Project 6 - Manipulating

 For this section, all of my experiments were based on some drawings I did during our  May French trip of a bulb of new seasons garlic.  Most of my reading was from the Colette Wolff book, Manipulating Fabric, which I really loved, it's so incredibly useful.   I tried out some quilting, slashing, tearing, tucking, padding, furrowing, gathering, moulding and pleating.  I apologise for the incredibly bad photos, they were taken in a huge rush while I was trying to pack up my kids and I for coming back over to France a couple of weeks ago and I didn't realise quite how bad they were until I saw them now!

My first experiment was with quilting, combined with slashing and tearing, through layers of purple sheer, green cotton and white felt  stitched in a grid and then slashed and cut and torn to expose the layers beneath.  Next I tried out stitching some shapes and them stuffing them with wool roving to pad them.  I liked this effect but found it very difficult to not end up with all the fabric puckered around the edges of the stitching.
I experimented with tearing strips from different sorts of green fabric and then some of them were couched and some threaded through some holey hessian.  I really like the texture that tearing fabric leaves, the rough edges and the loose threads.

Below are some machine stitched tucks, almost in straight lines!

Following the instructions for furrowing from the Colette Wolff book I made this sample stitching a larger piece of scrim to a smaller piece of calico to create interesting dips and bumps.  I really do love this, the depth of texture that is achievable is wonderful, I can see myself using this method a lot in the future.

Some manipulations using the moulding technique of shaping a synthetic fabric around a former and then steaming or heating it.  I found this technique a bit hit and miss and wasn't overly happy with the results.  i had my most success from using a marble as a former.

I tried out many gathering techniques on different kinds of fabric.  The most interesting result, I believe, was using a synthetic turquoise velvet, the end result was so smooth it really brings to mind a liquid.

 For my final Project 6 sample I stuck with my garlic bulb drawings as inspiration and chose to interpret one fairly literally.  The drawing that I liked the best was that of the end of the garlic bulb and looking through the Colette Wolff book gave me lots of ideas about how I could recreate this sort of shape in fabric.  My initial idea was to use graduated tucks in a circular pattern but as I read on I realised that I was perhaps being a bit over ambitious, especially as I struggle to machine straight lines most of the time!  The technique I settled on in the end was gathering.  It seemed to offer all I needed while at the same time not being too fiercely complicated for me to execute well.  I thought that perhaps I would make the gathered shape and then mount it into a piece of calico with a window cut out so that both sides were visible like some of the examples I saw in the book but once I had finished sewing the garlic shape I felt that this step was going to be unnecessary and so I left it as a free standing piece.

 After reading through the section on gathering I decided on a 'yo-yo'  I wanted to create the colour of the garlic as well as the shape and so on a base of a 30cm circle of calico I quilted down layers of sheers.. Firstly a layer of a white sheer that looked a little like a very thin seersucker, then a purple polyester and finally a green metallic organza.  On each layer I used a matching metallic machine thread to stitch 'rays' back and forward across the centre of the circle, not only to attach the fabric but also to enhance the texture and the feeling of the folds in the garlic bulb radiating out form the centre.  When all of the layers were in place I took my embroidery scissors to it and started slashing through some of the layers.  I've since thought that perhaps using a heat gun to zap away some of the green and purple fabric may have worked but I am quite happy with the result from the slashing.  Once the base was made I hand stitched a large loose running stitch around the perimeter of the circle and then gathered the whole lot with trepidation into a circular yoyo puff.  I was so relieved that it had worked!  I stitched a base for my garlic from wool felt with embroidery on it to create the details of the garlic bulb.  

Overall I am so pleased with the whole thing, I didn't really expect that it would turn out so pretty but I'm thrilled that it did. This is the project I have been most pleased with so far

This part of the course has been so enjoyable for me after the horror of assignment 2.  I feel filled with enthusiasm again and ready to race on to assignment 4, just as soon as I get home to all my supplies :)