Ann-Marie's textile adventure: Module 1; Assignment 5b Tear it up: deconstruction cloth

I picked three fabrics:

A remnant of lambswool lining, a knitted fabric

A Wettex dishcloth, a synthetic nonwoven material

A remnant of cotton, a pretty and very sweet tightwoven fabric

a) The lambswool lining seems to be knitted in a fairly wide mesh and is covered by a layer of fluff. The fluff is part of and fixed to the yarn of the mesh. This cloth is lovely and creates a friendly and warm impression. It is cream whitish or slightly cream coloured and is light, so very light.

Deconstruction: I started to rip off the fluff and saved it. I continued by ripping and tearing the mesh in the edges – and the form looked like an amoeba in the end – or actually like some other microcreature under a microscope.

Reconstruction: The fluff was “spun” into long pieces of fluffy thread whereas the torn mesh also was twisted into threads radiating from the sides, and just a small unaffected body in the middle was left. I threaded the fluffy threads into the mesh and the ends I bent. The “spun” mesh I turned and threaded into the middle of the mesh, and continued to do the same with the ends of the fluffy yarn. Result was a fluffy construction very different from the original. Every component of the original was transfoemd and a structured three dimensional lace work was created. It is dynamic as the ends of both types of “yarn” can be redirected.

Drawing of lambswool reconstructed piece

a) The dishcloth, yellow is made from a synthetic sponge. A sponge is really a “collection of microbubbles” – an enormous fabric of microbubbles. The surface of this dishcloth is vaguely checked and an interesting feature is how it changes form from being wet to the character when dry.

Deconstruction: It can be torn into two layers, which I did. The upper layer torn off I then cut into different form designed components with a pair of scissors as well as cutting narrow strips from one of the edges. I deliberately wetted it whenever working with it – as it was otherwise unworkable.

Reconstruction:

The pieces (rounds, squares of two sizes, flower formed rounds) I stuck together and distributed them onto the surface. I made a hole through the three layers and by a crochet needle I managed (when wet) to pierce through a double strip and altogether the surface was decorated by “flowers”. The cloth was completely deconstructed as it was halved, however when reconstructed the removed half had been transformed into a decoration and stuck back onto the cloth. What is very interesting with this reconstruction is that the cloth has retained its function. I did wet it again and wringed it – and it worked beautifully and the decorations stayed put! Another interesting function is that when it dries, it gets into a completely different form (see drawing) as the decorations have changed its structure all way through which seems to affect it.

Retains decorations even when wetted again!

Drawing - combining the flower necklace from below - and the dishcloth

c) The cotton, a tightwoven fabric with a very smooth surface had a rich flower pattern and was very, very pretty and sweet – a bit much I my view. It was almost like a country meadow in full summer bloom. The colour scale was light but saturated blue, pink and some cerise pink as well as some green leaves and yellow details in the composition.

Deonstruction :I decided to change both colour and surface texture by cutting out all really pink flowers and then cut strips and omitting any pink parts in those strips. Hence a piece of mainly light blueish fabric with several holes, small and big became the result. It looked already quite different when the pink flowers were gone.

Reconstruction: I crocheted the strips into very loose rounds, with a large size crochet needle. I used these to fill in the holes, and fastened them by stitching lightly. Having finished – it really had changed character, both colour and surface. There were still a few flowers, but not as “pretty” anymore. The smooth impression was now rough and the surface was much n´more interesting. However, when seeing all those pink flowers on the table, I realized I had only paid attention to the piece of cloth. I decided to take care of the flowers as well – actually felt some pity for them, and doubled them and threaded them onto a thick cotton thread. (tailors tacking thread). It became a quite interesting addition to all the reconstructions as it could be used to enhance the other constructions. Hence – one entity had become two, as one feature had been separated from the other and been made into something in its own right.