Excercise 4.1 Part 1

I spent a while looking at my previous work to choose some pieces that were inspiring for me in terms of yarn design and linear qualities.  Settling on two pieces I first did some sketch book work and sourced some materials both found and bought to get started on my first 30cm experiments.

My charcoal sketch immediately gave me the thought of using wool so I could get a fuzzy/fluffy edge much like the effect given by the smudged charcoal.   I used balls of mohair yarn and twisted them together for my first 30cm sample.  I then added a 5cm repeat of little balls wrapped around the entwined yarns.  Luckily the mohair was very easily tangled as it is so fluffy so just winding the yarn around was enough o secure it in place.  My second idea from this picture was to use 3 separate pieces of linen thread and then joined by cut felt circles which I stitched on in a 1cm repeat.

Black and green embroidery thread wound around to create a tubular yarn with purple wool stitched and cut in 5cm intervals.

Green and white thread twisted around wire, beads threaded through another piece of wire and then twisted together.

Linen thread joined together by cut felt discs, stitched to the threads in regular intervals.

Finger knitted acrylic yarn with linen thread tied around at 1cm intervals.

Mohair Yarn twisted together with black mohair yarn balls at 5cm intervals.

White cotton muslin with bright pink ribbon tied on and light pink embroidery thread, threaded through the sides.

When working from the stitched paper sample there were so many different shapes and textures I had lots of ideas.  I decided to  separate the sample into sections and create different linear yarns from each one as the textures and shapes in the stitched paper gave me separate ideas.

My first thought was to create a linear form of the flower loops on the paper sample.  I  decided to finger knit some  of the same acrylic yarn to create a looped strand that I could then add black thread to like the black cotton stitched into the centre of the flower.

In my next sample I wanted to recreate the crumpled paper in some way so I cut a strip of cotton muslin, twisted it and tied it with bright pink ribbon then added pale pink embroidery thread entwined down the sides like the embroidered flower petals.

In my other samples I used some different materials including wire and beads to try and achieve texture and different zig zag shapes.  I also used stitched loops of material and then cut them to give the impression of flowers.

These 30cm samples have given me some fantastic ideas of how I want to develop them and create my 1metre long pieces in the next stage, it has also got me thinking about my yarn research.  Although I will be posting research in my online blog I think I also want to create a physical yarn research folder so I can go more in depth and include samples and experimentation alongside the written research.