Fantastic Plastic

For Friday Focus this week, I experimented with supermarket rubbish bags.  Truly, I did.  Ever since i read Kim Thittichai's Hot Textiles, I have been dying to have a go at her techniques. She is an extremely well known textile and surface artist in the UK and has training in sculpture.  You can view videos of her here (you will have to log in but it's free) and here.   Some of the surfaces she creates and  those by others in the book are simply gorgeous.  I only played with plastic bags today, but there are all sorts of other synthetics to play with as well. What I experimented with was layering and fusing plastics with the iron. 

My technique was pretty simple.  I used a large leaflet of parchment paper on my ironing mat, simply put the plastic between and ironed.  Because the parchment paper is see through, I could see what was going on.  Most effects only needed one or two swipes with a hot iron, then peel off the parchment when cool.

One effect in particular which I really liked was in the encyclopedia of machine embroidery.  I have just taken the last hour to try and find it.  I thought it was bubble wrap and plastic with threads captured between, however it wasn't although it really looked like it.  I tried to get a similar sort of effect.

 

This is a blue shopping bag and bubble wrap layered together.  The white you see is holes (the bubbles burst from the heat)

This is the same but with some blue thread trapped between
I think the first one is closest to what I was after and with some free motion embroidery, would probably be excellent for bubbles under water (I see sea dragons in it's future).

This is some bubble wrap that had a green tinge to it.  I liked the way the colour formed around where the  bubbles were (how to make coloured bubble wrap).

I trapped some autumn leaves between two bag layers, it worked, but the leaves were very brittle and probably needed to be treated with some glycerine or PVA to stop them breaking otherwise any stitching would shatter them.

 

This is some of the plastic mesh bag oranges come in trapped between two layers.  It was interesting that it shrunk more when it was intact (top) whereas, at the bottom, it was loose and didnt' shrink.

Several layers of two colours layered in sheets

Many many layers of the green created this rocky sort of texture

This was made with lots of scrunched up pieces

This shows what happens with one or two flat layers.  The top one shows how the plastic opens up to create and airy texture, while the bottom shows how the plastic laminated with lots of layers.

This sample has many layers of plastic, but they are added one by one and have angelina layered between them.  Adding the pieces one by one allows the creation of the holes, which is a great texture, also shown below:

This is one layer of plastic ironed onto a non thermoreactive plastic (thick acetate).  I really like the way the bag plastic becomes an open texture like this.  If it is heated  on it's own between parchment layers, not only does it break up like this it shrinks.  It needs a substrate or a foundation under it to do this.
I really like this texture and have many ideas about using it, but I wanted to try one more experiment before the end of the day.  I overlapped pieces slightly on a sheet of fusible, then heated.  And look what I got!

 

This sample was the piece d' resistance.  All of the sheets have fragmented and the overlaps create wonderful colours.  The white flecks you see are holes in the plastic, not reflections.  My mind is now spinning with ways to use this new textile.  It can be ironed on to just about any surface and I really just want to get embroidering with it.  You will see this piece again in another work.
so I have had a very productive day, hope you did too

Belated Blog

As I said, Saturday is Stitchin' time, however, I spent a lot of time trying to video my stitches.... and failed.  So here is my blog for yesterday in picture form, instead.
I really love free motion embroidery (FME) in all it's forms and have been studying all the ways to stitch using it.  There are a lot of books and a lot of artists and they all use similar stitches and techniques and some have names and some have several names, but what I observed when I looked at it all is that there is an heirarchy (like a tree diagram) to the stitches, so I will show you that - but later, let's get down to the stitches!
Obviously, most people starting FME start with either straight stitch or Zig zag.  I am going to start with straight stitch, even though in some ways zigzag is easier to start with.
I am not going to look at the technical set-up stuff, because there are plenty of excellent sites with this information: sewing machines for beginners, beginners tute, technical stuff, excellent article from new mexico uni, beginners guide from isew.

Straight stitch techniques in FME
One look at a quilting catalogue, or leah day's project will show you that straight stitch is extremely versatile and can form a zillion different patterns.  This is because it is basically a line and lines make drawings, so anything you can draw, you can FME.  And let's not forget drawing.  Before you start at the machine it is a good idea to draw out what you intend to sew.  Not only will this help you remember where to move, it will make the result better.
The first thing you will probably do and this is a good idea, is just scribble.  Below are a few examples of just that.

 Try a variety of shapes and even some stick figures or leaves and trees,  Keep it interesting, because practice is the key.
Some patterns you could try:

wiggly lines

zigzag lines

pointy scribble

curvy scribble or stippling

curvy lines that touch

practice the alphabet

write your name

These are not special, perfect examples I made up to show you.  They are just my everyday practice.  If I don't practice nearly everyday, I get a bit rusty.
Don't look for perfection in your lines,

• firstly because most applications of these lines in FME will not require perfection 
• secondly, because if it is not fun to do, you are not likely to persist and striving for perfection can be a little boring.
• lastly because my philosphy is that creativity and perfection are opposing forces.  Think about your purpose.  Is your purpose to create a perfect carbon copy that is cold and lifeless, or is it to create something alive and beautiful that expresses your inner self?  

Now let's look at the three main ways to use straight stitch in FME
Granite stitch

Granite stitch is just scribble, the first thing we do as children learning to draw, which is why I chose it to start. Leah day calls it cat hairball, it is also known when done like in the picture above, as encroaching circles in The encyclopedia of Machine Embroidery, or granite stitch by carol shinn, or spiralling straight stitch by Alison holt and probably as many other names as there are FME artists.
Basically, this stitch is used to fill in large areas and shade by overlapping  or to make trees in the distance as in my itty bitty landscape, here is a close up of  that stitching.

The main thing with granite stitch, is that the circles need to overlap, and if it doesn't look right to you (remember to stand back, no-one looks at art with their nose to it to enjoy it,  only critics do that!), then go over it again, or ask someone else, because you will always be over critical of your own work. 

This has been an overlong blog... and I still had two more stitches!  But we will go on to those next week, and I will work out how to post my stitch chart or tree diagram as a PDF for you.

On Monday, I will be posting a tutorial for a zipped cover for a sketchbook, that uses circular straight stitch on a large scale, so tune in for that, and later today I will post my sketchbook for this week.