Thursday 3 March 2011

First post!

I've never done a blog before so writing this is alittle daunting! 

I thought I would show my sewing machine-yes I do actually use this! It's an industrial 1960s metal 327K. I love this machine it's really sturdy but also really heavy. This machine was found in my Nans loft when she moved in. It needed the tension plate changing and several other parts but I think it was worth it! Hopefully in the summer I will set it into a table and keep it in a corner in my garage to be my sewing place ^^

 Today I've been working towards a college project. I don't really like the theme, it's too restricting. Anyway I'm basing it off the colours and abstract textures of a view in Barcelona.



I know my sketch doesn't look like much! It's hard to draw exactly what I'm planning. Its a very highly constructed hung piece that will have relief- to be displayed like a painting. I wanted to use dull colours- murky aquas, blues, earthy browns and sections that bleached too. I would need to dye most of these colours myself. So today I went and brought a cheap bucket, bleach and some tea then went off to college on the bus with a bucket in one hand and a carrier with my sketchbook! I must of looked strange haha!

I was mostly dying with prociens. These were colleges. Some of them smelled funky and were stonger than others so I'm not sure if they were out of date! I experimented with combining the colours which made some interesting results due to the dye strengths. I was using pure white linen kindly donated by one of my Nans friends ^^



The first piece on the left was a tie-dye experiment where I combined blue and brown dyes. The brown was stronger than the blue so it left only small blue parts to it. The second are two orange/brown experiments. The colour is too bright though so I don't think I'll be using them. Next is a dip-dye I tried again with the brown-blue combo which again the brown was stronger so it completely dyed the saturated part while the blue crept up the fibres. My favorite is the washed out aqua which I did by mistake. I wanted a darker tea dye so I added black and it turned aqua!
On the right is just tea dying- I let it 'brew' for around 20mins so the colour is stronger you can't tell in this pic because my floors the same colour! On the right is a bleaching experiment. I really liked the colour it produced so I will probably be taking in the bucket again tomorrow to college to dye some black cotton with diluted bleach!

Thats about everything for now! I need to go and catch up on my sketchbook...