Thursday 23 May 2013

Hainsworth

Sample book from 1913 in reception of Hainsworth
On Tuesday I went to Hainsworth in Leeds to pick up the most beautiful fabric for my piece.  The fabric is called 'face cloth'.  It has a smooth nap to it and a felt like texture.  It seems like the kind of baize fabric you find on a snooker table.  Its got a remarkable sheen and feels amazing.

Hainsworth have very kindly sponsored the piece.  They have a long and prestigious history of making woollen cloth, for example they have been supplying the British Army the fabric for 'Redcoats' since Waterloo.  however they aren't stuck in the past; they have a very forward thinking research centre and also make innovative fabrics as well as those more traditional ones.  Many thanks to June Hill and Diane Simpson for setting this up.

Whilst I was waiting in Reception for my fabric I looked through one of the their sample book from 1913.  This is a page of reds.

My fabric is grey.  The colour  reminds me of a wet bandsman standing at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday, maybe because it might be the same fabric as his coat.  Its beautiful, really beautiful.

Its also huge.  I cut the first 5m lengths yesterday and it did nearly fill my living room.

The pressure is on.  I hope I can do justice to this fabric.

Tuesday 14 May 2013

Taking the P wave


detail of one of the samples bearing the satin ECG
Okay now I don't want to get too technical on this but you might remember the post about the ECG data http://www.karinathompsontextiles.blogspot.co.uk/2013_01_01_archive.html
The ECG had 3 lines of data.  My technical adviser (Nicky) suggested that if I was to use a single line that it should be the bottom line as that was coherent throughout the run.  It clearly shows what my heart was doing from rest to peak to post-run.
I started cleaning up the data and programming part of it into a lovely 4mm wide satin embroidery.  After a couple of technical problems I finally could stitch it out in a way that I was happy.  I could repeat it and build it into lengths in a way that I will do on the final piece.  I was really happy with the results.


I could stitch the wave form out over the reprogrammed footprints and over densely stitched echocardiogrammes.  It felt like the piece was finally taking shape; it was looking really lovely

However working on the other 2 wave forms I suddenly realised that I had actually left out part of a heart beat and that every other beat had no P-wave.  That would be pretty serious if my heart was really doing that!  No points for attention to detail.......