threads and they broke - repeatedly!!! But, having learnt a lot more patience since taking up tapestry weaving, I persevered. Because I threaded the machine more times than I have ever done (I am not sure I am not exaggerating!), I didn't quite finish. But all I have to do is sew it together by hand - and we were given a very good demonstration of how to do that too.

Of course, I got the usual questions about fibre art - what is it FOR?  How will I use it? etc. Not to worry, I just ignored those questions.  It is ART.

I am going to the Fibre Arts at Ballarat this week, doing a different class. Kay will be teaching there too. I will be very interested to see what the students can achieve with so much extra time - 4 and half days.