Project 8 - Stage 2 - Exercise 3 - Binding

Exercise 3

I began this exercise by making a square frame of kebab sticks and binding them together with wire.  Keeping the brief in mind I wrapped it with different threads, from the very fine machine cotton to a yarn made from strips of my sons old t-shirt, also whilst thinking of the light and space between the threads I decided that some sheer ribbons would add interest.  I was pleased with the results, it's quite pretty, easy on the eye, non-offensive, but it's not terribly exciting or inventive or creative, so I decided to up my game a bit.

I moved on to making some more of these samples and trying to make them a little more interesting.

First I made a thick braid of the recycled t-shirt fabric which I them wrapped with beading wire, mainly to join the ends together, but also to stiffen the whole thing and give it a bit more body.  Next I began wrapping the whole the with rounds and rounds of self patterning fair isle yarn.  Unfortunately the whole thing wasn't as stable as I thought it was going to be and as the wrapping went on the nice triangle I'd started with had become a sort of squashed fang,

My second sample was made in the same way but using a mice thick braid, made from 4 ply jute, around the outside, because it's such a thick yarn to begin with I decided to forego any sort of stiffening and so to join it I wrapped the ends heavily in a finer jute string.  Once the frame was ready I wrapped the whole structure with lots of different 'natural' yarns, jute, sisal and hemp.  This time what began as a circle became more heart shaped but I don't mind the distortions at all, and this one in particular feels more organic because of them.

Finally I decided to make a really solid frame, one that I was pretty sure wouldn't suffer too much distortion from being wrapped.  I went with a really thick copper jewellery wire which I formed into a rectangle and taped the ends together, I meant to go back and find a more permanent solution than sellotape but I just couldn't come up with one, other than getting out the soldering iron!  I wrapped my rectangle frame with some thinner red beading wire, I was unhappy with the way this left jaggy edges sticking out from the frame, but it did give the following layers of wrapping some grip on the otherwise 'slippy' copper frame.  I wrapped another layer of red metallic embroidery thread which did slide about along the copper edges and bunched together leaving gaps so I followed it with another layer of wrapping, this time in a thick red/pink variegated yarn.  I really like this sample, but it has proved incredibly difficult to photograph accurately, my camera seems unable to handle the bright red yarn at all!