Wednesday, September 23, 2015

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.








8 comments:

  1. Great results. I have Colette's book, I'll have to take another look at it.

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  2. Great use of fabric manipulation with added surface design techniques. I especially love the last two photos (one in red - right and the black one)

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  3. Colette's book is a classic reference for fabric manipulation. It is a real plus to anyone's textile library. You are doing some interesting work. Thanks for sharing.

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  4. Exciting results with the heat and disperse dyeing! I bought that book twice knowing each time it was a classic covering the subject thoroughly. My daughter was quite happy to benefit from my embarrassing shopping mistakes.

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  5. So interesting! Thanks for taking the time to educate us.

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  6. Wow, who knew you can do so much with these techniques.

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  7. Oh wow on the black over dye!
    Wonderful ideas coming to mind here.
    Sandy in the UK

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