Iron experiments

Burning

I started experimenting with the fabrics I had, my initial idea was to create these burn marks on a white shirt from the charity shop donations. However, the shirt didn’t burn, it made no difference at all. So that was unsuccessful. I moved onto a black polyester jacket that I had from Boohoo and a plastic white mesh bag from Primark. 

The mesh I figured would melt, but initially warped and left interesting raised shapes within the material, but as the iron got hotter the more the samples melted. In the end the material stuck to my iron but the remaining sections went an interesting colour, potentially from the colours in my ironing board cover. That research route left me with interesting pieces of fabrics which I documented by by layering them and sewing them together to depict each stage of the burning.

I moved onto burning the black fabric. This left a great imprint from the iron on it, almost jacquard like. I played with the shapes, layering, folding, rolling and embroidering them. The embroidery ended up having this floral nature to them, something you wouldn’t associate with the heavy, metallic nature of an iron. And in the same vein with the iron plate having this petal shape, I went from experimenting with a handful of the cutouts, to applying them onto a mannequin. This garment grew organically as I layered and followed the shapes around the form and I ended up with this piece that curves this shell-like pattern to it.

Block printing

In the absence of screen printing, I moved onto using the iron as a paintbrush but with the paint on it, it didn’t glide across the fabric as I had anticipated it to. So I ended up trying block printing. I just absolutely loved this. There are examples of layered colours and prints, some that I embellished (on the unsuccessful burnt shirt) and then I made my ‘Gendered Items’ top – the top with many interpretations. Gendered items originating from my research into household objects associated with women (the iron) but also symbolising a bra, the item that is iconic as containing and oppressing women and of course, women having breasts.