9. Textile as scaffold
Technical textiles have various applications, among which agrotech, building, clothes, geotech, sports, healthcare. During this the aim was to broaden the perspective of the techniques, processes and applications of technical textiles with references and inspiration of various disciplines. I used textiles and fibers to create a textile scaffold and used textile as formwork for my crystals structures
Outcomes of the week:
Wooden textile by BOR - bio dyed - inspired from Jordanian traditional embroidery pattern
Crystals grown on different structures
Research and Inspiration
Crystalline Formation
Alum
Recipe
- 200 g Water - 140 g Alum
It took almost 3 weeks for such result!
Copper
Recipe
- 620 ml Water - 400 g Copper
Observation: very saturated Bath!
Process for both recipes similar:
- Heated the water until 80 degrees then measure the quantity ml/g exactly for each
- Measured Copper/ alum … MIX MIX MIX
- heat until saturated enough
- In a separate Jar added my structure and fabrics attached to wooden sticks as they shouldn't be touching the jar just hanging!
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Filtered the mixture via cotton fabric (if you have filter paper would be great... I didn't... you might wanna repeat the filtering process as this step is very important because if you don't filter then crystals would start growing a lot in the bottom and then other crystals would be attracted to the bigger bottom crystal as a result you would end up with nothing or way less growing on you structure (happened with me)
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leftovers were put in separate petri dish and I added a bracelet and in another a fabric
Wooden Textiles
When you think of original designs, you know that you're talking about something unique and special. An innovative design that can change our perception and visual culture: that is exactly what Wooden Textiles is all about, a product line that mixes wood with fabric.
The wooden textiles shows that innovation remains a fundamental part of design. The idea here to imbue wood with living properties and turns it to a flexible fabric with unpredictable movements, changing its color and texture. It’s an astonishing use of this traditional material to create new forms and experiences.
Wooden textiles seeks to convey a new tactile experience. We're used to experiencing wood as a hard material. We know the feeling of walking on a hardwood floor, touching a table or just feeling the bark of a tree. But we don’t usually experience a wooden surface that can be manipulated or molded by our hands.
I Previously tried to create several wooden textiles with different geometries below for the catalogue of the Lab:
and from my personal experience came up to a conclusion that there are several variables (eg.How flexible the wooden textile would be and how much you can bend it from both sides ) :
- Type and thickness of the wood
- Shape of the cut wood (Pattern) - make sure to have reasonable spacing between each piece
- The type of fabric attached to (as leather behaves different than cotton and different than Lycra)
- Glue! each glue behaves differently (you can find my tests below )
- Process of attaching wood to the fabric! (one step or glued piece by piece)
Preparing Wood Veneers
Testing the perfect setting for laser cutting the wood veneers then after achieving the perfect setting .. I started mass producing
The process to transform wood into a flexible surface involves breaking it up into triangular pieces and manually attaching them to a textile base. Depending on their size and shape, each piece displays different behaviors in terms of flexibility and malleability.
these are the perfect setting where I mass produced all the bio dyed veneers
Preparing the Fabric
Engraving on the textile as a reference for orientation of each triangle of wood (where to be glued) making process a little smoother and preserving mental health while attaching the triangular wood Veneers!
as you can see here i was inspired from the traditional Jordanian embroidery from "Irbid" city and wanted to transform with my persepctive into wooden textiles ... to achieve that, I needed to dye the wood veneers as well
Here as you can see the tests I was doing with bio dyes I tested with Onion Peels, Pomegranate and beetroot dye baths then as well I tried using their ink as well as mixing them with different oils to test how much I can preserve the color then I started altering them with food coloring to have even more variety of colors
then was testing different Glue to check how woulld it behave when dry plus how practical it is
Mass production Alert
Here after making sure All good to go and my dyed veneers are dry... I cut the gradients and colored veneers I dyed previously then collected them and classified them into groups to make it easier for the selection process later on, while gluing.
so as you can see the process became more of a puzzle!
caution: This is the phase where you might (99%) lose your mental health! #Living_on_the_edge so HOLD ON! Stay strong!
Final BOR wooden textile
The result is a material that is half wood - half fabric, a mix between stiffness and flexibility, challenging what is expected of this type of material. It smells and looks familiar, but it feels strange since it is able to move and come to life in unexpected ways.
This geometric pattern can be used to create numerous objects, such as rugs, carpets, coverings, upholstery, clothing and even furniture, Table Runners...
Here are some of the application demonstrated