Explorations 10: Puckering: A Scathing Self-Critique

Explorations 10:  Puckering:  A Scathing Self-Critique

I'm learning how to do something, and as usual, learning the hard way.  With a lot of trial and error. Basically, I'm trying to make a piece of painted silk look like a band of foam advancing across a beach at low tide.  I've been at it for days.  Today I worked on my third effort.  Right now I'm going to articulate what's working and what's not.

In this first effort (heavy silk crepe de chine, quilt batting), the lines are too evenly spaced:

In this second effort (lightweight raw silk, no quilt batting), I tried for less even spacing, but the result is haphazard looking and even a little ugly...

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...except that I like the effect of white and iridescent threads, zigzagged along the edge, looking like the raised lip of the leading edge of the foam.

In today's third effort (silk chiffon, no quilt batting), I'm onto something.  This photo below shows the silk chiffon after having been stitched but before the steam was applied to the Fabric Magic:

 This photo shows the same piece after the Fabric Magic had been exposed to steam:

 Closeup of after Fabric Magic:

 What worked and what didn't:

• I'm getting much better at making the rows of stitching look more irregular, but they still have to be in parallel bands
• The rows sewn in lazy curves, using straight stitch, such as those on the lower left and upper right, work well and look natural, as long as they're not too regular
• Zigzags don't work well in a color that contrasts with the background, such as gold.
• Zigzags do work well when sewn in the same color as the background, such as white, and where the puckering mimics the rounded edge of the advancing foam
• This piece is way too crumpled and puckery, more so than in the real thing.  Solution:  If I do go with silk chiffon, as in this example, I should use quilt batting between the silk and the Fabric Magic. 

What else?  I have one more piece of silk (crepe de chine but not heavy weight) which has been painted and is ready to use for practice.  I'll do that tomorrow, and I'll

• Layer it with quilt batting
• Avoid zigzags, especially in colors that contrast with the background, but use zigzags in the same color as the background (white and iridescent) when showing the leading edge of the foam
• Concentrate on straight stitches in lazy rows, keeping them more or less parallel without being too regular

Wish me luck.

Explorations Episode 9: Practicing my Puckering

Explorations Episode 9:  Practicing my Puckering

I'm still trying to get a piece of silk fabric to mimic the luscious, multi-folded look of a band of golden sea foam advancing along the sand.  So I'm practicing my puckering.

To that end, today I tried my luck with lightweight raw silk.  As before, I pre-treated the fabric with GAC 900 before painting it in golden hues.

The fabric is very loosely woven:

...so the GAC 900 should help keep the paint from escaping downward through its loose weave.

Compared to my prior effort, this time I did these things differently:

• I did not use quilt batting underneath the silk
• I sewed random ribbons of foam  instead of uniform rows
• I used specialty threads (metallic, holographic)
• I used decorative stitches (zigzag, others)
• I used darker threads to show depth.

What worked and what didn't:

• The decorative stitches did a good job of showing crumples, especially on the lacy, whiter edges of the foam
• The lighter-colored threads were effective in showing laciness, but were hard to see while working.  The photo below shows some stitches in white thread, very hard to see.

 Nevertheless, the white threads did a good job of mimicking foam.  This photo shows the excellent puckering with the white thread, looking so real.

• The darker threads were too dark and attracted too much attention.  This is especially so where darker threads were used for decorative stitches.

• The lack of quilt batting makes the piece more pliable. 

What to do next:

• Before proceeding to another piece of silk (silk chiffon and silk crepe de chine are already painted and prepared), I'm going to see what will happen if I apply more paint, in various places, to this already-puckered piece.

Why not?  We're enjoying a spirit of experimentation here.

Explorations Episode 8: Trying to Keep It Simple

Explorations Episode 8: Trying to Keep It Simple

Today I'm going bravely into territory where potential violations of the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) Rule lurk very close by.

I'm still trying to find a way to turn a piece of silk into the image of a band of sea foam.  Last week I experimented with heavy silk crepe de chine (30 mm)*, painting it and then puckering and pleating it.  Today I experimented with three other kinds of silk fabric:  Lightweight raw silk, silk chiffon, and a lighter silk crepe de chine (16 mm), painting each one the colors of the advancing sea foam:

Lightweight raw silk

Silk chiffon

Lighter-weight silk crepe de chine, 16 mm

* By the way, did you know that the measure of the heaviness of silk is the "momme," pronounced "mommy"?  You can't make this stuff up.  I imagine it's from the French, but I haven't looked it up, so if you know its derivation, please let me know.

Before painting these three different kinds of silk with my special blends of Jacquard Lumiere paints and Pearl-Ex powders,

 I treated them with a product called GAC 900, a polymer intended to give the fabric a better hand and make it more receptive to the paint.

Once these three pieces of silk dry, I'll experiment with getting them into tiny folds.  By recommendation and experimentation, I've found that the best agent for making sinuous, tiny, narrow pleats is a product called Fabric Magic, http://www.pellonprojects.com/products/fabric-magic/,.  I'll layer each piece of silk with Fabric Magic and quilt batting and make parallel rows of stitching to get the sinuous folds into the silk.  The silks have to be cut 30 percent larger than the intended final product to account for the extreme shrinkage that occurs when Fabric Magic is exposed to steam.  This time, I'll make the stitching more uneven so that it looks more like the real thing:

These pleats are way too even and close together.

The real thing is much more random: 

When the silk dries, I'll experiment with different spacing of the rows of stitching so that they make both thick and thin strips of foam.  The thinner strips are toward the right edge of the moving band of foam, where the layers are accumulating as the tide advances from left to right.

While I wait for the silk to dry, I can experiment with the thread painting I'm planning to do in the troughs of the sand ripples.  In the actual photo I'm using, the troughs contain groups of shining bubbles:

Now I can fool around and experiment around with different threads and different ways of showing these bubbles:

These are not too hard to make.  The danger, if there is one, may be making too many of them, thus violating the KISS rule.  I also want to add tiny clear beads to the final product.

Meanwhile, though, I have to confess that I'm mesmerized with the swiftly flowing channels in this other photo:

This water is flowing, flowing, flowing, inexorably, with a power and a sparkle that delights.  I would love to find a way to show these ripples within ripples, but so far this is the best I get:

These images in no way reflect the constant move and sparkle of the water in the photo immediately above it.  It's going to take a lot more experimentation to get these stitches to look like that flowing water, and there are potential violations of the KISS rule lurking very, very close by.  I think that means I have to take a break for the rest of the day.

Explorations Episode 7: Have to Admit it's Getting Better

Explorations Episode 7:  Have to Admit it's Getting Better

I have to admit it's getting better.

My first attempts to create an undulating band of sea foam from a piece of silk fabric instead resulted in the creation of a piece of silk with all the grace and pliability of a plastic shower curtain.

So in a spirit of continual effort and improvement, I tried again.  The creation I'm attempting to bring into being is for a pretty significant goal:  an exhibit that will hang in the New England Quilting Museum in Lowell, Massachusetts.  So it's worth getting right.

 And I'm keeping on keeping on.

For my second effort, I used a product called Fabric Magic to create the undulating band of foam. First I painted the foam colors onto heavy silk charmeuse.

 I put the fabric magic, which feels pretty silky itself, under this piece of painted silk.  I layered a piece of quilt batting in between the two.  Then I stitched vertical rows of stitching all along the outlines of the silk, sewing the silk, the quilt batting, and the fabric magic together.  Once those rows were sewn, I held a steam iron gently over the piece of painted silk.  And this is what I got:

The Fabric Magic shrunk the silk down around the lines I had sewn. This looks much closer to the band of foam than the monstrosity I created the first time: 

So I think I'll stick to this Fabric Magic stuff, because it created undulations much closer to those in the photo.

Now here's what I'll do differently next time:

• Sew more irregularly spaced rows into the fabric:  some close together, some farther apart, and not always consistently parallel
• Leave a good part of the piece of silk unsewn, and flat, on the left side, to show the flat place in the foam, and to give me room to embellish it with beads etc.
• Vary the color in the foam a little more. Make it much brighter than the sand ripples across which it's crossing
• Find a lovely way, shape, and thread color to show the little foam bubbles in the troughs of the sand ripples
• Try to create the band of foam yet again, in the same way, but using one of the other lightweight silks I got for this purpose, such as silk gauze.  Just to see.

Despite the need for all these improvements, I can see that my efforts are nevertheless yielding better results.

I have to admit it's getting better.