Tags
art, avant-garde, braid, braids, color, conceptual, design, dreads, experiment, experimental, fashion, hair, London, melting, plastic, sewing, sketching, stitch, study abroad, synthetic, textiles, thread, wig, yarn
After gathering primary and secondary research it was to time to start experimenting. This meant gathering a variety of materials and trying different techniques to mold them together. This experimenting is what primarily guided our design choices for the final product.
Getting started was tough so I continued playing with color and mark making to warm up.
Crosshatching colors, trash from Electric Avenue, and chain link fence criss-crossing marks
Next it was time to move into fabric. As I am new to stitch my first instinct was to start designing with stitch techniques. So I tried criss-crossing and scribbling with different colored threads on the sewing machine. I also got some heat transfer foil which was pretty fun to play with.
This was looking pretty disgusting so I moved on to play with needle punch and melting plastic bags. Being inspired by the wigs on Electric Avenue I went into a wig shop and bought some synthetic hair. I used to make hair pieces with this Jumbo braid hair in high school so I was really excited about the opportunity to use it again.
1) Jumbo Braid bought in Brixton and 2) Jumbo braid hair piece I made in high school for prom (circa 2008)
I tried using the needle punch on the synthetic hair but that didn’t work. So then I cut up strips of felt and needle punched that on sheer fabric that I had woven together. Determined to make the synthetic hair work I began braiding it with threads in it and then stitching these braids down.
I kind of hit a wall after my failures with the needle punch so I went back to heat transferring color to synthetic fabric and some more melting.
I felt like I was onto something with the melting so I explored it some more with heat transferring color to plastic and mixing fibers into the melted plastic.
Stumped on how to develope this technique further I discussed it with my tutor. She looked back to my earlier sampling and saw my interest in braiding. She then asked for scissors and started cutting my samples into strips. I was shocked and confused – what was she doing?
My tutor then suggested I try braiding these plastic strips and melting them. EURIKA!
The final technique concept I will use for my project – colored fibrous plastic braided and melted
englishstitch 