My BA Textiles Experience: Stitch

Stitch
Technical block 2
(Monday 14th Nov-Thursday 24th November)

Final Stitch samples based on drawing of Big birds eyes

Monday 14th November:

I've been really excited to try out the stitch technical block as this is what I initially thought would be my speciality, & I fell in love with it at the Chelsea open day, but the first day seemed extremely stressful and work-overloading,(i'm starting to think my textiles ability isn't good enough). Isabel spent the day discussing 'stitch' & spoke to us one by one, looking through the work we had produced, and deciding on one drawing that we could use throughout the stitch block (shown at the end of this entry). We were then each given a technique that would be the starting point to begin our project. (notes in my Pop-up 1 notebook)
'The key is multiples'

Tuesday 15th November:

Today we were sent fabric shopping to Shepherds Bush, Goldhark Road. (store A1)-aim,to buy about 25cm worth of three types of boring fabrics we could spice up in our two week stitch block. The selection was overstimulating and resulted in me buying 6 kinds of fabric!
(swatches in pop-up 1 notebook)

Wednesday 16th November:
Wednesday we were left to began to create out initial try out samples,

Technique provided- Quilting to recreate the padded effect of Big Bird

Tuffter machine- to recreate the fluffy effect of Big Birds Fur

Burning wholes in polyester

distressing polyester with heat to cause crinkles like those in my drawing

gathering fabric to create 3D effect

Fraying fabric creates furry effect

Piping - Creates 3D stitches

Tubing filled with pipe cleaner & heat pressed flat

Same as the above in multiples & bound together

melted beads in shape an colour of drawings

Cut tubing wrapped with coloured yarn & shape of drawings

Thursday 17th November
First tutorial with Isabel today, looking through our initial samples to monitor progress and where we should go next, she said that my work was highly experimental and I have put a lot of effort into what I've done but should focus on the work with the final tubing wrapped in coloured yarn and forget all other experimental work. I was advised to stick to colours used & add yellow as it is the main colour used in work & drawings, to keep a balance between fury tubes & normal, to create different shapes with them and to use glue to keep colours from blending together.

Four of my working samples

Tuesday 22nd November:
Yesterday I produced more of the wrapped tubes and put them together in a number of ways to create interesting designs and begin the elimination process. Today I was given my second tutorial where Isabel looked at my working designs. Rather than using all of the colours at one time like I have done here, I should separate them into groups and then start working on final four ready for final completion Thursday.