Stitch, Colour and Iron

I start today with an image that does not involve stitching but I accidentally omitted it from my last post

This piece was folded and then wrapped around a pipe. I then wrapped string around the pipe and scrunched the fabric down as you would as if you were going to shibori a piece of fabric.

The fabric was then steamed for about 20 mins. It was allowed to dry before the string was removed.

This piece was pleated on a Princess pleater and after steaming I removed all the threads. Then the piece was washed in a washing machine. I did this to see if this method created permanently pleated fabric and to my delight it does.

I have a book by Colette Wolff called the Art of Manipulating Fabric.

I have found this extremely useful for finding different ways of stitching fabric especially a chapter on smocking.

 If you google North American smocking there are lots of examples and You tube videos. I have used man made fabrics and then ironed them either with or without paper painted with disperse dye. When you stitch the fabric use normal sewing cotton which can easily be removed after the fabric is ironed.

Here is a piece of polyester chiffon that was printed and dyed before manipulating.

 I haven't found a use for this piece of fabric as the fabric is so soft that it will not hang. However it returns to shape as soon as you lay it flat. I have used the same method with other firmer fabrics that have been used successfully.

The image on the left is the back of the fabric and on the right the front of the fabric.

A piece of fabric was coloured yellow, stitched and then ironed with a piece of paper painted with scarlet disperse dye. Then the thread was removed.

Below the fabric was first coloured using paper coloured with disperse dye. The fabric was stitched, covered with a piece of paper painted with black disperse dye and ironed

I hope you will join me on Friday when I will look at paper lamination on polyester.