Chapter 11 continued

9th March 2011

First ideas for composition of resolved sample

I'm still at the early stages, but thought I'd post some of my ideas for the resolved sample, more as a way of organising my thoughts than anything else. (These are just rough ideas, mostly faked on Photoshop.)

Idea 1

My first thought was that growth and disintegration are processes and that I wanted to somehow indicate that movement or process, even in a static textile. I thought that each unit could contain a bird, distressed in a different way and that each unit could be made separately and joined by laced insertion stitch, so that it could be unlaced and separated into its consituent parts (disintegration), or re-joined to make a different composition (growth). I also considered other ways of joining, so that they could be separated and put together again.

Idea 2

My second idea was to have birds of different sizes, with a large bird shape cut away in smaller bird shapes to reveal disintegrated birds behind.

I liked the idea of a subtle echo of the shapes of the inside birds by applying small birds to the background, in matching fabric, just frayed and distressed a little at the edges.

Small bird shapes stitched a little way from the edge then frayed slightly.

Idea 3

I then thought that it might be interesting for some of the inside shapes to break through the edge of the big bird, thus disintegrating it more and giving opportunities for some counterchange. (This isn't actually counterchange, but gives the same impression.)

It would be quite difficult to have the birds disintegrated without the whole composition looking too busy.

Too busy!

It would be necessary to leave some plain areas to balance the distressed shapes.

There are elements of all three ideas that I would like to keep, so have not yet decided which to use. Maybe I need to do some more fabric samples and play about with different ways of disintegrating the small bird shapes.

I am also still interested in my very first idea I had in July, to layer up different fabrics and cut away, melt or dissolve away to reveal lower layers.

The hardest thing is not having the ideas, but in selecting which will work best. I think I'll sleep on it.

Chapter 11 - starting over

Chapter 11: Growth and Disintegration

9th March 2011

It's been so long since I posted anything on my blog that I've almost forgotten how to do it, but here goes. A new kitchen and major surgery for my husband sort of took up the last 6 months or more but now I've got back in harness and am enjoying my Distant Stitch work once again. Last time I more or less plunged into the middle of the chapter, so decided just to start over.

First I'll post the early rough samples, then the ideas for the considered sample in a separate post.

Disintegrating a square of paper

Disintegrating a square of fabric

(I'm afraid I was a bit careless with the glue here. It wasn't till I saw the photographs that I realised how the glue shines.)

Making a shape appear thinner

cutting a thinner shape

making the shape appear thinner with stitching

Making a shape appear less solid

Scraps of fabric and threads trapped between sheets of Bondaweb

Needlelace worked on top of bird shape

I love the different effects of making the shape appear to be less solid and would like to have a series of birds in my considered sample, with each bird being disintegrated in a different way. I like the idea of the birds being different sizes and not necessarily arranged in a regular grid. I like the conventional ideas of stitch and cutting away, but also intend to try some modern techniques, using dissolving and melting to distress the shapes. More of that later though.

Making a shape out of several smaller shapes