When I was given the brief for tying and knotting I instantly thought of macrame. I started looking and researching into macrame. I had done this technique before in college so I did have experience however looking at all the macrame pieces, I just felt they didn’t go with the feel of my project. I think the alternative materials could have worked however wouldn’t have achieved the same result. My second thought went directly to my previous weave samples where I looked at chunky knots. I thought could I replicate this? could I repeat this?
For my first sample I looked at the knots solely. I wanted this to be extremely chunky so I used a lot of material and just started tying them against a juxtaposing material, I really really loved the mad contrast of materials but felt almost they were too spaced apart.
so going forward i wanted to tackle this in my next sample. My second sample I looked back to my embroidery samples which was all about ruffling with the sewing machine, as this was so successful I wanted to use this technique again. I started by cutting strips of each of the material and using my sewing machine to ruffle each of them. I also made sure to cut the fabric larger so the ruffles would be more exaggerated and it would fill more gaps, to create a loose world of tactile elements. I then in relation to my data looked at creating chunky knots, 80% = 8 knots. I wanted to look at the opacity of the materials, the purple tulle is regarding invisable symptoms, ones so transparent you wouldn’t know you had them i.e vertigo in relation to anxiety, the Patterned scarf fabric I thought really resembled fear using colour association and the pattern almost looks like spots of bacteria all over the scarf. knotting these together really helped convey how each symptom overlaps and becomes one much life the population now experiencing an anxiety patients mind.
I then wanted to go the opposite way thinking how would this sample look on a smaller scale? I started creating one layer, looking at thin strips of the pink bin bag, I knotted these all together as a base. I then went in with purple tulle, knotting each strip onto the knotted base. I wanted layers to be important within this sample as I looked at having 5 layers to link into my data. I then used the black patterned fabric and continued this process, looking at filling some of the gaps. I then decided to double the amount of pink tulle as I wanted the sample to be mostly pink in order to relate to the rest of my samples, I used longer bits and attached. What I really loved about the knotting samples was the movement, when you hold them up they have a loose nature so they are very fluent, I feel this works really well as it links to the movement and flow of my first embroidery samples, I wanted this feeling to be evident throughout the process.
lrichar3
The organic versatility of this approach to textile construction appears to fit more naturally into your approach to making and will compliment your print and embroidery. You have pushed the fluidity and versatility of this technique well . The connection with your data is great, well done. At this stage it would be good to see you put aside the data and focus on analysing the technical and aesthetic qualities in your sample outcomes. How might your capitalise on, and develop what you have produced here for future projects?