The completed item will be part of a 30 x 30 exhibition at my local Embroiderer's’ Guild early in 2016. Hence the finished piece has to be 30cm X 30cm. I decided to mount the item, which was roughly 21X21cm, on a background fabric which would frame the piece. This fabric will be stretched over an artist’s canvas for hanging.
Decision 1: The first decision was the choice of background fabric. I tried 4 different options. The first was a darker batik style blue fabric, and the rest were different hand-dyed shibori fabrics in aqua and white. I decided that the fabrics with white in the background gave a better effect due to the greater contrast they offered, so rejected the darker one (left). The randomly striped fabric in the centre and the patchy one on the right were also rejected because they were a bit too busy and blue. I dyed an additional piece of cotton fabric in a paler colour using a similar pattern to the rejected one on the right. This was prepared by rolling and binding it with string before placing in the dye. I decided that the best effect was achieved with this fabric because the contrast was better balanced.
Decision 2: Edge finish. I thought about leaving the edges of the embroidered section cut unevenly as in the centre picture in the rejected samples below.However I ended up deciding against this as the blurred edge did not give a good contrast with the background. The smooth finish on the right, where the rough edges were tucked under, was much cleaner and brought out the lines of stitching much more. I thought about adding some stitching to the background fabric but rejected this idea because the pristine background seemed more in keeping with the icy environment and I did not want it to become too busy.
Rejected backgrounds & finishes
Selected background and finish
Decision 3: Angle to mount the embroidered panel. I started off thinking that I would mount the embroidered panel to sit squarely against the background, as in the centre and right rejected samples. After trying a few alternatives, I decided that an angled mount gave a more pleasing effect because it helped accentuate the lines of stitching and drew the eye upwards through the piece. However I also decided to add interest by allowing the bobbly dyed silk organza to extend past the boundaries of the more intensely stitched areas, as if the ice was spilling out of the iceberg shape.
FINAL RESOLVED SAMPLE
The stitching on this piece was similar to the samples worked earlier in the module except:
- On the outer deep blue section I made the silver stitches larger than the blue ones to add variety
- On the middle pleated section I added some darker blocks of stitching to add contrast, and over stitched some large rough crosses in aqua and silver threads to provide a link between this section and the outer one.
- The central bubbly section was stitched down with a fine thread that blended with teh background as I decided that it didn't need any extra contrast.
