Fossils piece continued.

I have been putting silk roving (or whatever it is called) into loosely curled shapes and then laying some water soluble fabric over the top. I copied the design onto the soluble fabric to assist me in the sewing, my freehand sewing is not that good.

I tried some in a hoop. At first I didn't put the soluble fabric from side to side but that wasn't entirely successful, I needed pins to hold it in place.  So then I did two at once in the hoop. 

 I cut the extra soluble fabric away before washing it as I didn't want the piece to be too stiff. The soluble is relatively difficult to get rid of entirely and does change the hand of the fabric.

 Here it is dried out. I used chiffon for the background piece, then a layer of silk hankie (not an actual handkerchief. I think it is a cocoon pulled out into a flat piece that has many layers and then you can peel those layers apart for really thin pieces of silk).

 Then I decided not to use any background fabric. I just laid out the silk roving and put it between two layers of soluble fabric. It might have been easier to use the see-through soluble but I don't have any and I do have a reasonable amount of the other. I am still trying to use up my stash.

I was going to try to sew one without the soluble fabric as it does get flattened and stiffer but the thought of all that loose silk under the needle seemed too challenging. So that experiment can wait for another day - or another life.

Anyway, they are coming along. I just have to work out how to attach them to a background. And make the background first!

This one is quite small, it is lying not the floor beside the heating, drying. 

It has been enjoyable playing with the ideas. Also, because they are all separate pieces, they can easily be discarded, or used differently, if they don't work out properly.

Thread Vase Thingy

The next assignment for my Machine Embroidery as an Art Form course is asking us to use 3D techniques.
I have been playing around with some ideas in this category already so am very happy to be trying more techniques.

We were given notes about a way to make a template from an existing object that I tried.  I chose a vase that I like as the template.  The vase has a narrower top than middle, so it was good to play around with, it is not one that you could mould the fabric onto and then slide the vase out.

I covered the vase with masking tape, each layer perpendicular to the previous.  I think I did about 5 layers. Then I got out some sharp embroidery scissors and cut through the tape.  I was a bit worried about scratching the vase, so I used a seam ripper to cut through the tape.

It wasn't a very exact template as I just ripped it away.  I am sure I could do a more symmetrical one if I concentrated.  But perfection isn't my goal, so the one I ended up with is fine.

Then I took an old paper bag that I had saved and used it to stick the template onto - it was a good size, bigger than the normal paper size, and sturdy.

I then laid out the soluble fabric on top and traced the template.  I used a permanent marker but it didn't all wash out properly, so I will try a different marker next time.  I think I may have had this problem previously but my most recent 3D works were in black, white and grey and it didn't show up.

Then I free motion sewed over the arms of the template, and the circular bottom.  I tried to make them all similar density as that can affect the shrinkage rate.  I wasn't entirely successful with this, some bits are shorter than others after washing out and drying.

I laid it out over the vase to dry, in hopes of getting a flat bottom.  As it had shrunk, it wouldn't fit on the vase very well.

When it dried, the bottom seemed much softer than the rest.  I'm not sure if I didn't sew it as thickly or if I had used a different fibre for the lighter pink that went up the sides.  Or I might have rinsed it out unevenly.

I hand sewed the arms together.  At first I used the embroidery thread but, after a very frustrating time, I changed to cotton that doesn't just slip straight out again!!!!  And it would't stand up at all.

The next morning I could see that there were little bits that the soluble fabric had left and they were looking shiny and annoying.  So I ran it under the water again and found a flat container that I could dry it on.  Lo and behold, it stands up now!  And doesn't have the annoying shiny bits.

I'm not sure what I will do with it, it is an experiment at this stage - really, a sample for the course.  It is suggesting a floral theme to me, maybe a bell-shaped flower.  I might follow that up, I might not.

I Should Be Working!!!

It's that time of the year, when all assignments are due in and we are preparing our presentations of our work.  Everyone is tired, distracted and busy.  I should be working right now.

I am in between tasks and need a break to reset the brain - and I am nearly missing my self-imposed task of at least one blog a week.  I think  I have finished all the making, well, for the RMIT course at least, and now have to make sure I have done all the fiddly bits of paper work that have to be handed in.  I need a good rest before I get into that mindset.

In the meantime, I have started to work on the final project for my SWTAFE course, Machine Embroidery as an Art Form. I have been playing around with making bowls.  I think my final work is going to be in machine lace but need to do a bit more experimenting.  I especially need to work on how to stiffen the lace but not lose the lustre.  So far I have stiffened my work but it is a bit dull.

I made a bowl that I thought would be easy and fairly quick - is anything quick with machine lace?
Anyway, I decided to be a good girl and recycle my cut off bits of thread from my other machine sewing.  They were all sitting in a container, looking lovely.

I drew a circle on a piece of MacRinse (water soluble vilene) and laid the threads out in the circle.  Then I pinned another layer of MacRinse over the top and put it into a hoop.  I couldn't see the threads as I wanted to use a thick soluble fabric and thought it wouldn't matter.  I used free motion sewing to keep it all together.  This was a good chance to use up all those bits left on spools.  I just put the spools on the top and bottom and didn't worry about having slightly different colours in them.

The pink spiral is photographed from the top and all seemed to be going well.  Then there were some strange noises and bumpy sewing.  When I checked the bottom it looked like I had bad tension or had tangled the threads.  But, upon closer inspection, it turned out that the loose threads were being pushed out the back by the sewing.  I have turned the solvy over to try to redistribute this effect, in case it was obvious (it wasn't in the end).

I was worried that I had gone a bit overboard with the free motion sewing and that it wouldn't be transparent enough but when I held it up to the window it seemed ok.

I am a bit disappointed with the way the colours have come out and think it would have been better to have used transparent soluble so that I could work with the colours a bit better.  It also still has a fair bit of the soluble not rinsed out, to give it body, and I think that is dulling the colours.
So now I think I had better do what I should have done in the first place, and make some smaller samples that I can try various stiffeners on - but that would be too organised and orderly.  It will all have to wait till later now, I have to get all my other work done first, then move on to this.

Continuing to Play

I have continued to play with some ideas that might work Design Concepts and Applications, one of my subjects this year, where we are looking at Biomimicry - not that we are about to invent any fabulous new way of doing things - and I have been looking at the way plants spread out: how they branch out to fill a space, how they attach themselves to other plants, or to their own branches, and twine around.
I have been wanting to try some of the products that I have seen advertised or used in other projects, so I have tried to make some backgrounds and some of the designs.

Here is an example I made using hot water soluble sheets, I laid out some yarns between sheet of soluble fabric and then did zigzag over them.  I tried to leave a little of the gluey substance when I was rinsing out so that there would be some stiffness to the work.

For the background,  I have used some heat shrinking fabric that you attach to the cotton with a grid of some sort, that you sew on, and then steam the plastic sheeting so that it shrivels and causes the fabric to buckle.  I am not sure what I might use this for but it could be a very interesting background to one of my plant pieces.