African Study

After exchanging a few emails with "the English Rose in Kuwait" I found myself getting going on the African Study book and could even be almost finished by the end of the this weekend.

During the week I have been using my train travel to work and eveings to work on pages in the book and samples.

This is a section from an African woven fabric piece. Although it is not clear from this image the fabric is made of width of weaving joined. These two designs would have started on different pieces of weaving.

I turn the design into a cross stitch design and created my own version.

I then started to look at the designs on the fabric shown above. You may be able to see a little clearer the strips of weaving which run horizontally.

First I created a cut paper version of one design. This I then translated into felt pieces which I machines down. I used the machine stitching to add the side arms much with the feel of the original. Although I did consider that these could have been a beaded fringe. Next I made a rubbing of the paper cut using fabric crayons. Each rubbing was made with two colours. The rubbings were ironed on to calico and as you can see below I turned them into a piece of embroidery.

I used chain and running stitch for most fo the work, as these are stitches which are traditional in the area of western Africa I am looking at. While I was making the piece above I pondered on other ideas of expanding the idea. To this end made a sketch - below.
Finally - I have made up 6 or so fabric samples with various types of resists on them ready to dye them at the weekend.

So you can see its coming together. With the dye work finished and a section on fashion today and tomorrow, I think it will be basically finished. Although if I leave a few pages in the back of the sketch book I could always come back to the subject if I have time ... LOL !