Project 6 Stage 4

Raised and structured textures

There seem to be as many ways to shape fabric as there are days in the year, perhaps more.  In the past I've used many of the techniques I've been researching in dressmaking.  It's usually been for purely practical things like setting sleeves or gathering a skirt onto a waistband.  Sometimes I've used it decoratively as in smocking but that's been rare.  I've never really considered that what appear to be only functional techniques could be used decoratively.

I've used a brilliant book called The Art of Manipulating Fabric by Colette Wolff (1996) and Stitch Magic By Alison Reid (2011).

Gathering

"Gathering converts the edge of a piece of fabric into mini-folds bunched together on thread stitched close the the edge".  (Wolff, 1996)

To begin this section I've chosen to use an old poly cotton sheet because it doesn't matter how much I use.  I want to use the same fabric for everything so that I can see exactly what happens with each manipulation I try.  Then I'll go back and try edited highlights with other fabrics.

I've cut lots of pieces each measuring 40cm by 23cm.  I've taken photos along the way but because the cotton blends well sometimes they are hard to follow.  For this reason I've made some pictures larger than I normally would.  All my stitching is by hand.

First I tried standard gathering with three evenly spaced rows of running stitch .5cm apart.  Below that I left a gap of about 3cm and repeated the first three lines again.

Below that I ran a two gathering threads .5cm apart that meandered across the fabric, left a variable gap and repeated it.

The straight rows 

The middle section - one straight, one meandering row

The next photo shows the meandering rows.  When the lines converged the fabric fell into more regular lines but as the lines of gathering parted there was a lovely bubbly effect

I pulled everything up really tightly

Encouraged by my success I thought I'd try some circles of gathering thread:

Circles of gathering

I did gathering stitches making ten circles placed at random on my fabric.  Most were single lines of stitch but on three I did a double row.  One was spaced wider than the rest. When I pulled them up  I was surprised at the difference the spacing made.

I decided to change one of the single thread circles into a triple thread circle and look what happened:

Some of the circles I pulled up tight and others I left quite slack.  Overall this is the result:

Front

Back

I can see this has real possibilities - closer circles, different size circles, coloured stitching, filled spaces; the permutations seem endless.

Next I thought I'd try a ruffle.  I cut two strips of fabric  (40cm x 8cm and 40cm x 4cm)  and ran two gathering threads down the middle of each one.  I pulled them both up so they measured 18cm and placed the smaller one on top of the larger one.  I anchored them together with a 3.5 stitch which left a little movement and removed the gathering threads.

The ruffle

I pulled it into a semi circle....

....and then a full circle

Completely by accident when I was making torn pieces of fabric my muslin puckered up and gave me this idea:

I used the threads of the fabric to gather along the length (three times) then I pulled up threads the other way as well.  Because I had no hope of finding which thread I was pulling I just got things to the halfway mark and stopped then pulled a thread from the other side.  This meant that I couldn't fasten anything off so when I'd finished I gave it a massive dose of spray starch and I'm hoping it holds things firmly enough.  It's one of the most effective things I've done for this section - dead easy and accidental.

Folding and pleating

"Pleats are measured folds formed at the edge of a piece of fabric where they are secured with stitching".  (Wolff,1996)


My first effort was doing some knife pleats, securing them at both the top and bottom and then pressing them well:

At the halfway mark I pulled the pleats to face the opposite way and got this lovely effect.  This could be used with closer spacing.  If I've time I might have a try.

I got so involved in the next example that I didn't take enough photos.  I stitched projecting pleats both vertically and horizontally then at the intersection pulled the fabric down to form something that looks like a sort of knot. In practical use these would probably need anchoring with a stitch.

Full instructions are in Reid, 2011 p 43-47.

Pleats can be used to manipulate the pattern on a fabric.  Here I used the stripe to determine where the pleats were placed.  The pleats are left unpressed as in curtains.

The fabric is a heavy linen and in a large piece like a curtain it would drape beautifully.  There are many curtain heading tapes that exploit the pattern of the fabric.

Tearing, fraying and slashing

Taking Kim Thittichai's faux chenille sample as inspiration (Layered Textiles, 2011, p72) I laid several pieces of fabric on top of each other and pinned and stitched them together with rows about 1cm apart.

 I then cut through all but the bottom layer.  I ruffled the result and got this.

Before much fraying

After fraying

The top layer is organza over a print and the effect is pretty stunning. 

The photo belies how effective this is. The toning organza over the print works very well.  The solidity of some of the fabrics below makes fraying quite difficult and I would have been better using  something a bit flimsier.

I decided to try the above method using painted newspaper as detailed in Kim's book.

Kim Thittichai's vase

My effort

I was really pleased with this.  It behaved in a completely different way to fabric; it stood up when bent and distressed brilliantly.  I will put it in my store because at some point it will be just what I need.



After this I decided to go natural.  I used hessian, muslin and silk organza.  I wanted everything to be minimal so I stitched with the fabric itself and tied knots. Everything that would tear was torn.

The muslin on the left is in short lengths and simply stitched through the hessian and knotted. he central strip which hangs from a thread is gathered with strips of silk organza.  The muslin on the right is my favourite because it bubbles and froths as it goes through the fabric.

This technique offers a lot of possibilities.  It would take a long time to develop the frothiness with any sort of stitch.

Tucks

Pintucks are little folds of fabric that sit on the fabric's surface (Reid, 2011).

I love the look of the tucks in my books especially the random, curved ones.  I don't have a special pintuck foot for my machine so I'll just stick to the basics. It seems that the projecting pleats I used earlier are really just big pintucks!

Because I was making tucks with just lines of stitching I made big ones knowing that accuracy was going to be a big issue.  I did 1cm tucks in my regular 40cm by 23cm piece of fabric.  This meant 1cm tucks and .5 gullies.

After my plain tucks I decided to satisfy my whim to put extra work into what I did for the projected pleats earlier.  First I placed the central line of stitching:

 

 Then I added four  more in alternate directions.

This was fiddly but very effective.

I've come to recognise all too well that accuracy is an absolute essential for pintucks.  With this is mind I think I'd better call a halt here because my next pintucks were a bit of a disaster.

I'm offering no excuses - just carelessness I'm afraid.  The tucks themselves were fat too chunky for the task required of them.  I would have been better off using some silk.

Quilting

I selected some white embroidered cotton covered it in white organza and used a backing of white sheeting.  My idea was to free machine on top of the embroidery already there in contrasting colours.  My machine didn''t like this idea and once again the bobbin tension let me down.   I had to revert to standard stitching and because I knew this would be far harder I used self coloured cotton because any glitches wouldn't be so obvious.  I cut away the organza.

The cotton material has small bobbles on and I planned to do further anchoring with French knots.  Out of all the colours of thread I have I found I'd no white.  Instead I used some small, clear glass beads instead and they look OK.  

I'm going to have to make a big effort to get my machine sorted for free stitching.  Having it so temperamental is really getting in the way of what I want to do.

Raised shapes

Of all the things I've been asked to try in this part of the course these last two are the ones that appealed to me the least.  I stitched a beer bottle top, a polystyrene ball (tied in) a cocktail stick and a taller top into the fabric.  I used the gathering technique again to do the tops and the cocktail stick was simply caught with a running stitch (effective).  For a softer, less pronounced effect I rolled a piece of plastic bag into a ball and stitched it from underneath.  I came to the task in a pretty negative frame of mind, didn't enjoy it so let it go.  I'm sure that if I ever consider it's the tool for the job I'll find a bit more enthusiasm.

Moulding

Still waiting for it to dry.

I enjoyed these tasks very much. After so much new stuff it was lovely to get back to an old skill and look at it in a new way.  I can see lots of opportunities for using some of the effects I have made.  They can provide textured backgrounds or make a stand alone piece.  Some of the work in Wolff (1996) is really exciting - I love the Italian smocking.

I chose to use a sheeting fabric because I wanted to see how the fabric worked with shadows and so on.  When I looked I found I'd very little by way of heavier fabric so that becomes a priority to buy.

Reid, A. 2011, Stitch Magic. A & C Black, London
Thittichai, K. 2011, Layered Textiles.  Batsford, London
Wolff, C. 1996, The Art of Manipulating Fabric. Krause Publications, Iola, Wisconsin