Sampling

I felt it would be interesting to develop my sampling in a non-digital way to see which I preferred, so I began by creating a collar shape out of plain cotton and painting a horse character with inks. I then quilted the horse using special machine quilting needles and black cotton thread.

I need to work on this further with embellishments and non-flat colour. I do like the use of stitched words to echo the narrative of the piece. In this case 'round and round we go'.

I think to explore the non-digital ways of creating a character/ accessory piece I could sublimation print various textures such as laces etc onto fabrics as well as actually quilting and embroidering to create layers.  Within my drawings I use small dots to build shape and texture but I could replace this in a non digital sample with small circles of machine stitch, beading and sequins or French knots.

Working on a finished piece

From my initial samples I have developed an idea that I want to create a collar/ draping neck adornment as one of my samples. This differs from my original plan which is not a problem because without that idea I may not have come to this conclusion. 

I have been experimenting with machine stitch, eliminating fabric via melting, beading and embroidery techniques.  It is very time consuming but I was so please with the result of my initial sampling that I wanted to refine and push it further.

For this piece I used my yellow fish print on polyester glazier and started zig-zag stitching with polyester cotton (because it's meltable) to create an outline based on the shapes of fish and fins. I then worked into it with stitch using metallic and standard threads to create a scale like appearance. After this process I used a soldering iron to melt patches away, in turn creating an alternative lace type appearance.  I started to add the sequins and pearls and then I had to pause and play around with placing shapes on the mannequin again.

Trying out shaped piece

Hand Embroidering sequins and beads

Playing around with background prints, it needed to be simple so I decided to leave the matching print as a possibility but focus on the embellishment.  Using an older sample on the right shoulder to get an ideaa of what works.  It needs to be more balanced than this, more symetrical.


I had been experimenting with using second hand crochet in my marbling so I started playing around with using this as a symetrical shape to the other side of my collar. I like the juxtaposing elements of the nearly solid polyester and the lacey crochet, even though they are almost symetrical in shape.

The print as the background here could be too much, will leave as an option and not attach.

I felt the shape of the polyester piece needed something extra so I tried out my seahorse print as an add on. It went on from here.

Slowly creating more balance in the lines

 

Imagining what kind of costume sleeve this could make....mermaid skin!

 

 

I started building up suffolk puffs on the shoulders stuffing them and leaving them flat so as to make the most of their two alternative qualities -of pleats and smoothness.

 

 

Finished Collar