2 February

Well it's been a while since I posted here, but you know how it is being busy with with Christmas preparations, working frantically for project hand-in, plus I had a long-planned holiday in Finnish Lapland, so posting took a bit of a back seat I'm afraid.

I thought I would show some of the work done so far. The project brief was to build on the work done in sketchbooks applying these drawings to produce a variety of printed and constructed samples.
The techniques included screen-printing, transfer printing, embroidery, applique, cut and slash. knitting, crochet, weaving, dyeing and lino cut and poly-printing. Quite a lot to cover!
Here are a few of the images from my sketchbook as starters.

I decided to go for the pine cones and artichoke as a basis for my screen-printing. It wasn't an ideal choice as once the screens were done I found the options rather limiting. Nevertheless I really enjoyed the process (apart from having to clean the screens between every print if I wanted a colour separation) and had a great time trying to get the colours I'd chosen.

For this project I'd finally gone for a mix of blues, magenta, ecru and a sort of browny fawn as a colour palette reminiscent of my Venice trip.

I also wanted to try using different materials to work with including sheers and PVC and had a few mishaps along the way (such as starting to clean the screen whilst the fabric was still underneath), but eventually I managed to get some serviceable prints. The next step was to add to them in some way either using embroidery, layering, knitting, or in some cases just using the colour palette.

One thing I was looking forward to was doing some free motion embroidery. Disaster struck! I bought a new machine and was assured it would be fine for purpose - it wasn't. The needle shank didn't lift high enough to get an embroidery hoop under so I had to try to get the bottom ring in, then the fabric, then the top ring and tighten up. It would only do a couple of stitches and the darning plate would bounce up and everything went haywire. I tried with and without the darning foot - you name it, I tried it before eventually giving up in despair. Eventually any embroidery done had to be hand sewn or using the standard decorative machine stitches.

print with added hand embroidery and quilting

Here below are some of the samples and finished work.

knit with wrapped yarn couched down

embroidery on canvas 

hand made felt with embroidery

appliqued screen-print with machine and hand stitch

weave with added beads

screen-printed background with embroidered sheer fabric overlaid

printed PVC with added metallic fabric paint

screen and transfer-printed synthetic cut and woven

crochet, cut and slash with machine stitch, printed PVC with hand stitch

print with added hand stitch and knit

printed PVC with reverse appliqued knitting incorporating beads

printed background with crochet

These are just a small sample. I could hardly believe how much there was when I collected everything together. Felt I needed the holiday after that!

The next project seems really exciting - exploring the manipulating, moulding and transforming fabrics into 3D form to produce either a piece of wearable art or an interior object. The choice of themes is either Gothic Luxe, Military or Futuristic. Initially I went for Gothic Luxe but my research and initial drawings now seem to be heading towards Futuristic. I'll post more soon.