Voyages of the imagination

ATASDA's exhibtion of textile art finished on Tuesday at the Palm House, Botanic Gardens, Sydney and I went back in to collect my piece and help to clear up for another two years.

It had been held in the Palm House, an historic glass house of the Botanic Gardens, with obviously plenty of natural light inside.

Situated in the gardens and also very close to the Art Gallery of NSW, we were visited by many tourists and locals alike which made for interesting conversations about our work and organisation. 

Sorry, Maz, I caught you in mid-walk across the doorway.  I'd love to put up some photos of the exhibits but don't have permission at present so you'll have to make do with these shots and imagine.....

Relief surfaces - starch paste

I had a go at making starch paste acording to Sian's recipe on the stove top but I had to add more water after it cooled because it was a bit of a rubbery brick cold, resembling more of a gelatin mould than wallpaper paste.  However, paste made I added Procion dyes powders to it divided into about 4 quatities.  Like others before me I was surprised at how strong the colours were and then how curled the papers were once they'd dried!  The first few I made, produced interesting cracks in the dried paste once I tried to flatten them.  I have scanned sections of three of these made using brown, olive, golden yellow and red dyes.

 

I then added highlights of treasure gold on to some of these papers but found that the relief was not suffucient to see the metallic touches so chose to make monoprints of metallic acrylic paints on top trying to mimic the types of patterns I had made in the paste.

I also made rubbings over texture plates with metallic Markal sticks.  There are a couple of examples below.

Opus Anglicanum

I started looking at this at the beginning of the year but very quickly realised that researching on the internet was not going to be enough as the photographs there didn't give me any idea of the intricacies of the actual articles.  So I waited until this July when I was in the UK and could view some of them for myself at the V&A in London.  Despite travelling from the other side of the world, the rest of the family only allowed me 25 minutes in the V&A so given that, I'm quite pleased with the details I could glean and photograph!

1.1 I've presented my research on six A4 boards that are connected and hinged into the form of a cross akin to the Marnhull Orphrey on display in the museum.

1.1 Opus Anglicanum folded book

I've photographed each of the 6 boards separately so that you should be able to read the detail if you want to.

1.2 Introduction and pattern drawings

1.3 The Syon Cope

1.4 The Marnhull Orphrey (1)

1.5 The Marnhull Orphrey (2)

1.6 The Clare Chasuble

1.7 The Butler-Bowdon Cope

Once all the boards are folded in on themselves you can see the cover.

The boards are hinged using double cloth tape and with inserted board strips to create spines when the bulk requires.  The cover is a dark red velvet with a bronze silk dupioni name (and despite the photograph it really does say opus and not 'pus'!!).  The metallic thread embroidery copies one of the patterns found on the Clare Chasuble.

Chapter 3 Underside Couching

A. Underside couching Hand stitch

I started to follow the technique using quite a coarse tapestry mesh with thick wools but the scale didn't seem to help so I very quickly moved on to using bookbinders' muslin as a base.  This muslin has a fine even weave with visible holes but also has a lot of stiffener in it, obviously for bookbinder.  This stiffener proved very useful and I found I didn't need a hoop to stabilise the material.

3.1

3.1 I created a chevron pattern with green Perle cotton thread, similar to that seen in some of the borders of the Opus Anglicanum pieces

3.2

3.2 This piece uses a yellow Perle cotton with a metal strand through it to create a kind of basket weave pattern.

3.3

3.3 the backsides of 3.1 and 3.2 above showing the couching thread and the 'dots' of Perle coming through.
These samples were approx 3cm wide.

I actually quite enjoyed this despite it feeling like it was taking forever to do and it appearing to get smaller as you worked on it!  So much so that I started work on a small sample worked on velvet (before I realised that you were supposed to work through a linen layer too then pick all the strands of linen away- aargh!) - very unsuccessful, so bad in fact that a photo of the disaster will not be uploaded.  My admiration definitely goes to those Medieval craftsmen!

I had more success working on 32count linen and put a few samples in my chapter 1 research book on Opus Anglicanum - not quite completed yet....

B. Underside couching machine stitch

3.4

3.4 I picked a background of homespun cotton, hand dyed brown which was stabilised with a woven interfacing.  This first sample was intended to show 4 different squares but I reckoned that the stitch length change was not great enough and there was not enough contrast between the top and bottom threads.

3.5

3.5 This second one was more successful and a diamond was more obviously produced.

3.6

3.6 I found that keeping the lines of stitching evenly spaced was quite difficult, but may have been less apparent on a larger scale.

3.7

3.7 Here the stitch type was changed between plain and zig-zag.

3.8

3.8 Here some gold lurex thread was used in the bobbin.  Perhaps greater contrast between the top and bottom threads would have been better.

Chapter 2 - Metallic Threads

Chapter 2 looks at metallic embroidery relating to Opus Anglicanum and ecclesiastical embroidery. 
The photos below appear blurry in some cases but if you click on them to get a close up they are quite clear - don't know why this has happened here.

Couching by Hand
These first few images are of samples couching metallic threads (and some less conventional materials) by hand (size approximately 8cm square)

2.1

2.1 Some 2cm wide metallic ribbon couched down by running stitches in red Perle cotton.  Gold lurex thread and red metallic thread were laced through these stitches.

2.2

2.2 Spirals cut from metal foil couched down by red Perle cotton.

2.3

2.3 Metallic plastic mesh woven with yellow metallic ribon couched down with large stitches in yellow Perle cotton thread.

2.4

2.4 Twisted braids of red mettalic floss and gold lurex thread couched down with red Perle cotton in herringbone stitch.

2.5

2.5 Metallic wrapping paper strips wrapped in red metallic thread held down by laid work in large stitches of red Perle with small anchoring stitches in yellow Perle.

2.6

2.6 Stamped images of leaves, from Module 1 sketchbook, in bronze acrylic paint.  The outline of one couched in gold lurex with red Perle cotton stitches.

2.7

2.7 Strips of corrugated metallic card couched down with large diagonal stitches of metallic ribbon in a trellis pattern, then laid work anchored with small horizontal stitches in red Perle cotton.

2.8

2.8 A tight purl of 24 gauge gold wire made using a 'coiling gizmo'.  Similar purls of silver wire made then coiled on themselves and laid within the "s" bend.  All purls were laid down using red Perle cotton.

Couching by Machine

2.9

2.9 Thin wavy strips of metal foil couched down with machine zig-zag in red thread.  Bundles of red metallic thread couched on top using automatic wavy machine stitch.

2.10

2.10 Thick metallic ribbon arranged in interlocking folds held down by a line of machining down the centre.  Machined cords of yellow / metallic Perle were laced through these created folds and couched at certain points by machined zig-zags in red.

2.11

2.11 Metallic chiffon fabric strip held down by couched cotton embroidery thread in such a manner as to create repeating tucks in the fabric horizontally.  Large stitches of metallic thread sew vertically across this fabric by machine then couched down at points along this vertical length.