Gathering
I started off by practising gathering pieces of muslin, using a machine. I used elastic thread and practised a single line of gathering and then three rows, which gave a smocking effect.
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- gatherng with single line of stitching
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- gathering with three lines of stitching to create smocking effect
I then experimented with hand stitching, gathering different fabrics:
Inspired by a photo of Mt Fuji, I took from a plane, I painted a small watercolour and then added some gathered muslin to create a textured surface to give the effect of fluffy clouds. I frayed the edges to emphasise the fluffiness.
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- Mount Fuji
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- Gathering muslin to create fluffy cloud effect
Liking the effect, I gathered a piece of dyed cotton to see if I could create a texture to represent the reflection of the walls in my cave photo.
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- Photo 2 Cave image extended by pen, colour and stitch
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- Gathering fabric to create crevasses and shadows
Folding and pleating
Folding and pleating is a technique I have used in shibori to create textures fabrics. I will be writing about this in the next post on ‘Raised and structured surface textures using shibori techniques’.
Here are a few samples of pleating:
I wanted to see if I could represent the lines from an image using folding and pleating and selected a photo with lots of lines. First i drew out a plan of stitching and then gathered and folded a piece of muslin:
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- photos with lines
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- sketching out lens
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- planning stitching
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- finished sample
Tucking
A sample using tucking
