HND Textiles and Fashion – Week 25

We started off the week printing off our collographs on both prepared papers:

 

 And textile surfaces:

We then explored a number of other surface decoration techniques including:

• Applying wax directly to the surface
• Using wax as a dye resist
• Monoprinting
• Antique pleati
• Using bondaweb to recreate a design
• Flocking using bondaweb – white on white looked super sophisticated
• Gathering & ruffles

While Wednesday got us started on the design for fashion and fashion illustration. I found this really alien and difficult until I found a template and model styling that I felt inspired by. Really looking for something a little bit quirky and fun – the Orla Kiely lookbook is proving an excellent source of inspiration:

Doll making workshop with Jennie Loudon

This weekend I had the wonderful pleasure of attending a doll making workshop with Jennie Loudon at the Out of the Blue studios in Leith, Edinburgh.

The dolls are fantastical with real personalities, and have a similar feel to the puppets from the animated film The Nightmare before Christmas with their elegant, elongated limbs. We were all provided with patterns to make either a doll or mermaid, and an impressive selection of fabrics and embellishments to make the doll. I went for a floral upholstery weight fabric for her lovely long arms and calico for her torso and ample bosom! Her hair was finished off with fleece needle felted on, and a wee skirt gave her some element of modesty…

Manos del Uruguay scarf

Inspired by Jane at yarnstorm’s post I have been making my own mock weave scarf from the pattern on Sheep in the city and found here.

I had bought the Manos del Uruguay yarn at Loop in London a couple of years ago, dashing in to this gorgeous boutique just before getting on the train at King’s Cross to get back up to Edinburgh. I had to buy more on-line to make sure I had enough and it arrived wrapped in pink tissue, dramatically brightening up my day and filling it with inspiration.

I just fell in love with the colour – a deep pink and rust combination, reminding me of the richness and deliciousness of cherries.

And looked very interesting placed on apple prints

Anyway once I go knitting I found the scarf was coming out quite chunky. As a result it sits really well next to the neck and I decided to make a short scarf with a feature vintage button which really shows off the beautiful yarn:

HND Textiles and Fashion – Week 24

We were kept busy with a wide variety of activities this week:

Collographs

Starting off we made a number of Collograph printing blocks using found objects such as cardboard, netting, lace, packaging, rice, lentils, pasta. These were all stuck onto a cardboard base to make a raised collage which could be used for printing. To make the print blocks more robust the collographs were varnished with three layers of quick drying varnish. Interestingly the blocks themselves are beautiful as objects in their own right.

We will be printing next Monday…

Surface techniques

1. Felt making – sampling a sheet of handmade white felt, and a piece of nuno felt using muslin with a felt grid laid over the top.

2. Bonding fabrics using the embellisher – worked best with two pieces of felt but also experimented with bonding over locking thread.

4. Experimenting with aqua film to create a thread grid (based on architecture), an edge design and a ‘bridge’ between 2 sheets of fabric.

5. Prairie pointswhich originate from quilting but have lots of scope for adding details to my upcoming shirt design, and for experimenting with folding and origami techniques.