Friday, August 19, 2011

Design for gold work piece module 2

After publishing a design and getting comments from Sian, it was back to the drawing board for a piece with metallic threads.
I wanted to carry on with the idea of a repository for the necklace, Sian suggested looking at ways of display rather than a bag structure.
I experimented as in image below left, with a presentation tray made from water soluble stitch with superimposed metallic thread embroidered images-I have sewn taniwha shapes on the bottom. The colours are not those I would necessarily use- I was experimenting with some scraps, and was aiming for a mussel shell shape- it would be cut out or sewn to the mussel shape. The necklace is at the front.



I then explored a woven structure to resemble a cray pot as on R above, with  ball of green thread inside. The pot would be made of silk paper woven strips ornamented with metallic thread- and mostly machine stitching. I rather liked this idea but would need to stiffen the paper or use pelmet vilene  to make it stiff enough.
 I then looked for other shapes associated with my estuary theme. I had been down at the estuary drawing boathouses, boats, the mooring buoys and  fishing floats and I thought  a fishing float shape ie spherical, opening out to a flat surface would fit with my wanting a "safe place" and to display the necklace. The paper version is in image below on the left, the actual piece needs to be about 2cm larger diameter. I then made a smaller silk paper version, with metallic thread zig zag machine stitches on, and did a couple of motifs- they are seahorses, in metal  and sewed some chiffon to the silk paper shape. This complemented the necklace and I liked the idea.




I have made some  silk paper in blue/ white which I shall stitch, I shall use blue chiffon as the inner fabric and will decorate the inner side over the silk paper with stamping and or stitching - as used on the back of the necklace shapes. This will mask the back of hand stitching /couching on the front. The "float" will be gathered with machine cord and loosely tied. The stitching will include cable stitch with metallic thread around the silk paper shapes, a motif on each segment,  maybe all seahorses sewn with couching, pieces of metal, beads etc, I need to experiment some more on the exact layout of stitching.
 below is the silk paper before stitch/ decoration


Now back to module 3.


1 comment:

  1. This is really fascinating Ali. The silk paper is beautiful and I love your theme. I'm only just starting Module 1 so you're way ahead of me!

    ReplyDelete