9. Textile as scaffold¶
This week I worked on several processes like leather moulding, creating composites out of cotton adding resin and silicone or just fabric hardener.
My initial idea was to create a block of leather scraps that I could potentially used as heels for boots, and create a thin sheet made of leather scraps to use as accents also for boots. My main inspiration was the work of Jorge Penade's
This is MOCK UP of how I wanted my outcome to look like:
But in reality I made several experiments with leather scraps that look nothing like I wanted. I started by shredding the leather scraps into smaller pieces, then some I mixed with silicone, others with resin, and some just created a layer by using gorilla glue, then using different moulds to give the desired shape. I also tried the same process but instead of leather I used some scraps of fabric and the result was better than with leather.
OUTCOMES¶
I also gave it a try to moulding leather. I used a cupcake/brownie tray as mould. First I soaked the leather for several minutes or hours, although it is not necessary to soak it for too long. Then I got rid of the water left in the piece of leather, then added fabric hardener, and put it on top of the tray. The outcome is not bad, but I can already tell that it is not entirely hard and the shape is not exact, which is why it is way better to make your own mould, one that you can press down to get the desired shape. This is how it looks like:
Then I went crazy with the fabric hardener, I basically soaked pieces of fabric onto fabric hardener and shape the scraps into ruffles, petals and pleats. After having a considerate amount of scraps shaped I embellished a sweater that really came out to life with all the vivid colours, textures and shapes. The fabric hardener works really well on cotton, and it allows you to still move them, and able to sew them. For some other shapes that I wanted to try and did not have much luck, I guess I would need another layer of fabric hardener or even a small coat of resin to really make it stiff. This is how the fabrics looked after being hardened:
And this is how it looks after being sewn into the sweater:
