Plastic bonding - chapter 8

This chapter looked at making material surfaces by bonding plastic together, so I collected various plastic bags in preparation  It has to be said that in Sydney the selection is not great as admirably the stores are cutting back on plastic wastage and often provide paper or "decomposable" plastic bags which don't bond as well I find.  I had to resort to using bags I acquired in the UK recently or decorating grey or white bags.
Various fusing ideas tried using the heat of an iron under baking paper.  These samples are all about A4 page size unless otherwise stated:

8.1: Bonded cut plastic bag pieces

8.2: Trapping strips of white bag plastic with a thin freezer bag, machine stitching randomly then bonding under iron heat, while stretching to create holes

8.3: Knitted strips of freezer bag, threading strips of thicker bag plastic through knitting, then fusing under iron.

8.4: Knitting freezer bag strips as above then threading yarn and fabric strips before fusing

8.5: Torn used teabags wrapped in freezer bag strips, overlapped and then fused (approx A6 size)

8.6: Machine stitching in white on green garden bag, fused lightly, then crushed and refused so that areas of stitching disappear in the folds.  Once fused flat, the stitching looks broken and sporadic 

8.7: Strips cut from 8.6 above and re-fused onto another contrasting plastic collage background.  After fusing further bobbin stitching in white Perle 5 thread.

8.8: Shapes cut from collage fused plastic and fused on to garden plastic background.  Lines of green machine stitching and white bobbin stitching to integrate

8.9: Remaining negative collaged plastic after shapes cut out for 8.8, fused on to a new dark background.
Satin stitched bars sewn in white and yellow after fusing to echo the markings on plastic

8.10: detail of 8.9

 My resolved samples referenced designs made in here in chapter 4.  However I made some changes to those in designs 4.17-4.21 to integrate the applied shapes a little more in to the background:

8.11:  design on recycled black paper with monoprinting and applied torn motifs.  The motifs have been rubbed over with oil pastel to integrate them with the background.

8.12:  the resolved sample from design in 8.11 using fused monoprinted plastic, fused sheers on top and surface bobbin stitching to emphasize the shapes.

I did a second resolved sample (8.14) based on the design in 8.13 below:

8.13: monoprinting on recycled black paper with applied torn motif

8.14: the resolved sample from design in 8.13 using fused monoprinted plastic, fused sheers on top and surface bobbin stitching to emphasize the shapes.

8.15: detail of 8.14 sample above

Although cutting and stitching plastics didn't really appeal to me, I did enjoy the effect created by fusing pieces into one layer, losing edges and creating a new 'cloth'.