The adventure of taking paper or fabric or anything else that can be thusly manipulated and scrunching it up and then somehow stabilizing the shape continues.
This is the present state of the cashmere sweater cut into 'pelt' pieces and in the process of being scrunched and stitched and loosely pinned together to fill in the blank for a vest/tabard.
It is so satisfying to scrunch. We do it for many reasons in the course of a day – blankets or sheets, dishcloth, handkerchief, washcloth, scarves; lately I've noticed an increasingly number of young people pulling the sleeves of their hoodies or sweaters over their hands and holding them, scrunched up, in that position. Babies scrunch up anything they can get their fists into – blanket, hair, parent's clothing while parent is still wearing it, the cat….. Cats and dogs will scrunch up a blanket. It is comforting. It is likely releasing energy.
When I came across the information that scientists were discovering that energy is gathered in material by scrunching, my interest went from spark to flame. I want to know more. I want to see if the garment I make from scrunched fabric feels different. I want to know if the vibrations are subdued in scrunch or pulse more. I want to know if this can be measured.
One thing with the scrunching has been the issue of sewing with a straight or zig zag stitch in the way one usually sews. It has been challenging. I knew about machine embroidery but had no success with the freehand type in the past so it never occurred to me it could be used in scrunching.
Until now. This is what freehand creating with a sewing machine can produce when you know how to do it. Whew and wow.
I watched a demonstration of it at Narrative Articulations at the opening on the weekend; watching someone do something works for me!
It is a worthwhile show, seamless art as function; function as art.
This is the tool that allows creating with thread to happen on a sewing machine. It's called a darning foot and I have them in my attachment box but ….. darning? Nah. So I never tried it.
The demonstration at Articulations showed how to achieve the effect of shading and filling and drawing and outlining and – oh, it seems almost anything you can do with paint or pencil or crayon – but in fibre. Many of the pieces in the show express this.
For now I want to see how I can use it to – scrunch!