Thursday, 21 March 2013

Unit X: Today I am Inspired! ( Part 2: Embellisher Induction)

And lo! Like some divine intervention, this morning's lecture was followed by an induction into the embellisher in the embroidery department. I was a bit sceptical about using the embellisher, having seen some of the samples floating around the studio (one of the benefits of the new art and design building is that you get to take a peek at what the textiles students get up to!) as the result looked a little too messy and  resembled too much of crafts projects for my liking. But from today's session I can see its a great way of merging together different fabrics and fibres and I must admit, I had far too much fun doing it! Check out the samples below.



For these samples, I was interested in only embellishing portions of the stands of yarn and fabric layered on top of the base of felt. I purposely left parts of the yarns loose so that the create an extra layer to the overall fabric. I was also interested in working with different textures and densities such as the use of a solid silk fabric in contrast to loose wool fibres to see how they would work together. I love how there are many layers to the final surface as wisps of trapped fibres seem to float outwards as though in suspended motion. 

For today, we were limited to working with the fabrics and yarns that the department already had in their cut-offs box. But I can see the potential in the technique to work with both natural and synthetic fibres. I am particularly interested in layering fabrics of different densities and possibly working with alternative materials such as paper and plastics. These materials wont necessarily blend in with the base fabric because there aren't any fibres that can be felted together but nevertheless I am curious to see what happens. 


No comments:

Post a Comment