This week I have been experimenting with different ways of combining hand-stitch with crochet. The cotton yarn I used above was crocheted freestyle, varying the size of hook and there is a contrast of texture between the firmer, tighter stitches which have been worked with smaller hooks, and the loose, droopy, more bedraggled feel of the stitches formed with huge crochet hooks. One of the attractive features of using crochet as a foundation to add other materials or stitches to, is that it has an appearance of a net which has debris caught up and entangled in it.
The crochet in this sample has been worked using a much finer cotton thread and therefore creating a more delicate result.
In this sample the idea was to trap the crochet with transparent fabrics secured with small stitches around it, on a foundation of fabric patches which have been sewn together. I quite like the idea of different elements being trapped and enclosed within a garment so I decided to look at this idea more closely.
The crochet flower has been enclosed in an envelope of organza and is free to move about. A few wisps of Angelina fibre has been added to suggest a hint of faery magic. This idea suggests things which are collected perhaps on a walk through a forest, on the beach or in a meadow and it brings to mind childhood, where shells, flowers and pebbles are pieces of treasure and in fact for anyone who loves textiles and sees the world of nature as their main source of inspiration, the scavenging for a natural jewel of some kind, continues. Pockets, pouches also play a part as vessels for collecting, enclosing, protecting and trapping.
I made some crocheted flowers with a variety of yarns, deliberately aiming for an uneven appearance by using thick and thin handspun yarn and varying the length and size of the petals.
I ironed the flowers to create the impression of pressed flowers. I like the fact that the irregular appearance of the flowers suggests that they may have been drawn by a child. My next step is to explore ways of combining these floral shapes with fabric and looking at ways to enclose them.
Lourdes x
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