Sunday, September 21, 2014

More cutting up of shapes

I have been trying to do my homework for the design course. We had to continue on with some aspect of the class work, if we wanted to.
I decided to do some of the simple shape cutting. I chose a circle that I had already produced. I traced it, attached the black fabric to Vliesofix, cut them out and ironed  them onto the white fabric. I didn't reverse the tracing before I cut the fabric, so it is in reverse of the original. I decided that it wouldn't matter as it is an abstract design.
I sewed the pieces onto white fabric. I then did some more sewing on the black shapes to give it texture and to flatten it in the black areas, leaving the spaces puffy. I had used high loft polyester batting on the back.

Then I decided that I needed to flatten the background a little and give it some added texture.

I'm not sure if I like the effect, I think the background is not flattened enough. If I do it again I will try for a less noticeable background design. Live and learn.

As I reread the homework notes, I noticed that we were supposed to do a collage of fabric and thread. I wasn't sure that the previous piece would qualify as a collage, so I decided to have another go.

I chose a piece of scrap fabric (that I later noticed had a stain on it). I ironed Vliesofix onto the black fabric again, cut out a circle and cut it into pieces. I then ironed them onto the scrap. It was then that I realised that I had intended putting in extra layers of fabric and should have done that first.

Soldiering on, I decided to use high loft polyester batting again, I had it there, of a size that is of no use except for small pieces. No deep thinking required. All I was doing was extending lines from parts of the design - another little exercise we had done. 
I had used spray adhesive to attach the white fabric to the backing for the previous sample but used a hope for this one.  I don't like the smell!
 I scored lines into the fabric using a wooden skewer and a ruler. That way the lines would be relatively straight but there would be no pencil marks.


After that, I drew around the design on tracing paper, making a wider circular shape, and traced the needed sections. I did reverse them this time so that they would be in the correct orientation. I had decided to use some fabric I had, not to buy anything new for these samples. I dug out some grey polyester organza.

Guess what, Vliesofix doesn't attach to it, it just makes a sticky mess and the fabric frays when you try to pry it off! (And the glue stays on the backing paper.)
Back to the tracing board. I copied the shapes again, making little templates and traced around them to cut out the necessary sections - again. Then I pinned them - old technology. I sewed them on and flattened them with some free motion sewing.

I decided to flatten the background further and roughly echoed the central circle.
As it is only a sample, I don't feel the need to bind it but, if I do, I think I will try to keep the grey in the border and the rest white. That will be fiddly, so don't hold your breath waiting for it.

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