TIF Challenge August 3

At last I’ve started to get somewhere with Sharon’s August challenge – balance. I was looking at some pendant lights a couple of weeks ago and they made me think about tying two pieces of cloth with the same thread or yarn, dyeing them and then partially unwrapping them to end up with something joined like this.

sketchbook page

I woke up this morning thinking I could use this idea to express balance – between the two pieces of cloth, maybe, and between the still wrapped and unwrapped sections. Leaving the cloth partially tied also says something to me about the halfway mark (July’s challenge) – the unwrapped cloth reveals certain kinds of beauty – open, vivid, colourful, accessible; yet the wrapped cloth has its own beauties – in the interaction of the thread and the fabric, dimensional, potential, hidden. Like the past and the future, somehow. In a roundabout kind of way… When I thought about the halfway mark some of the most potent images for me were of journeying as circular or almost circular, crossing the same points but in a different way, or spiralling, like these.

journeys

Which just looks like wrapping, after all.

This weekend will be taken up with helping one daughter to move, and then the other is starting uni next week, so I won’t manage anything material before the end of August, but at least I know now where to go with this.

If you get the chance, check out this delightful World Beach project stone sculpture by my friend Helen; from this link, search for Broch of Gurness.

dyeing and unstitching the resists

On Saturday I finally got to dyeing the stitched samples I’ve been making as experiments with fabric manipulation and shibori patterns. I decided in the end to go with Procion dyes, because I have all the ingredients to hand already,  and I didn’t want to be experimenting with the dyeing part as well (although I ended up mixing methods in a bit of an ad hoc way, even so).

I soaked the stitched samples for half an hour in soda solution, then mixed up the dye – I was aiming for a rusty colour and I followed a suggestion in Tray Dyeing (by Claire Benn and Leslie Morgan) – 1 part Golden Yellow, 1 part Scarlet, 1/2 part Turquoise. It looked a bit brown so I added a little more of the red and yellow. I mixed it in a small bucket with salt solution and warm water and in went the samples. Then half an hour later I got cold feet about using a single colour and decided to tip the lot into a tray and splodge a bit of Marine Violet over it for good measure!

I wrapped it in towels as it’s a little chilly here and left it for about 6 hours before rinsing. At that point the samples looked so solidly dark I couldn’t believe that the stitching had actually resisted – I was quite prepared to open them up and find that the dye had seeped all the way through.

dyed resists before untying

But no, like magic, when the threads were snipped and unravelled there were patterns within!

removing the stitching and wrapping

dyed stitch resists

Unstitching the bundles took some time, and I’ve learned that it is not sensible to use a cotton thread that will end up the same colour as the fabric, and especially don’t do this when you have used overstitching and can’t just pull out the thread in one go! White (and even black) polyester thread was easy to see and much easier to remove.

I was glad of my small sketches of the original stitching – I knew I’d have forgotten by this time how I had made the different patterns. I like the wrapped effects, but I’m especially enchanted by the ghosts of stitches that are no longer there but have left their trace on the fabric.

embroidery stitch resists

I’ve uploaded more pics to Flickr, showing each of the samples on its own.

stitching resists

While we were at Land’s End we sat for hours one day in the camper van while the rain poured down outside and I stitched some experiments to add to my little pile for dyeing. I made a square of squares, first overstitching a grid and then a different idea in each small square. In a fit of unusual methodicalness (or maybe all I need to be methodical is some dedicated time… ) I drew the stitch pattern for each square in my sketchbook so that if I like some of the results I can remember how I did them.

stitched resists and diagrams

I broke the thread a few times, which was very frustrating, and reminded me I wanted to get hold of some ‘seriously strong thread’ from Callishibori – I’ll put it on my list to look for at the Knitting & Stitching Show. I used ordinary polyester thread and I ran out of white – I’m sure I will regret the black when I come to unpick it!

The rest of the samples include some embroidery stitches pulled up tight and my first try at maki-age, stitched and bound resist.

stitched resists and diagrams

I haven’t decided what  to dye these with yet. I’ve been thinking more about the environmental effects of different dyes and mordants recently, partly because we’ll be on a septic tank when come November, partly as I’m (slowly) reading Eco-Colour, India Flint’s beautiful and thought-provoking book about using locally sourced materials for dyeing. At the moment I feel that I couldn’t change to only using plant materials but I would like to gradually use more of them (though moving to the windiest place in Britain may not help with the locally sourced part!). By the way, I found a very interesting and inspiring blog while reading round this subject on the web, Robin Paris’s Sustainable Batik, and another I’ve been reading for a while is Helen Methven’s Growing Colour. Lots of food for thought.

TIF Challenge July 1 and August 1

“What is it to be at the half way mark?” That’s Sharon’s Take it Further Challenge for July. The short answer is – I don’t know – June’s challenge has got as far as being written about and July’s… is only now filtering into my brain. I’m thinking that in general the ‘way’ part is more important to me than the ‘mark’ part – I seem to be a process person rather than a goal person, and thinking about where I’ve got to or where I’m going doesn’t come naturally. Engaging with the process is a good thing, but the negative side of it is lacking direction, running round in circles, muddling along.

Well that’s as far as I’d got on a draft post about July’s challenge in July… and now there’s August too (and I only wrote about June’s, I never stitched it). I don’t know if this says I get to the half way mark and then stop! or just that I’m having an even busier summer than usual. I did jot some randomness about the half way mark into my notebook en route for Cornwall last week, and oddly enough some of it also relates to Sharon’s August challenge, which is

"What is balance to you? Do you maintain a balanced life? How do you balance aspects of your life? That is the challenge this month – balance."

So as I haven’t a hope of catching up, I’m thinking I should aim to combine June, July and August’s challenges in one piece or a couple of related pieces.

These were my jottings: some thoughts to start from…

half way mark – stamina – staying power
like a dog going for a walk – back and forth, exploring everything
"I have measured out my life with coffee spoons"
"When they were only halfway up they were neither up nor down"
"halfway down the stairs is a stair where I sit"
"it’s not at the bottom, it’s not at the top"
mediocre – medium – average – mean – median – half measures
circles
point of no return
equal – balance
TS Eliot
"We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."
turning point
eternity
"We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we first begun"
meridian
middle – mid-point – centre – central – centred
sitting on the fence
midstream – mid-flow
halfway house
“Rest and Be Thankful”
relay race

And some images of Cornwall…

flowers near St Agnes apex of the roof of Sterts Theatre
rusty anchor chain light through trees