Self Initiated- Week four..

I began with a plain cream 2/20s woollen warp, threaded very plainly and simply on the loom. The concept was for Interior Design and in particular for living spaces. I decided I didn't want to focus too much on my structures for this collection and would just be focusing the whole project on plain weaving and piece dying my samples. To lay my own identity onto my sampling, I used a wide variety of different yarns, some cream and some white, but all the yarns with so many different qualities. My experimenting with different yarn choices at this point has really gone crazy! My reason for this was to see which yarn would take the dye the best, and this also seemed to give my samples more of a personal quality and different finish. 

With my colour palette now chosen, I went into the dye lab to mix up my colours, all using acid dyes to make six strong colours to paint directly onto my samples when off the loom.

I considered that each colour would take to each yarn very differently. Luckily I was able to get my colour palette as close to my drawing work as possible which is clearly a very important part of the process.

After my dying was complete I went back to my drawing work and zoomed in on areas that I had bleached out. I focused on certain parts at one time and did similar types of marks on my sampling by discharging the dye away, a technique I had never tried before. It was a much more challenging task than I thought and it took a number of attempts to finally get right. After this first process with a selected amount of samples I decided to take them one step further by adding on a variety of embellishments including many new processes such as flocking and tufting. To finish off all of my samples I steamed them to lock in all the colour, dye and process, then sewed and tied in all my edges, as well as pressing and mounting them up all ready to be handed in. 

 

 

 

 

My Final Collection of Samples are tailored towards quirky living room décor including throws and cushions.