Week 3 - Yvonne Watson

Hi Yvonne Watson here with my samples of parallel lines.

First of all I experimented with a piece of muslin and stitched a few lines along folds on the fabric.

I then dyed the fabric with a dilute mixture of Lemon Yellow and Magenta.

When the fabric was washed and dried I undid the stitching, ironed the fabric and re-stitched along some of the white lines. I stitched a couple more lines and then dyed the fabric again with Turquoise.

I’m sorry I don’t have a “before” photo but here is the “after.”

I envisage this being used as a background for more printing. It is a lighter colour than the photo shows. Whilst it didn’t really show the stitches it suited my idea to have lines that might appear in rocks in a landscape.

Next I experimented with stitching petal shape, which is normally repeated. However I decided work on one largish shape only until I had mastered the stitching. I was pleased with the result.

Many moons ago I had drawn the following with the intention of using it for stitch 

However I thought it might make an interesting motif for experimenting with stitching along the fold.

I drew a circle in the centre of my fabric and another around the edge for guidelines. I then drew lines where I wanted the stitching to go and stitched along the folded lines. I reduced the number of lines as I thought there were too many to sew successfully

I decided that this might be interesting in repeat so I have manipulated the image in Photoshop and come up with this, which I think, might make a Thermofax.

Experiment number four involved two different kinds of stitching along the fold.

I stitched along folds and I pulled up the threads as I went along. This made it difficult to sew new lines and this was the result.

Whilst not all of the stitches resisted the dye I really liked the marks that the stitches made and this made me think about how else I might use this technique.

Trees came to mind and so the first tree was overstitched along the folds.

The fabric was then dyed using black dye. I was not all that happy with the result, as there is not enough contrast. I think this is more to do with my dyeing method than the stitch.

The second tree below was stitched along the fold but this time I used a running stitch close to the fold. This seems to be easier to draw up really tight so I think this is a better result.

The marks made by the over stitched lines - maki –nui reminded me of skeletons. Not sure why but maybe it’s just that time of the year!! So I set about trying to sew two figures one for each of the type of stitch.

Sorry I only have the photo of the over sewn stitched figure before dyeing.

Here are the two resulting figures using a running stitch close to a fold Fig 1 (left) and a whipped stitch close to the fold. Fig 2 (right)

I like these and it opens up the possibilities of lots more room to experiment with more figures.

I have learnt a great deal from these experiments not least it has made me re- assess the way I dye my fabric.

Yvonne