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Saturday, April 27, 2013

Felt and lace do go together

Been working in the background on some samples for my PAP3 trying out some lace effects with my motif and thinking how to blend them with felt motifs.  Not so much success there as they still look blocky and clunky to me but will blog on them next week once I have something to show.
In the foreground I have been finishing a wearable jacket which employs felting and the lacework together:


The bodice uses tissue felting silk which I scrunch dyed (for want of a better description) in lilac and blue then nunofelted onto lilac merino roving with prefelt motifs in blue incorporated on top.  I drafted a fairly fitted pattern and then cut the pieces from the nunofelt and made up the jacket as in conventional dressmaking.  The jacket is fully lined and has a open end zip to make it a little contemporary.

The sleeves, apart from taking about 5 hours each to make (aargh),  are made from synthetic chiffon embroidered with a repeat pattern of my motif (yes, that motif again!) and the lacework achieved with a soldering iron.



I also made individual lace motifs from the chiffon to applique on to the felt from shoulder across the front of the jacket to tie the sleeves and bodice together so to speak.

I'm hoping that this piece will be part of a collection of wearable pieces for exhibition- a very small collection I suspect at this rate!

Now back to those samples....

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Composition thoughts on PAP3

On Sian's suggestion, I have been rethinking my composition for the PAP design, trying to create a little more interest and not be constrained by my thoughts on "how difficult will that be to felt?".
I've largely been cropping the image and repeating and settled on this:

I liked the asymmetrical positioning and the fact that the staggered repeats are different sizes.  The coloured shapes will fall off the bottom of the work but the outside edges will not be straight.  The bottom and right hand edge of the organza will echo the shapes in lace and cutwork, full of negative spaces to break it up.  I have drawn a few outlines in pencil of the shapes where some of the negative shapes will be to suggest the that the felt shapes have slipped / fallen off the background.
The 2 thin profiles I think will be in greyscale and the coloured one in dark blues to light green.

After looking at this a while I thought about cutting through the profiles to give 3 strips joined by lacework or not at all.  The lines seem to echo the dropping shapes.