Thursday 20 September 2012

Try It Out : Featuring Fabric


So... if you have rust dyed fabric that has only partly been successful, as I have, what do you do with it?  Well, one thing you can do is fussy cut it for card making, or into a small mount, for framing.  It's a really good idea to try several sizes, shapes and even colours when you are deciding what to do; I'm showing what happens when you work with one section of the cloth, this one (above).  I even like the creases that are left because I squeezed surplus water out of it before leaving it to dry.  In fact, I like this distressed look so much, I decide to make it a bit stronger, and scrunched up the fabric in my fist...roughly like this...(but more so...it unravelled when I tried to take the photo...sigh).


I then straightened it out; if it won't lie flat after this type of treatment, give it a tug, top and bottom...that will help.  Remember that you'll tape the fabric onto the card, so it will be stretched flat; there's no need to iron it (in fact, better not to, all things considered...).  I ended up with this;






You can see the original form of the knocker, curve at the bottom, knob at the top.  I tried two different types of mount on it, first a square one;




I like this, it has lovely movement in it.  Some hand stitching would look great in the areas where there is less rust; that would emphasise the movement.  I've never really taken to machine stitching with rust dyed fabric, and I'm not sure why... perhaps it's the organic nature of the cloth.  Machine stitching is so regular, that it doesn't seem to go well with the type of marks that rust leaves.

Then, I tried a rectangle;



This is even better; some of the markings from higher up are showing in this, and again, there is lots of movement.  I decided to go with this one.  But there is still the 'knob' of the knocker at the top of the fabric which isn't being used by the frame... so, I try this;




Interesting.  I think, with some beading, and a bit more crunching up of the squares top and bottom, and some stitch, this will be quite good.  Result!  Now, of course, I just have to make them...<G>.

The last image I'm showing you is a card, all bagged up and ready to go (probably to Etsy).  This one is made from Evolon which has been rust dyed, but this one has been stitched by hand, using variegated hand dyed yarn.  It's a different size from the rectangular mount above, and I thought it would be interesting to look at it, to see the effect of the stitching.  What do you think?


This is a great way of using scrap, or things that don't quite work out the way you planned them!



No comments: