jan'stextileblog: Project 2 Wrapping Exercise 3 Uneven wrapping

I began by wrapping an ornament with strips of torn silk fabric. I tried to wrap as freely as I could but found myself trying to neaten everything as it just looked like a jumble of fabric. I felt uncomfortable with this way of working. I tried sewing across the gaps I had made with thread. I didn't find this successful. I do not think the thread adds to the piece and actually preferred it without.

In the course book it suggested that an object with protrusions was used so I decided to wrap a small teddy bear that had been made many years ago for me by a friend. I met this friend at college so we have known each other for a very long time and although we live at other ends of the country we are in touch at least once a week and our friendship means an awful lot to me. Therefore anything made for me by my friend also means a lot to me. I began wrapping this bear with some trepidation. I had read about Judith Scott's work and how she wrapped objects that had meaning only to her. I thought of this as I wrapped the bear.

The first wrapping was with torn muslin. I used two colours rather than one so that there would be more interest and perhaps this would detract from the shape slightly. Not sure this worked. However I carried on and began to wrap with gimp in another colour that was brighter and stood out well. I wrapped this densely in parts and more freely in others. This gave areas of interest with the bright gimp against the muslin.

The bear still just looked like a bear wrapped in fabric and thread. I then wrapped with trapunto wool. This began to change the shape and my bear was becoming hidden. Again I liked areas of the wrapping because of the patterns it had made. I was becoming more free with the wrapping but still felt uncomfortable that I was hiding away something I cherished.

Next I covered it with strips of left over cotton wadding. I added a small plastic pot to one side to add to the shape. To keep these together I then wrapped with cotton thread. I pulled this quite tight as I wrapped. It was changing shape. I wrapped sari silk thread in places and then did weaving in areas with the silk thread to make interesting sections. Then I wrapped with thread. Where threads crossed one another I knotted pieces of sari silk thread arond them leaving the ends free. This started to add texture to the piece. I needed to do something else to it. I decided to stitch on some of the areas between the threads and used silk thread to stitch cretan stitch and running stitch to make points of interest.

I left the wrapped bear for a few days and kept coming back to it to see if I needed or wanted to added anything more. I felt I didn't. I still felt uncomfortable with it thought knowing that this wrapped shape was hiding an item that meant something to me. I had to unwrap it. All the while I did this exercise I thought of Judith Scott and wondered how she felt when working on her pieces. I wondered if she needed to hide the things that meant something to her and perhaps these things were not treasured as my bear is. I had wondered how and when she knew she was finished with a piece. I think this is something that is very hard to explain for anyone. I realised this when I just knew I had gone far enough and could not and did not want to add anymore.

I did feel I needed to wrap something else and chose a fir cone I had collected. I wrapped it with strips of muslin in two colours. I wrapped it with cotton thread. I did not want to add to this because I liked the way the cotton thread gathered together in places and the spaces left had different appearances depending on how tightly I pulled the cotton. I liked the small raised areas where the cotton is pulled very tightly. This is because of the feel of those areas when I rub my fingers over them. I also like the feel of the piece as a whole because of the lightness of its weight and its shape. It can be moved around in my hands easily.