This week I worked with different fabrics and did not limit myself to just seeing sewing. I worked on creating textures and transforming the piece of fabric from 2D to 3D.
Burning Fabric
I burnt the edges of pieces of fabric to see the kind of texture it would create and also hovered their surfaces just above the candle flame. While the edges (burnt with fire) were more or less similar, the effect of high heat from the flame create a variety of textures. All the pieces became quite stiff in the treated area and also shrunk.
3D Shibori
I tried the 3D Shibori technique with objects from around the house. I used marbles with the tulle which gave it a bouncy organic texture. Next I cut up a skewer into tiny pieces and wrapped them inside the peach skin fabric. Even though all 3 fabrics maintained their forms, the peach skin held up best. The last one is bottom weight fabric with coins. This is quite a thick and stretchy fabric so it sunk a little after removing the coins. But can be manipulated quite easily without the fear of damage to fibres.
Shibori tie-dye
I tie-dyed fabric from the beet ink that I had created for the other exercise. I was quite happy with the outcomes and to my surprise the ink made the fabric quite stiff and rough. The first attempt did not work as well, I folded the square along the diagonals and tied rubber bands vertically on it. The outcome did not look like a tie-dye. So in the next try I I folded another along the diagonals and did an accordion fold on it, then I sewed it close (refer to image 2 below). This technique worked amazingly, both the colour and texture of the fabric was quite beautiful. For the third one, I pleated the fabric and wrapped it tightly with a thread. I kept it in the dye a few seconds longer than the others, so the colour contrast was a little better in this one.
Others
A few other random things I tried were stitching across folded fabric (green), embroidery and layering coloured yarn in gauze.
I am very inclined towards shibori. Shibori is a tie-dye technique from Japan, currently I am working towards learning about tie-dyes from different cultures around the world. I am also working on combining the colour and 3d textures from different objects, and subsequently making some definite shapes that can later be converted into jewellery.