Technical Block 3: Stitch - Testing

With all my materials and yarns bought, I began to start testing. The main technique I was focusing on was melting. I tested out lots of different ways I could make the tubes more personal and relevant to my project, by winding and wrapping them with yarns. I then started melting the tubing on the iron in different ways such as knots, or straight pieces. I also experimented with the shapes they could be manipulated into as they were cooling. Electrical tape was really good for melting so I tested this as a decorative yarn.

I wanted to also test other techniques too, along with the melting. I tried adding in samples of dissolvable stitching, which added more of a fragile aspect to some of the samples. I also used the broken needle technique on a sheet of a thin, clear plastic material I had bought. I used a fluffy black yarn that fused to the plastic with the broken needle technique very well, and other colourful and textured yarns too, which added an extra dimension and tactility. It reminded me of under water coral, sea anemone and, urchins. I then used this material to make my own tubes and tested how it melted. Although the material was successful, when it was cut up and made into samples, it was quite dense and fussy, and a lot less refined.

It seemed the most successful samples were the tubular ones and these were what I pushed forward for final samples. I started at looking at making tiny little bead like samples, with the tube filled with a textured yarn and then cut up into small pieces. I then laid them out in a row and melted them which fused them together. This worked really successful and was something I looked to experiment with further. As well, the knotted pieces were successful joint up as repeats, so this was also something to consider for finals.

Melting techniques

Melting and dissolvable techniques 

melting, knotting, shaping and cooling

Different ways of wrapping and stitching onto the tubing

Using netting/mesh material and creating my own tubes

Creating small units and joining them up using various materials

small units and wrapping

textured material made using broken needle technique

Mixed media - tubing and clumpy made materials

Denser more textured samples

melted up pieces of tubing

thicker tubing and electrical wire melted samples

starting to join together the units