Had a whole day in the studio today, amazing!
The first thing I decided to do was work into the 'urban' sample Ben and I had started yesterday. I forgot to mention that before I started the machine embroidery I mounted the piece on some Romeo water-soluble fabric. I machined a heavier thread on the bobbin and worked some circles from the wrong side just to give a different texture. Having done this I took the heat tool to it again to see if I could get more of a lumpy surface, (Ben’s idea!) and it worked. The only thing was that when the Romeo melted it was very fumey, so the windows needed to be open and I definitely needed my mask. After I'd done this I did a bit more machining around the lumps and put the soldering iron on it to make a few more holes,
I shall leave it now until I get my embellisher.
My next experiment was with the little canvas sample that I'd painted. This was truly a moment of 'lets try it and see what happens', so I started by stitching down some of the painted scrim with French Knots using some of the delicious threads I'd bought at Hobbycraft. This seemed to go OK. Spurred on by this moment of serendipity I decided to see if it was possible to iron the painted bondaweb to the canvas, and hey presto it worked! But I did have to wait a bit for it to cool before removing the paper. I was feeling pretty good by this time; this project that seemed to be going nowhere was finally beginning to have something.
Next I tried ironing on the wax rubbings I took of the scrim on tissutex, this worked too, see the picture above. Buoyed up by this success I even tried putting down bondaweb and ironing on the metallic sheet and this time it worked thanks to Lynda's help, as she'd given me a check list of things to do, and one of them said iron on a wool setting, bingo! I'd been using the hottest setting, no wonder it didn't work.
Anyway I did a bit more with the bodaweb and then went back to the stitching, more French knots and a few running stitches in hand dyed silk thread, beautiful.
What a great day, thanks to all the helpful advise on the discussion we had on the Fibre arts/ mixed media group I 'felt the fear and did it anyway!' Thanks you guys!
8 comments:
Hi
Looks really good - a successful go with the flow.
Shirley
cool
well done
k
Well Sharon this is looking just fabulous! I love the way you are sharing the steps and I am fascinated by your processes and decisions along the way. It is good to be reminded about the wool setting for foil too - I had forgotten about that bit! The results from your joint effort with Ben are very interesting too. Does he know he is famous in blogland now?
Well, you really did have a good day. You deserve to be very pleased.I love the way you have given us a run through of your process. Thanks for sharing.
Really enjoyed this post, especially after the long discussion on Sunday - and it looks wonderful. Sounds like you felt very freed up doing this.
Hi Sharon,
Have you tried working with Markal paintsticks? I used to use these with my students for achieving highlights as they are very effective when brushed lightly onto such things as scrim esp. the metallics. Black is also useful to knock things back and create an aged/dirty effect (can be good for a rusty feel) but go gently.
Chris
Wow! That is gorgeous! Nice to see the progress and process as well.
Hi everyone
Thanks so much to all of you who have been kind enough to post a comment on my post. I've thoroughly enjoyed recording the processs of this project, even if at times i've wondered if people think, 'what on earth is she up to?', but that's all part of the process, the 'good, the bad and the downright ugly!'
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