Gawthorpe Hall: Refining Samples

This week I’m looking to take two main samples forward and really refine them. I have been experimenting with needle weave in different fabrics and in different scales.

I have also been creating more logcabin patchworks so that I can see the full effect of the patches together and the patterns they create. These are the two lines of enquiry I have chosen to explore for Gawthorpe Hall.

I have developed my Gawthorpe Hall samples. I have created two collections, needle woven samples inspired by the beautiful darned pieces from the archive and logcabin. I have taken inspiration from the colour palette of my self-initiated brief and used much finer fabrics and threads to put my own modern twist on these pieces. Until you have sat and repaired a damaged hole in a piece of fabric do you truly appreciate the intricacy of it. We tend to take this for granted these days because of the pace at which technology can produce it.

For my logcabin I have contrasted old recycled sari silk, hand dyed cottons and modern fabrics such as PUC to give this old technique a modern twist. I’ve also modernised the process, using the machine to quickly and roughly patch these pieces together. I enjoy the effect this gives and reminds me of the sample from the Gawthorpe archive marked by Miss Kay “do not do it like this, it is wrong”.

I found this artist who also uses machines for quilting and in a slightly unconventional way that might not be considered traditional:

Krista Jo Mustain Geometric wallhanging/coral quilt 2011/2012

Gawthorpe Hall: Experimenting

This week I have been doing some experimental samples inspired by the pictured I took at Gawthorpe hall and some drawings I have done from them. 

This sample was inspired by some of the samplers, I decided to use the Pfaff to recreate a similar look. 

I like that the same effect could be so easily replicated, however I think as a sample it's not that interesting. I could potentially develop it by sampling using my own colour scheme but it still would not really fit with the theme for the project which is "significcance". 

My next sample was my own colour pallet applied to a darning sample: 

Although I’m very pleased with the effect here, I think I could develop it by working onto a white background and by giving the little sections of darning more space. I feel like these samples will be more relevant to the theme of significance because darning is a means of repairing and we tend to only bother repairing things that carry significance to us. Also it takes an awful lot of patience and time to darn which creates a sense of significance in itself. 

To modernise the logcabin I have pieced new fabrics next to old, in order to create contrast. I have also used only machine stitch to create these logcabin samples: 

I feel like these logcabin samples also fit the theme of significance because they are made from upcycled fabrics that once had other purposes and carry their own meanings. I look forward to making a small collection of these little squares for this brief and perhaps taking them forward into the next project to make a garment or quilted piece.

Gawthorpe Hall

I really enjoyed the trip to gawthorpe hall, the collection was really interesting and inspiring. The collection dated back as early as the 15^th century, it’s absolutely amazing to see what the amazing things people created completely by hand. It was however very frustrating that all of the samples we kept in plastic wallets that meant that all of the photos of samples are very low quality. Also the visit felt it was slightly lacking seeing as we could not feel and have a play with the samples.

I was particularly interested in the all of the impressive old hand techniques: 

I intend to introduce some of these techniques to display my colour palette. I have experimented with logcabin, darning patterns and sampler structures. I have used the Pfaff machine to imitate the sampler stitches, hand-dyed fabrics for the logcabin samples and the Irish machine to help gather threads.  

Dissertation

This week has been slow with practical work due to writing my dissertation. I have found doing research into textiles and wellbeing really interesting and came across a very interesting theory of colour called chromophobia. This has inspired my practical work because I am very aware of my bold colour use and how it could be seen as “too eclectic” or perhaps unprofessional, but chromophobia is the idea that Western society has made colour seem “foreign” or “childish” or “unprofessional”. Reading about this social phenomenon helps me feel more confident in taking risks and challenging these concepts of colour. 

I have also found that doing my essay on wellbeing has been quite relevent to my self-initiated brief because of the gratification I have got from helping someone see a whole new colour. ot only has it contributed to my wellbeing, doing a project to help someone else, I also feel like it's may have helped improve his wellbeing taking time out to consider how he sees colour. 

Finally it all seems relevant to my new live brief based on the Gawthorpe Hall Archives, which is full of amazing intricate hand embroidery done by people who will have used embroidery for the same wellbeing purposes we use it for today. 

Developed Colour Drawings

Although my work is quite similar to Michael Kidner’s work I have decided that I will not participate in that live brief. Although looking at his work has been quite helpful when creating my own: 

 I’m not sure my work would be totally appropriate to that brief. I also really like the look of the Gawthorpe Hall project and think this would be a more inspiring project to take up. I feel like if I took up the Michael Kidner brief I would just be creating work I was going to create anyway. It makes more sense to me to take up a live brief that inspires me to create new work instead.

 

In light of this, I have continued my sketchbook in order to create a little book of colour. I absolutely adore doing these drawings, although they are quite time consuming. My latest drawings have explored using watercolour one way and brighter lines drawn the opposite way. I love the colours produced by the watercolour and the bright contrast of the inks.

I think these would be really interesting to reproduce with the idea of cutting holes into fabric and then laying or stitching threads behind. 

I have also done some drawing that play around with the idea of shape as well as colour: 

I really enjoy these drawings and see a lot of similarity between these and Victoria Snape's: 

Like my more recent drawings there is a geometric look that has been disrupted by a hand drawn element. 

I look forward to taking these drawings into fabric, I will experiment with aplique, hand and machine stitch, making sure I pay attention to the white space surrounding and colour matching. 

Developement

After deciding that the large scale samples were not quite appropriate for my work I decided to try and create some medium sized samples that could potentially be used as "ribbons" in something bigger to try and maintain some of the colour intensity. However I found that I really liked them as a little collection that gradually increase in scale: 

I enjoyed creating fabric samples with the embellisher and then using the photocopier as a tool to manipulate these samples. 

I then decided to print these onto acetate to see how the opacity affected the drawings, and then developed these further by adding a solid satin stitch. 

I thought it would be interesting to make these little pieces into something light could come through. So working with my scale I felt that fairy light shades would be an appropriate context for my work: 

I really like the way the light comes through and creates different coloured shadows. Although I think my work does look good in a lighting/interiors context I think next unit I would like to try make some more final products.

I can maybe see my work as smaller feature such as a pocket or edging on a garment, alternatively as a bigger statement piece such as a scarf: 

http://scarletchamberlin.com/2014/10/09/full-mooned-darning/

 It would also make a good feature on accessories or perhaps even interiors such as cushions. 

Up-scaling Samples

In order to upscale my work, I have experimented with a variety of techniques. I have created patchwork sample using disperse dyes. I also tried to recreate the grid effect using satin stitch and fill stitch on the multihead embroidery machine.

I really like this sample because I feel I have successfully used a fully computerised technique to create something with irregularity that reflects my hand drawn style. 

I also experimented with the use of ribbons and disperse dyed fabrics. Again by creating small irregularities in a larger repeat pattern I've feel I've added an element of the hand drawn. 

I also attempted to produce some prints using my smaller Bradford Brief sample and taking it into photoshop and editing it.

 I really enjoyed doing this in photoshop however I’m not really sure what kind of context it could be applied. I also feel like digital prints are a little flat to fit in with the rest of my work, so maybe next time I would produce some that I could work back in to.

Finally I like this patchwork sample made of fabric I have disperse dyed and cut up and patched back together. I feel it best represents one of my samples blown up to A2 size.

Although I am pleased with the outcomes and can see them more easily fitting into a fashion or interiors context, I feel that my samples are more interesting on a smaller scale. Larger scale samples seem to lose their intensity that is so prominent in my drawings. I also found that to maintain the intensity, the samples were equally, if not more, time consuming. Finally they lose the slight optical illusion effect that is quite prominent in both my drawings and the smaller samples.