Chapter 8 'To the Edge' and beyond! Sounds like Buzz Lightyear!

Chapter 8 part 1 asks you to choose a piece of textile to cut into 4 and extend the design in any way so it can eventually be made into an 'edge'. i chose, after a lovely saturday visiting the Gloucester Road charity shops in Bristol, a child's T-shirt. i love things that are slightly asymmetrical or quirky so this was ideal. the module says it can be scanned and 'made your own' which i did and as you can see in the last two pictures i have changed it completely.
#1 quite simple using chalk pastels, tissue paper and pen.
#2 using stencils based on the original shapes with paint, chalk and pen.
#3 i turned the image into black and white, playing with the contrast. using quink ink over aquawax stripes with paint and chalk over masks. i was given an electric whizzy 'dymo' for Christmas, so the added stripe is printed with that!!
#4 more adaptation to the original, the extension being worked with chalk, paint on stencils and felt tip. great fun to do! now onwards to some actual edges and possibly some stitch!

Background!!

Clouds! after some suggestions from Sian i have a wallpaper like background! i made a stencil of a simplified/graffiti like cloud and sprayed it onto a 'pretty' blue painted paper. i thought the black clouds were in keeping with the subject of the finished piece.

Metallic assessment item

metallic assessment piece finished (?) after hearing Sian's comments on my proposed assessment item using metal/metallics i went back and thought further. Sian suggested possibly thinking of a 2D shape emerging out of the surface into an implied 3D form. after many drawings and ideas i came up with the above, which is still quite 3D but less a brace of birds or dead bird but something more deconstructed and still umbrella like!!! she also suggested i include some stitch!
#1 i started working on the main spokes while thinking, as i knew they were a definite part of the piece. i used 0.15mm thick copper sheet which i could cut with scissors. i enlarged my design to the required size, took a tracing and then applied it to the metal with double sided sellotape and then cut the shape out. this method is very accurate.
#2 some of the 'spokes' were cut in one whilst some were cut in 3 pieces which were then joined through punched holes with silver wire, metal beads and crimps. once the pieces were cut they were flattened and the surface and edges filed.
#3 shows pieces cut but before they were joined and oxidised. i was working along the lines of having a fairly structured piece so i placed them into a piece of polystyrene so they stood upright and it helped to keep them from getting lost!
#4 my original proposal was to use a fine metal mesh for the 'lining' but as i was working on Module 3 knitting i thought that a fine knitted wire worked very well and more in keeping with me! i took the shape found in umbrella linings (a tapering wedge) and worked out a plan on graph paper which i roughly used to knit 8 pieces. 8 being the number of spokes used and the number of notches in the original runner used. after they were knitted they were scrunched up like old umbrella linings and oxidised too. feather-like stitches in a green metallic thread were worked on these pieces.
#5 above shows work in progress
#6 finished piece is a bit like a deconstructed wing. it is very fluid and articulated so can be changed into different shapes. i wanted to have the linking wires working their way back through the spokes and lining pieces, through the runner which was cut in half to give it a 2D appearance and ending in small labels embroidered with the words; umbra, wing, feather, unfold, unfurl, deconstruct, transform and broken. these were in response to the tape that encloses the umbrella when closed. i was originally going to have the piece attached to a backing support to which the labels and runner would be attached. i have tried many colours/ photographs of pavements/newspaper etc but all seem to distract from the piece itself. so i have left it on a cream paper (any suggestions?) i am very pleased with it as it is!
#7,8,9 and 10 all show details of the finished piece. above shows a fine copper tube through which wire links all the pieces together.
#8 i was originally going to make the labels from a punched paper i found in a charity shop but decided instead that metal would work better so i used the punched paper as a template and punched holes in the metal much to my families annoyance!the stitching was also worked in green and silver which is not amazingly visible but is in keeping with iridescent bird wings.
#9 detail of joining
#10 shows a detail of the coarse stitching on the knitted bits.

Time taken so far: 61 hours.
Cost: £9.85

Ho Ho Xmas

wishing everyone a very merry snowy xmas and productive new year! thank you all for the wonderful comments you have left over the past year too they are really appreciated.

I am a Scavenger - Sketchbook Project

at last i have finished my sketchbook! the title i chose was 'i am a scavenger' which i thought was quite suitable for me as i'm always scavenging and collecting things. the idea behind the book was to see what i could scavenge from the pavement on my usual route to work from home on a few random days. the idea being that the objects have a past history and now a future. after much deliberation i took all the pages out of the sketchbook as the paper was!!!!!! i will use it for something else. so the first page is a map of my route. i then enlarged the route into a fold out map numbering my finds. i wanted to actually include the objects in the book rather than photographing or drawing them they are enclosed in windows so you can see both sides
all the pages have been scavenged from other things. as well as scavenging objects i also scavenged 'sound graffiti' along the way which i have added to the pages. so here are the pages




i now seem to see glass lenses a lot!



the final entry was collected outside the registry office near my place of work. i hope it was a happy occasion! when and if the sketchbook is borrowed i would like people to add their comments to the pages!!

and yet more! Resolved knitting

resolved knitted piece with clear perspex rods inserted.
i was recently given the above frames as a present from my very considerate husband, who i think wants to try them out himself! we had seen them in the Argos catalogue not realising when he got them that the largest was 27cm across!!! an ideal excuse to do something large.
so for my resolved knitted piece i chose to work from the above photograph of an obscured shop window but if you look closely you can still see various reflections. i thought the brush strokes lent themselves well to rows of knitting and french knitting in particular.
i chose a basic range of 3 colours, white, black and pink. the 'white' is fishing line in two weights (8lb and 17lb), black was coated wire and a textured cotton yarn and the pink more fishing line (17lb). details were worked with sequins, small rubber rings (row counters) and strips of metal coke can. finally selected areas were dipped in paper pulp. i used the largest frame but fishing line relaxes and doesn't stay put which is why i like using it (it has a life of its own)! the piece measures 23cm long. i found this extremely difficult to photograph and i have to apologise for the erratic numbering system!
#5 shows the tube sitting upright
#2 looking from the top down
#3,6 and 4 are all details. above also looking through the centre
#6 shows the pulp, wire, fishing line and the black cotton
#4 shows the 'tangled' end. i am not 100% sure about this piece although i am very pleased with the technique and materials i used. at the end i inserted some perspex rods to 'tie' it all together although i was wondering what else i could have added like bits of glass or mirror but perhaps that would be too much. will wait and hear!!!

More knitting!

continuing on from the last post these are the less conventional pieces! #11 was knitted silver wire, knitted plastic bag, the two fused together with a hot iron then cut up and free machined together with water soluble fabric(11cm x 8cm). not sure about the colour; the plastic bag was a beautiful purple/pink but white on the inside.
#12 in true graffiti style i thought of yarn bombing! and french knitting lends itself very well to this. the piece in the middle has been pulled over a twirly whirly drinking straw (22cm long). i've been french knitting with fishing line for a long time mainly for jewelry pieces but the two pieces on the left are experiments, top using paper pulp and the lower adding pieces of cut up metal cans made into 'sequins'. the piece on the right i started as a double sided fabric but gave up as it was rather difficult with the fishing line, so i pulled it off the needles and left it and i love it just as it is!
#13 more paper and shaping. the lower section in home made newspaper yarn and the top in flat paper yarn (9cm x 5cm).
#14 worked on size 20mm needles and worked with a handful of machine threads as one in a large braid with the needle woven through the gaps.
#15 i discovered some stretchy fishing line the other day which i knitted in a 'lace faggot chain' from Mary Thomas and then pinned out. it has potential but is very strong! perhaps stretch elastic might be better but the fluorescent orange caught my eye.
#16 tried some felted knitting with cut out shapes and more melted knitted plastic bag fused onto the reverse. didn't quite turn out as expected although i think it could be thought about further. the colours are good though.
#17 when i was doing my certificate we were each given an item from a charity shop to 'turn into something else' mine was a shirt but that's another story! so i thought it would be interesting to try this idea with a knitted item, cut it up and re knit it. hence the M&S tie above. it had a few moth holes in it so i didn't mind cutting it.
#18 this is what i have so far but probably won't take it any further. its interesting to see how it is retaining the shape of the tie but obviously it can't be used any more!!
thought i would include dear Marilyn even though i knitted her more years ago than i would like to admit! so she's not really part of this chapter but somewhat graffiti like! she's about 47cm high. and so now onwards to the resolved knitted piece which i am working on now.