Focus On Fiber Retreat -Part 9 - Permanent Pleating and 3D Sculpture

I showed this lame melt-off piece on a previous post. I had no idea what I was going to do with it. When I opened it and looked at it I realized it could be a great 3D sculptural piece hanging on a wall. I found a perfect spot for it. I only needed 4 dressmaker pins to hold it on the wall.



This is the piece of sheer polyester I pleated on the pleating machine.
After I pleated it I boiled it in water for about 30 minutes to set the pleats.
In the background you see the fabric I started with.


I ironed this design on one side of the pleated fabric using one of the pieces of paper I had painted with disperse dyes.


I turned it over and ironed a different design on the other side.



After removing the threads I used to pleat this I have a piece of pleated and printed polyester that is now 8" x 32". It started out 8" x 72".
I can finish the edge with my serger.


This is a closeup of the piece. There is not as much design as I expected. I can see some great possibilities for this technique. This was a good learning experience creating this.

Focus On Fiber Retreat -Part 5 - Disperse Dye Printing and Melt Off

I am continuing blogging about Focus On Fiber and hope you are enjoying it.

Thank you for reading my blog. While you are here feel free to look around at many of my previous posts. The column on the right lists various topics I have discussed. If any of them interest you just click on them and the posts on that topic will appear for you to read.

I want to share some more of the work I did at Focus On Fiber with you.



This is a piece of paper I painted "Jackson Pollock style" with the disperse dyes.




This is the print on a piece of fabric. You can print several times with one painting. I printed this 4 times and then did a few more partial prints with it on the this same arrangement. I will still be able to use it quite a few more times.



We also worked with lame. This is Gina's lame neatly wrapped around a pole.



This is my lame wrapped not so neatly on a pole.



We melted out some of the metal and then dyed the nylon that remained. This is an overview of the piece I did. Had I wrapped it as neatly as Gina did I think it would have been a lot more effective!



This is a closeup of the processed lame. It is hard to really appreciate in a photo. It has a lot of texture.

I can't wait to share more of the things we did with you in more posts!



Linda H made sure we got up and moved around to keep in shape!

Focus On Fiber Retreat -Part 2 - Color Swatching, Discharging Dye, Shibori Wrapping, Permanent Pleating

We started our first day of class by dyeing color samples of various colors with Procion MX dyes.



These are the colors we chose to sample. They are still wet in the photo.



Our next project was dyeing silk scarves with the dyes we had mixed and sampled.
We wrapped and bound them and squirted 3 different colors of dye on them.
After we let them rest for a while we bound them again, a little tighter this time and they were submerged in a pot of black acid dye.
After another resting period there was more binding – tighter this time.
We then submerged them in a pot of Thiox to discharge some of the color.
After a short time in that pot we took off the binding and rinsed them. They are really awesome.
These are just a few of them.



After lunch we had our choice of things to do.
Here Linda, our instructor is showing one way to do a shibori wrap on a pole.
Several of the class members chose this activity.

Linda is showing Barbara how to use the pleating machine.

For my afternoon activity I chose to pleat this 8 inch x 2 yard piece of sheer polyester.
I will be adding a color or pattern to it during one of our next exercises.
After working so hard, a group of us retired to one of the cottages for snacks and beverages and “girl talk”. It was great bonding and sharing evening. We didn’t even need dinner after all the snacks everyone brought.