ATV4:5 Collage inspired yarn

Brief: Look back at the work you produced in Exercise 3.4. You should have at least 6 collage studies to select from. How many you use is your own choice. You can also draw uppon all the work you have done so far in this project. Is there a particular process that would work well to translate the collage

Look at the paper surfaces and qualities and colour and focus on: flat yarns, flat braids, ribbons, slit or slit-film yarns , rag yarns and tape yarns. Do some research into their construction and how they may inform your yarn development for this exercise.

Create at least 5 yarn designs with some type of flat construction as in the examples just given and inspired by your collage work. Make close reference to the visual inspiration of your collage work and demonstrate the links and translations you have explored.

I had to look up what slit and slit film yarns were, it reminded me of the material that is used for decorations, cheap buning and birthday banners, tinsel. I don’t have any and don’t really want to buy more plastic just for this project but am going to see what else works. I have a lot of ribbons in my workroom and can create braids to mix existing yarns to translate the collage work. I do also have rag yarns but feel they aren’t flat enough as the edges always curl in. I want to focus on a mixture of the black and white collage and the dotty collages. The black and white collage is high in pattern and contrast which lends itself to all kinds of exciting explorations, whereas the dotty work is generally made of single coloured matt papers I have painted myself. I am going to eplore how I can best translate this. I am feeling quite a structured exploration, nothing too messy, high contrast, industrial, think steel beams and nuts and bolts, strong, hard, not a yarn you could use for clothes or home accessories, more a hard wearing working yarn…But actually once I started playing I found I was cutting circles from felt which is quite soft, making loops with ribbon, stitching ribbons together, so actually they all ended up quite fragile yarns!

methods: stitch, sew, staple, thread

materials: plain yarns, patterned black and white ribbons, metal wire

First I created a yarn from bits of monochrome ribbons stitched on to another length of ribbon.

Next I created a yarn from pieces of monochrome ribbons held together by stitching applied whilst the ribbons were held by Solvy, as a dissolving fabric medium used in embroidery. I like how this piece reflects the monochrome collage very accurately, I like the negative space in between the pieces and in between the stitches.

Next I roughly plaited a sequinned ribbon and two plain ribbons, the coloyurs of which were taken from the grey and peach dotted collage. I deliberately left loops of ribbon sticking out to represents the dots from the collage. I like it but it’s not enough I feel.

Next I did some knotting with three ribbons, using the thinnest ribbon to loop around and hold the wider ribbons together. The colours and loops were once again taken from the spotty collage. I felt this piece was much better than the last one.

For the next piece I took circles cut from felt and jump rings and key rings to connect the felt pieces to translate the spotty collage again. I like this piece, it is unusual, sculptural almost.

Next I used thin copper wire to stitch loops from lengths of ribbon which I then attached to each other with more copper wire. It is a fragile and very three dimensional piece, having turned the flat ribbons into hoops and loops. I’m not sure if it works for this exercise but I like it a lot although I think mounting it will make it lose its unique shape!

Here I stitched orange hair elastics to a grey ribbon, once again working from the spotty collage. The elastics didn’t behave so well under the sewing macine and they twisted, which has ended up looking quite interesting despite it not being exactly what I was trying to achieve.

Finally for the next yarn I decided to go back to the first yarn I created for this project and to add some pink sequined yarn to represent the pink dots from the second collage and to add some loops of yarn to add extra structure and interest. I love what this looks like, it is a dynamic piece.

In this exercise I worked quite fast, one idea instantly sparking the next. I didn’t feel I needed to think too hard to grasp this one. I had fun exploring the flat components and I feel the energy and dynamic really comes across.