A Holey Cuff.

A few weeks ago I was intrigued by a cuff that Iz showed on her blog that she'd made on water soluble fabric so I decided to buy the book she'd mentioned (Dissolvable Delights by Maggie Grey) and have a go myself. 

I used a thread pack from Stef Francis and randomly machine stitched velour ribbon onto the surface, wrapped pipe cleaners with a rayon ribbon and stitched them on before adding beads, lots of beads (far more than I'd intended!)

Ready to have the background fabric dissolved.

It was a nervous experience dissolving the fabric as I wasn't sure it would all hold together, I was half expecting a pile of bits in the bottom of the bowl, but all was ok.

After dissolving the background fabric.

I think it probably should have had more pipe cleaners on it going across the short way as it hasn't held its shape brilliantly, but I'm quite pleased with it as a first attempt stitching on dissolvable fabric

As well as being unique it reflects my fascination with holes and the shapes they create (I'm not sure what that says about me though!).

Who'd have thought that pipe cleaners could end up so pretty!

Holes, holes, holes.

One of the things that I love about textiles is holes and what is revealed underneath them.  A combination of being inspired by the cover technique of this book

Image courtesy of Amazon

and then watching the BBC production of Great Expectations over Christmas and being fascinated by the wonderful Miss Havisham

Image courtesy of  The Telegraph

made me want to have a play and see what I could create.

I'm not sure if it's finished or what I'll do with it, but I do quite like the holes and the fragility of it (although it's ended up pinker than I was expecting) and it does resemble a piece of old fabric from a worn out dress.

Fragile Lace (18cm x 15cm)

The top layer is Crash fabric which I stencilled onto using soft molding paste before blasting it to distress it and make the holes.

The base layer is silk scrim and silk carrier rod strippings and it's held together with beads and french knots.

Detail from above

I'm not sure what this fascination with holes says about me, or where this technique might go, but I think it's something I will return to.