For this exercise I had to decide on a shape and use whatever material I liked to make a structure that held together.
To say it was a difficult birth would be something of an understatement.
I chose to use a triangle mainly because the next piece of work will probably be a rectangle. Each side of the triangle was made with three wooden barbeque skewers. I stuck the angles I made with hot glue.
I had two attempts at binding it to give myself something to sew on to but I wasn't happy.
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| My first attempt was so twee it was untrue |
My second try was bound in plastic strips and was no better. I striped it all down and thought again. I used the spaces between the three skewers to hold some split bamboo strips in place. They were from an old table mat. I wove them into a grid that looked pretty boring so I moved the strips so they were no longer regular.
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| Weaving into a grid |
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| Knocking the strips about a bit gave a much better effect |
I used each side of the triangle as a base and threaded through. I liked the way the strips adhered to the backing of the table mat leaving cotton threads so I decided to tie the intersections with thin wool. It's hard to see on the photo.
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| Showing the intersections tied with wool |
I tied all the intersections on the triangle and just a few major ones in the body of the work. When I'd
finished it was relatively stable so I took a big breathe and removed one, then two then all of the glued joints and it held together. The shapes revealed are intriguing with no two the same. It really is just stick and string.
I like the way the ends project from the frame. They have a "what next" quality. At some angles you would hardly believe there was a frame at all. It wouldn't stand lots of rough treatment but it's not really going to get any.
After a fair bit of angst at the start of this work I'm pleased with the outcome. At the beginning of the course I would have thought my twee starter triangle was pretty adventurous. How far I have travelled.
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