Documentation – Encoded Cloth – Chloe, Jackie, Jen, Joy

Our Intention:
Our intention when starting the project was to create a piece that would reflect pieces of our culture, more specifically, elements of our culture that related to food. We came up with the idea of creating a table setting with different textile elements that we would make, such as a napkin, tablecloth, placemat, etc. We decided that by creating this sort of installation, we could translate the experience of eating and sharing food via a very vivid and direct representation with a table setting.

Our Process:
We ended up creating four distinct pieces:

Placemat
The placemat was done with bamboo skewers we ordered off Amazon, We used fiber-reactive dye to dye them blue, since we felt that we needed a bit of contrast from all the vibrant warm tones in our other elements. Dyeing the bamboo didn’t quite work out how we imagined, because due to either the surface or the treatment, the bamboo didn’t quite take on the dye as planned. Also, the bamboo was quite yellow, so our blue turned our more green.
Weaving it was also a new experience for us because hard, rigid objects are much harder to weave and to beat down on a loom. We had to learn some new techniques to keep the bamboo mat denser.

Tablecloth
The table cloth was created using our block prints. We then hemmed the fabric and added the fringe along two ends. The fringe was definitely a process. The most difficult part was trying to figure out how to attach all of the fringe we made to the table cloth. This could have been executed better as it appeared somewhat messy, but it took a lot of trial and error to get it attached.

Napkin
The napkin cloth was created from our screen printed fabric. We hemmed the sides so it has smoother edges. In terms of color decision of threads we used red orange and yellow to create coherent piece along with the major tablecloth piece. We also created napkin ring holder to add onto the atmosphere of dining on a warm prepared table.

Cushion
The cushion was added to provide comfortness for the person who is willing to participate in the dining experience. We dyed screen printed fabric and filled with polyfill to complete the dining experience.

Our Learning:
Throughout the project we learned to develop concept and brainstorming ways to deliver the concept to the audience. It was challenging to put together various pieces to complete the concept as a group but, we were successful in merging ideas and finding middle ground as a group. Choosing particular technique from the wide range of textile technique we learned in class was exciting. Imagining how form, texture, and material may influence the experience of audience motivated our group to work on the project.