I started to formulate ideas for a 3D item at the end of Module 1 and have continued to develop them. In February I went on a cruise and spent time gazing at the water and the patterns made as the ship sailed through the ocean.
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Gentle shapes made by the waves.
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The shapes created as the water swirled down the side of the ship.
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The movement of the water, viewed from the stern of the ship.
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More patterns made by the water.
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Flying fish darting along side the the ship.
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Bleached coral I found on the beach in the British Virgin Islands. I went snorkelling over a coral reef and saw seafan coral, brain coral and staghorn coral. It was very exciting to see 'the real thing'.
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Sketches made from my finds.
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Experimenting with colour and stitching as the background for the bolero I intend to make. The background fabric will be faux silk backed with light weight, iron-on interfacing.
The mushroom corals were made by pleating strips of faux silk and painting them. I made the coral skeletons using dissolvable fabric. I rejected both ideas as the pleated circles would never be neat enough and the coral skeletons didn't look or feel right. The background stitching of waving lines was done with a twin needle. This made the fabric bunch up and distort too much. It would not have made a suitable fabric for making into a wearable jacket.
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| Star Sketch |
I used this sketch to help me work out how to stitch the centre of a coral polyp.
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This time, for the background, I stitched the lines with an automatic stitch and created 'sea urchin' circles. The finished sample was smoother but still had too many wrinkles for dress making. I made the star polyp from 1 cm wide strips of faux silk, ironed in half lengthways and hand stitched down the middle. The ribbon stands perpendicular to the background. The small floret is the same idea I used when making my embroidery samples in Module 1.
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I could see from the samples that my wavy lines were random and although I didn't want the pattern to appear too formal, I felt it needed some structure. The pattern above, drawn on tracing paper is 8 inches square and is a repeat pattern. The pattern will start on the centre back of the fabric and work out in all directions.
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This second repeat design fits over the design on page 10, however to avoid lines of circles, I started the adjacent squares of the design half way down the first one on either side.
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This overlay goes over the design on Page 10 and will act as a guide for the hand stitching.
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I have added further embellishments of seafan coral in feather stitch with pearls. I am also experimenting with plastic water bubbles, which are fairly flat and are glued to the surface at the moment. I have washed this sample in cold water and left it to drip dry. The thread florets needed a little rearranging, when wet. The small water bubbles stayed glued in place but the larger one became slightly loose after immersion in water. More experimentation required, will try washable PVA. The background here is still too wrinkled so I tried stitching with a triple needle instead. This produced a much flatter and less wrinkled effect, which surprised me and will be a suitable surface for dressmaking.
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This is the first layer of stitching on faux silk, using a triple needle and a loose repeat pattern of wavy lines. The fabric has wrinkled to an acceptable extent. I allowed extra fabric for the take up of the stitching.
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This is a close up of the first 2 layers of background stitching. The wrinkling is very effective and does not distort the fabric. It will hang well when finished.
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I painted the fabric with Dynaflow Liquid Colour. Ironing the fabric to fix the colour would spoil the slightly wrinkled effect that I want to achieve, so I sprayed Airfix medium onto the fabric before I painted it so that the colour would fix without ironing.
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The colours I used were azure blue, turquoise, midnight blue and chartreuse. It was quite nerve racking but I think that the colours have blended beautifully together. It reminds me of a coral reef!
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Painted ribbons to be used as embellishments.
I need to carry out more testing of stitches and ideas. I am thinking of creating a statement clasp/fastening on the front of the bolero, incorporating the elements of the embroidery on the fabric, early stages at the moment. For the lining I am also thinking of using gutta to draw fish outline before I dye the lining fabric, which will probably be faux silk, as it is so light.
