To begin with I just couldn’t work up any enthusiasm for this one. It took me back to school days, cross stitch and chain stitch, grubby Aida frayed around the edges, wet thread ends, and the endless amount of unpicking!
This is the first sample I did. I worked lots of detached chain, all sizes and overlapping, with various threads on a cotton ground fabric.
I then dunked it in Potassium Permanganate a few times and drizzled lemon juice all over. I took lots of photos of the different stages as the colours in some of them were amazing, but I hadn’t bothered to change my camera battery - although I knew it was very low. Consequently, most of the photos were out of focus. I managed to end up with this close up…
and a not very good one of the finished piece.
So I thought, what the heck and rather than bin it (straight away) I ‘rusted’ it.
Looking at it now this could be any old stitch. The finished piece is awful but the close up photos would certainly be good for a game of ‘can you guess what it is yet?’
Undeterred I went on to do a second sample. I backed a piece of cotton fabric with Kunin felt and worked the stitch in different weight threads without a frame, leaving some loose and pulling some tight. The idea was to hot blast the Kunin felt to manipulate the surface but I couldn’t make this work. Too little heat and nothing happened, too much heat and the felt just melted.
This is what I ended up with. (New batteries in the camera this time!)
I decided to dip this one in a weak Pot.Mang. mix followed by a splash of lemon juice.
I then dunked it again in a stronger mix and this was the result. Again, nothing exciting.
Having decided to leave the experimental stuff alone for this week I went on to do a sample using muslin as the background and torn strips of the same piece of muslin for the stitches. I have decided to do this technique each week with every stitch just to see what effect I can achieve.
I also did another sample using detached chain as a holding stitch (I was going to say anchor stitch - is that the correct term?). I used lengths of cord at the back of a piece of Dupion Silk.
Lets hope I have better results with the stitch for week four!
9 comments:
Oh my, I love what you do with all these pieces. I have never dyed a piece of fabric so far, but you really make me want to try it.
Applause! You get an "A" for effort. Don't despair, there'll be days when you are totally excited with what you do. I love the purple piece.
Love what you are doing, and P.Mang, just love it bought some a couple of months ago, you made me want to dig it out.
I must admit I really love what you are doing with the torn strips of fabric and I would love to see each stitch done this way by you.
One of the Embroidery groups I belong to are facinated by what you do with your torn strips.
Maybe that will be one of our challenges this year if you don't mind that is.
I love what you did here. Thanks for showing the progression on the one piece. I don't know how to dye anything, but seeing what you did makes me want to learn about it.
Great stuff. I really like that torn strip piece I think the effect that you get with that is very cool.
I loved reading your "trials" on this! I really like some of the pieces you did - especially the torn strip one, and also the one prior to that looks really interesting!!
You have done some very interesting pieces. I think you should be proud. I have never heard of Potassium P. What is it? I really like the torn piece also. I may just have to play around some with that technique.
I really liked the finished piece BEFORE you rusted it!
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