Sinamay Spheres

A selection of spheres ready for hand-in next week!

3D Fabrics

I've decided as part of my hand in for the Innovations project that I will include some fabric manipulation and stitched items.  So far I've concentrated on the 3D spheres made from siminay which has been screen printed, but I feel I have to be true to my own interests and include pieces that I would be happy to present, representing my preferred textile techniques.  I stitched together some little pillows from the 'The Art of Manipulating Fabric', which I found to be quite challenging ensuring that they were truly circular (and in some cases there are just not as round as I would have liked!).  Before I stuffed the pillows I decided to experiment with the shapes creating a very satisfactory, if very temporary, tower.  Once the pillows were stuffed, I tried out some further pebble arrangements to see how I could potentially use the pillows for possible future projects.  In all honesty I think I prefer the outcomes of the experiments than the final planned piece - I guess sometimes the journey is better than the end result!

 

Spherical Innovations

Still experimenting with painted grounds and printed papers, trying out some of the more successful creations in the colour scheme of the brief.  I particularly like the segmented sphere below, each 'slice' of the sphere is created from three folded circles of paper and then joined together.  I've also been using Sinamay as my unusual material, which is a woven stiff fabric used to make hats, which takes pigment print and folds well.  I particularly like the transparency of the Sinamay and I hope to use it for both the panelled and segment spheres.  Some of the initial sphere experiments have not translated so well to fabrics and other papers, so I think I'll be sticking to the two types pictured below.

Innovation for Textiles Practice

Back at Uni and two weeks into the first assignment which is a quick four week project entitled Geometrics - Stripe, Circle, Square, Spot and Line.  The emphasis of the module is 3D items made from innovative materials; we have been tasked to become an alchemist and surface inventor of textiles!  I'm still concentrating on my summer inspiration in the main, incorporating images and ideas from my plug chain and shower head - using the repeating circle shapes and endeavouring to bring these into some type of 3D spherical design.  In my first year I did actually experiment quite a bit with 3D shapes in both my knitting and fabric manipulation, as well as using unusual and innovative materials such as metal split rings and curtain rings; so I really need to up my games even further for this assignment!.  I've kicked off looking at how is it possible to create 3D spheres using paper and card as my basic material, searching the Internet there are loads of instructions on how to make paper spherical shapes (most seem to be targeted at the American decoration and craft market) and not many of them appear to have been transformed into fabrics.  These are sample of my paper experiments: