Structured textiles - week 1 (of 4)

Start with a sheet of strong, thinnish paper - this is pattern making paper, from a big roll -

Crumple it lots, then pinch lines or a pattern (check the back, you may want to work from both sides). Then take it over to the heat press and give it 10 seconds -

All pinched but only half pressed

Could be a lampshade?

Inspiration for the rest of the day -

Wrapped and dyed patterning, much admired

What you can do with pole wrapping

Start with something simple - these were folded and rolled, stuffed into a tube, the ends plugged, and steamed -

 Pole wrapping ready for the steamer - both rectangles were cut down the long axis, then folded to resemble a simple book, before wrapping -

 Results - the grey was put on the pole diagonally; the white curled diagonally even though it was wrapped straight -

 Tacking yellow folds onto paper before putting the fabric (already steamed but uninteresting) into the heat press -

The grey wrapping disappointed because of the unwrapped spaces between -

whereas the "balloon animal" is very tightly wrapped. It's been steamed but I'm reluctant to unwrap it!

 The final steamer-load of the day -

Next week we bring fabrics (preferably wool and polyester), sewing kit, sources of inspiration. Meanwhile, we're to look on pinterest for "manipulated fabric", "fabric pleating", etc - and check out pleatfarm.com.

At the moment what catches my interest is the possibilities of pole-wrapping in combination with various concertina-book fold combinations - a way of taking the museum-maze book farther. I'll try various fabrics and see what happens ... ideas come when the hands are busy.

(This post is part of Off the Wall Friday.)