Gallery – Page 13 – 62-150A: Introduction to Textile Media

Mending Progress – Rachel

For this mending assignment, I chose to mend my boyfriend’s old Stanford sweater that he wore a lot in high school. When he came to CMU, he ended up roughly tearing off the letters with an x-acto knife, and left holes and a ghost remnant of what used to be. (He said it was because he liked the sweater but he did not want to represent Stanford while here.)

He hasn’t worn it in a while, so I thought maybe if I mend it and give it new meaning, it might be worthwhile. Instead of restoring the letters from before, what if I filled in some to spell out something else- I am leaning towards “SAD” right now, but maybe I could put in new letters.

It took me a while to figure out what to do, but I decided to just take the pattern across the whole word horizontally, and only make vertical lines for the letters I want. I haven’t gotten there yet. It took around 4 hours just to lay the horizontal part across and I am still missing a little! (I ran out of that color of embroidery floss.) However, I am pretty happy with how it’s turning out, and how there now exists a lineage of alterations to this sweater with time and attitude.

Improvisational Weaving – Erica Fu

Since I am at home still, I was inspired to create something that reflected each of my family members. I noticed that the chairs naturally have a loom shape and dinner is a time when my family comes together to one table. I created unique weavings for each of the members at where each person sits and put them in a cohesive space.

On the top left, I created a weaving for my mother, using softer, knitted materials and a warm color palette to create a heart shape and show her kind and caring personality.

On the top right, I reflected my mix of styles by using a lot of textures (denim, cotton, wires) to display my usual denim uniform, information systems shirt and love for music.

On the bottom left, I created a weaving for my father with a mix of polos, formal shirts, and sweatshirts. The sweatshirt wraps around the formal clothes, demonstrating how my father’s professional side is encapsulated by his casual personality at home.

On the bottom right, I reflected my brother’s love for toys, sports, and youthful personality with LEGOs, a sports jersey, colorful items, and cotton clothing.

Mending in Progress- Marissa

I am inspired by Celia Pym’s sweater mending projects and how she transforms articles of clothing with darning. I went thrifting this past weekend for the most unassuming sweater I could find. I plan to cut various sized holes and embellish this brown/black knit sweater with bright and colorful woven patches.

First hole before and after adding a bright pink warp

I cut a small hole on the sleeve to try darning out for the first time. The embroidery thread worked well with the sweater fabric. To avoid sewing the back of the sweater, I put a mason jar in the sleeve to hold the shape.

I definitely want to experiment with making the weaving section more visible for other patches, but I think that will be size dependent. I’m excited to see how I can continue to turn this sweater into a unique, expressive, and wearable piece.

Mending – Jesse

I chose to spend time getting comfortable with embroidery on fabrics over the weekend, and experimented with many pieces of my clothing for embroidering techniques. For my larger embroidery/mending project, I chose to spice up my old pair of party jeans. These were my jeans that I would wear out a lot, and they have been to many concert/parties/gatherings with me. It’s been really hard to cope without the types of interactions I am used to, and it has been really damaging my mental health. Because of that, I decided to add some beauty to the pair of jeans that I miss wearing the most. I decided to add a sunflower because flowers and natural patterns remind me of the hope in life. Also, they remind me of my dogs at home, both of which have helped me get through every setback in life. This photo is an in-progress photo, but I like how the flower is turning out so far!

I also am finishing up my second tapestry, and I plan on embroidering brightly colored tree leaves over the flat piece I have right now. The flat part is pictured below:

Mending – Jasmine Lee

I chose a pair of ripped jeans as my item to mend for this assignment. It was a somewhat ironic choice, as they were meant to be ripped in their original form anyway.

While the horizontal rip in the jeans were intentional, and were already there when I received them, the long gash on the left was unintentional and was created when I jammed my foot into the leg-hole. This caused a hanging corner on the knee of my jeans, unfolding and swinging around as I wore it. I decided to try and mend the rip using white and blue embroidery thread.

I sewed around the area of the gash to keep the loose threads in place, and then I created new weft threads with the white embroidery floss. I was able to weave these through the long hanging loose threads on the bottom of the gash, trying to blend the new thread with the old. I initially started with a plain vertical and horizontal weave, trying to just stabilize the fabric from ripping further.

After the denim felt stable enough, I decided to try pattern matching the mended area into the rest of the jeans. However, this wasn’t too successful due to not being able to match the mechanical lines of the jeans’ original weave, and due to the color differences in the threads that I had. I tried to lessen this by mixing two different types of blue, however it is still not quite successful. I do think it’s interesting to see the handsewn patch against the rigid order of the rest of the fabric. It almost seems like a whimsical patch of sky, with the interwoven white and blue strands. What’s also interesting to think about is that even if I mended the entirety of the hole in these jeans with this same method, I think they would still be called “ripped jeans.”

Tapestry Weaving- Marissa

This project was challenging for me, but I’m proud of myself for finishing this piece. I used this tapestry weaving to experiment with various stitch techniques and textures, and I learned a lot along the way.

Completed weaving affectionally called “The Rag”

The cardboard loom itself caused the biggest challenges with retaining even tension throughout the weaving. This was a source of a lot of frustration, but I learned to adjust and adapt my weaving and even embrace my mistakes.

I made impulsive color decisions during my weaving process, but eventually I settled on seven colors to alternate between for variety. I was surprised that changing the color was sometimes enough to emphasize different stitch techniques or even to just make the plain weave sections more interesting.

I experimented with interlocking the weft and using two colors in tandem to create vertical stripes. I also experimented with adding textured elements with added rya knots and soumak stitches. The rya knots sort of fell out when I cut my warp strings to remove my piece from the loom, but I was able to use the simple knot finishing technique to salvage the fringe effect.

Even though the weaving process was frustrating for me at times, taking breaks and returning to my tapestry gave me a fresh head to try to incorporate different stitches to make it more exciting. It felt like returning to an in-progress essay. I would unweave entire sections much like deleting paragraphs as I was trying to make my weaving feel more unified and coordinated.

Since this piece was solely experimental, I have also been surprised by the interpretations I’ve received from my peers so far. One of my friends said it reminded her of a geological cross section, and that provided me with a different perspective on my work that I appreciated.

My piece has grown on me because it’s reflective of my artistic process, and I did get more comfortable as I worked through it. This final image shows how I’ve been playing with displaying my tapestry. I’m inspired by El Anatsui and how his metal cloths change with every installation, and so far I enjoy how bunching my tapestry creates fun waves.

Tapestry Weaving Assignment – Erica Fu

I weaved a landscape of a flowery hill on a summer day. I discovered that there is a lot of potential in using a unique item to hold up the weaving so that it continues a certain theme or idea the artist wants to convey. Using the stick for me continued the natural aesthetic of my weaving and meshed well with the natural chaos of the weaving ends. I really enjoyed creating the piece and like the overall shape of everything, even the backside of it. However, I wish the form of the top and bottom edge were more consistent with my intentions. I tried to adjust the top side of the weaving so it was more wavy like the hill, but that shape did not translate well after I ended the warp. Overall, this was really fun and I enjoyed experimenting with textures.

Tapestry Weaving – Jesse

I spent a lot of time on this tapestry and it was really rewarding! I chose to express myself through this work and include vibrant colors, patterns, and lots of textures. My final product is below:

It was a very iterative process, and I wanted it to be very truthful and honest. If I tried something and did not like it, I undid it and started again. That created the fun challenge of reusing medium length yarns. This piece honestly took a lot of time because of that, but I am glad because I learned a lot and produced something I am happy with. I have already begun my next tapestry!

Tapestry Weaving – Kimberly

My completed tapestry weaving resembles a water and mountain sky scene. When starting the project, I experimented with color blending which looked somewhat like water to me so continued the color scheme to create this pattern. One of my biggest challenges was when working with more than one strand of yarn at the same time for color blending, it was extremely easy to tug on the warp which distorted the vertical lines on my weaving. This concerned me in the beginning and I tried to fix it multiple times but could not. But after I removed my weaving it became less noticeable and somewhat evened itself out.

For the mountain, I tried to use rya knots to create a snow effect but when I had piled them onto one another, it became too think. To combat this, I took out those in the center and weaved it with a needle which cannot be seen since the top rya knots covered it!

For the sky, I wanted to add a pop of color but thought the yellow was too bright so I braided it with two strands of white yarn which lightened the intensity and added a unique texture when woven.

Additionally, I wanted to include clouds but wasn’t sure on what technique to use so I added them very last by sewing them with a tapestry needle.

Overall, I enjoyed trying to create a picture with the yarn but looking back, I wish I had experimented with more techniques for texture in the water and other flat areas.

Finished Tapestry – Elle Smith

Creating this tapestry was far more frustrating then I expected. I originally had a grand plan to do a beautiful floral pattern with different textures. I dropped that idea a few rows in. Then I started to just mess around. I purposefully skipped rows, experimented with rya knots, and pulling the weft into different shapes. Most of the results of this experimentation is very sutble, but I really like how it turned out.