Project 6, stage 4, raised and structured surface textures

This blogpost is all about fabric manipulation to create texture. There are many ways of achieving this and with this blogpost I will show you some of the samples I made. Actually I made enough samples to fill 3 blogposts or maybe even more. The first picture shows two different ways of gathering fabric together. The row at the left is done with rows of even stitches: thread above the fabric in the same place. This gives a similar effect to all the rows after the threads have been pulled. I prefer the row at the right more. Here the rows have uneven stitches: thread above the fabric is not in the same place. The effect of this is more variated than the even lines.

 The next sample is made from different layers of fabric. Each has a distinctive different color. A grid has been stitched over this and with a seamripper the top layers of the fabric have been cut open. In this sample I cut away all the top layers, but it can also be done in such a way that certain parts are only cut open through the first layer and other parts through more than one layer. Fraying the fabric a bit helps to show more result.

 For the red sample I took advantage of the fact that this red knitted polyester fabric looked different when you compare the front and the back of the fabric. I placed the back of the fabric facing up when I placed a smaller circle front facing up on top of it. The next step was to stitch a spiral through the circle and cut in between the stitching lines. To get the best effect of this I had to trim away some of the fabric next to the cutting lines. This technique I had never used before and I have to say that I really like it.

 The final sample of this blog post is a combination of different textured fabrics, folded, scrunched and pleated at random before stitching it down with a thread of pearl cotton. The big stitches are part of the texture. On purpose I made 3 of those samples because I wanted to see how they looked like when they were painted and dyed. I know that some of the fabrics are cotton, but I don't know whether they have been treated or not. Results of this will be in a future blog post.