Paint versus Dyed

Now this has been interesting. Horribly time consuming and is going to have to be shelved for a spell while I tie-up loose ends in real-life for the nonce.

Here you get an idea of where the dhoti stamping and experiment has actually gone in terms of production, success and the overall result.

It's very eerily "period".

Even the flaws are period. Perhaps not achieved in quite the same way, I must hasten to add. Not many fabric printers had a paint brush leap/roll out of their hands while working on the pieces but there is the odd dye blemish found on the extent examples too.

On the dhoti, I firstly stamped the motif section by section and "block" by "block". When dry I ironed the area to set it and then painted over it by hand to refine some of the edges, fill in the under colour and add more weight to the dye. Allowed that to dry over several hours or days, depending on my schedule and the design. Then moved onto the next area. I did decide to leave a couple of sections as single stamped sections with the minimum of over-painting to see what happened when the fabric was washed. Curiously enough this too resulted in an amazing echo of the period fabrics!

As I said.

Labour intensive and time devouring!

Am at the point that I have to make a decision regarding the elephants and the medium I'll use for those blocks. Am inclining to carving these from lino as is usual and will be popping those in over the following months.

The dhoti border as featured here will then have to be duplicated along the opposite edge and the motifs for the fields applied. I very much doubt that I'll get this all done for Ro's wedding in August but intend to go as far as I possibly can. Dylon has impressed me in this area. Not entirely and it certainly has not won back my shopping Pounds! But it's done it's job.

I did discover that the paint "thinned" slightly after it had been washed and softened the initial intensity of the applied colour/paint. Not unattractive but it's not a 100% convincing substitute for a dyed piece of work. It will however "work" from a six inch distance check. I was thrilled to see how little paint or dye washed out while the dhoti was being washed in the washing machine!

So absolutely a keeper concept for those idle times when I have nothing to do or more likely, want to hide away from reality.

My Patka Border

Here I've almost finished the experimental stitches for the white Chain stitch areas of the patka. I'm in the process of completing it this weekend and starting the areas of Satin stitch in black. I have been wondering whether the do the isosceles triangles in Chain or Satin. Probably Satin is the most logical choice since it continues the original zig zag motif above the gilt ribbon and will be a nice continuation of the styles in use. I shall also thicken one of the inner circles in the wheel motif for more visual scale and balance.

To date, I can say that I'm happy. While there has been some distortion and worse in sections where I've had problems with my hands while working them, I can live with the outcome and label the results as typically period. (The point of my wardrobe is that it's been made for my personae by loving relatives who are not claiming vast expertise in needlework or that the piece originates from a Kharkana - production studio.)

I am a bit surprised by the density of the embroidery and the weight it has given to the fabric. But still pleased. The weight will ultimately help with the hanging line of the sash once tied and left to it's own devices. In an odd way it'll resemble the Scots man's sporran and keep the opening of the dhoti under more control.

Fans and feathers and bits together

It's been a busy and bumpy ride on the real-life stuff since my last post which interrupted my flow of blogging here.

Here is a small working scan of the status on the spine and casing for the fan project, the conceptual post of which appears earlier on in this blog site. Working out what and how I was going to approach the construction of this took some time to work-out to my satisfaction. I've opted for a base of lighter weight card to which I've glued a series of similar sized peacock feathers, back-to-back in order to create a reversible edging to the fan. This spine is slightly smaller that the outer cardboard sides which form the shape of the fan and will give it strength. They shall in addition be the main supports for the silk to be stretched over once the embellishment of the fabric is completed.

In the scan the "spine" with the feathers is hidden by the top outer cardboard shape. The pale gold silk with the tacking stitches and the indicated smaller stitches that match the fabric and the cardboard shape is placed on the top.

The motif that will decorate the front and back sides of the fan are under consideration at the moment. (I'm concerned that overall the impression of the textile decorations on the fan together with extras such as the patkas, dhoti fabrics and so on will prove too strong and visually overwhelming.) I am keeping the early 13thC/14thC motif but am simplifying the colour choices towards a slightly more harmonious combination. I am also giving some thought to filling the immediate rim next to what will be the silk covered edge with smaller, manicured peacock feathers and filling up the inherent gaps caused by the shapes between the glued down feathers.

Now about that fan ...

Indeed. The very same.

While I've been working on the embroideries, the yellow dhoti, the diaphanous chaddar/dhoti this item hasn't been far from my mind.

I'm somewhat concerned about the overall combination of patterned garb and accessories. Especially using mainly black and red as a colour combination to tone in with the Horde Household. Nevertheless, time to start the ground work here too.

My biggest concern aside from the design and the vibrant colour combination is the much more practical issue of how to work the peacock feathers into the supports for the fan. Originally I'd planned to glue the feathers along the edge.

The only problem with this idea is the fact that the excess fabric needs to be turned over the support and glued in place it's self. What I've come up with is a very lightweight strut, fractionally smaller than the fan to which I can glue the feathers on either side so that they match up back to back.

When I've done that and it's had several months to dry out, while I'll be working the outer decorated fabric, the strut will be slid between the fabric and card supports. The whole glued together in the middle and the outside edges of the fan sewn closed with a combo formula of back-stitch and hidden slide stitches zig zagging around.

Taking it all in!

Since the left pallu is all but done at this stage of the game, I've just worked out the several borders; the one along the hem as well as it's enclosing borders, the vertical one for the elephants which completes the pallu and the border edging it, I've also made a decision regarding the border that gets tucked and folded into the waist and stamped it in place.

This afforded me the chance to play around with the field fabric and the motifs that go in there. So far, so good.

OK. I can handle this. Not a problem. There is only four yards plus yet to embellish. From hereon it's routine. Break it down into smaller sections, establish a work time over the next five months and it's a done deal!

Adapting your tools

I'm constantly fascinated by the way creative people adapt their tools or claim things completely unrelated to their projects and turn them into viable instruments.

Having been a "purest" has not exempted me from this.

The yellow dhoti is a case in point.

Old plastic ball point pens have been used for dots and circles. Caps from cosmetics and herb jars ended up becoming either templates or actual tiny blocks. Ditto for pin-heads, yes pins dipped in paint and applied carefully give a series of rather delicate dots for additional embellishment! My blocks are primarily polystyrene carved into the motifs needed. I've cheated by over-painting areas where the "dye", if this was indeed a dyed work has been rather too thin. And while, I haven't set about trying to execute this project as a hand painted example of period Indian textile embellishment - an entirely specious area of research for the moment in the context of historically correct re-enactment garb for myself, I have found that specific sections do require finer details to be put in by hand somehow.

Yesterday I was refining the pallu and finishing off the jagged spires and decided to attempt some linear work with a firm brush. Simple really. The only trouble was that my brushes are not geared for this kind of work. Using a metal ruler placed on it's back to give me a raised edge to guide the brush, I found that the thickness of the bristles was ultimately too broad and rough for the delicacy desired in outlining the spires. By accident, I realised that a brush that was actually too stiff to work with in the traditional way worked best.

Developing this idea further, I glued the bristles of one pony tailed brush, usually for oil or acrylic painting, together and let it dry after compressing the edge and squeezing it flatter to form an oblong, nib-like shape. Works a treat!

Now why didn't I think of it sooner?

The result was a sharper edging, in the range of 2pt size and unexpectedly easy to work with. (Working a second colour against an area previously stamped and subsequently set, enhances my control of the detail being added as well.)

This does naturally mean that my earlier thought about only doing one pallu becomes moot and another two weeks has been added to the overall project time! It also means that there will be a four sided border of elephants between the pallus with the central field of the fabric sporting the geometric cross motifs.

I've not yet settled on the final size for the elephants within their borders but am slowly moving towards that inexorably. I do have to decide whether I am going to manipulate the direction of the elephants, in extent examples circa the 13thC the top border, which forms the waist band of the dhoti is upside down by our reading and moves in the opposite direction to that of the hemline. And while I'd dearly love to place the elephants along the pallus in groups of two, facing each other - I haven't found any evidence for this treatment in period. Later certainly but the question is "how much later"? So I will not be risking it in this project. Like my old Art Directors would say in the studio of my youth, KISS. (Keep it simple stupid!)

The Chosen: and the elephants went by two by two

After a bit of sound-boarding last evening through the wee hours of this morning this is pretty much the version of the elephant motif which will be stamped along the hemline and up the weft area of the pallu border.

OK I've included the howdah but omitted the umbrella, mahout and whatever else tended to be slapped into the design per period. Balancing out areas of the design is next on the agenda, calculating just how many elephants will cover the dhoti. (I know for a fact that on the weft & pallu border, it will require three between the top of the border at the hem up to the waist edge of the cloth.)