Fabric and fibre are natural media for design and expression. Children enjoy handling, exploring, inventing, constructing and designing with them. They love their colour, richness and variety and the way they feel. Maintaining an inventive approach to the media is important: the children should remain the designers. Their attention should be drawn to the use of fabric and fibre in everyday life, in the home and in clothing and their use in art. Activities in this area will include investigating the construction of fabric and creating their own, interpreting nature in weaving and appliqué, inventing dramatic costumes to dress up in, creating their own soft toys in a simple way, designing for fashion, and using the computer to plan their designs.
Working with fabric and fibre
The curriculum outlines three broad ways of working with fabric and fibre:
- changing the surface of fabrics
- creating new fabrics
- constructing with fabric and fibre.
Changing a fabric surface
Children can apply design ideas to change the surface of a piece of fabric in ways that include
- stitchery
- collage
- appliqué
- tie-dyeing
- batik
- fabric painting
- printing on fabric.
Creating new fabric
Ways of creating new fabric could include
- simple weaving
- knitting and/or crochet.
Constructing with fabric and fibre
Activities with fabric and fibre for younger children should be on a large scale, as they would not have developed the fine motor skills necessary for more detailed work. Through their experience in handling and inventing with fabrics, the fabrics themselves may come to suggest ways of designing and making. Group work may be appropriate at times, where ideas are shared and children work together in designing and making theme-based costumes or soft toys.
Starting points for work in fabric and fibre
Starting points for activities within this strand may vary: for example, direct observation of the visual environment might be a stimulating starting point for a weaving project, and fabric itself might suggest an appliqué or collage design. The suggested starting points are
Toy-making and costume-making are enjoyable ways for children to give expression to experiences, real or imagined. A character invented in play or drama activities may spark ideas for a costume. They should be encouraged to talk about the character they are playing and should have access to a wide variety of inspiring old clothes and oddments with which to make their costume. Imaginative use of old clothes and accessories, discarded household fabrics and old bits of jewellery should be encouraged to create costumes and character toys based on stories, poems, songs, their own lives or from history. Upper primary classes would be capable of experimenting with variations on a costume theme for a parade or for a theme party.
Once children are proficient with the needle, stuffed toys and simple puppets can be made for invented characters. Soft forms inspired by stones or objects from nature, such as a piece of fruit, could also be made from a variety of fabric scraps, adding detail with stitches, beads or fabric paints. Senior primary classes may be interested in designing and making fashion items. Designs should be kept simple, and the prime considerations should be the overall line created, the use of colour and texture and the suitability of the fabric to the task. The children's own interests and experience will generate design ideas.
Fashion magazines are good sources for ideas. The children could assemble picture displays of the work of designers whose work they find visually stimulating, for example Jean Paul Gaultier, Zandra Rhodes, Kenzo, Lainey Keogh and Philip Treacy. They should also have opportunities to discover fabric and fashion as depicted in art. The work of Memling, Rembrandt, Velázquez, Holbein, Renoir, van Dongen and Harry Clarke, for example, could be included.
EXEMPLAR 21 - Making a soft sculpture (first to fourth classes)
Creative work in fabric and fibre encourages free experimentation rather than traditional techniques only. Focusing on the structures and qualities of fabric and fibre expands children's visual and tactile experiences and helps them to develop a sense of design. Children need opportunities to handle and manipulate a wide range of fabric scraps and fibres to discover their expressive possibilities and their suitability for different tasks, to feel confident in the choices they make and to enjoy the process.
The materials themselves are the best starting point. Children can begin by investigating open-weave fabric such as hessian, pulling threads and seeing how they are put together. They can develop their own wall hanging by choosing contrasting fibres and weaving one or two into the larger holes they have created by pulling out the original threads. If they can tie simple knots they can add some beads or other plastic bits with large holes, or choose some small contrasting fabric scraps from a large store and simply glue them on. With experience, children will use fabric and fibre more consciously as a medium in which to design and invent. As they develop dexterity they will be interested in trying out new ways of changing and creating fabric and in experimenting with fashion design.
An introduction to skills in knitting, for example, should be introduced in the context of traditional crafts and should not involve the children in timeconsuming repetitive tasks. As they develop dexterity, the sewing needle may be introduced as a drawing and designing tool, rather than as a tool for repetitive exercises.
Fabric and fibre resources could include
- a supply of open-weave fabric, for example hessian, netting
- a resource box of scraps of plain and patterned fabrics in a variety of textures
- a collection of discarded clothes and household fabrics, for example curtains, towels, sheets
- a wide selection of fibres, including cotton, nylon and lurex threads, wool, string, raffia, grasses, straw, rope, cord, twine
- scraps of available trimmings, for example lace, ribbons, cords
- a collection of discarded buttons, beads, sequins and large fruit stones and seed pods that can be pierced
- large stitching, knitting, crochet and tapestry needles
- a simple loom or any small rigidframe
- scissors
- glue.
EXEMPLAR 22 - Appliqué (fifth and sixth classes)
A mixed-media approach could include
tie-dyeing, painting or printing the backing fabric with fabric paint or crayons and using the shapes that result as the basis for the appliqué design- painting scraps of sheer fabric (such as curtain net), applying them in layers to the backing surface and cutting them back for interesting colour and textural effects
- adding decorative stitches in contrasting fibres and colours over and between the applied and/or painted shapes
- adding beads and sequins
- adding padded shapes for a threedimensional effect
- combining any collage material with appliqué.
The finished work can then be hung as a wall hanging or used as a cushion cover, for example.
The colours, shapes, forms, patterns and textures in the visual environment are a rich source of inspiration, especially for appliqué work and weaving. Colour can be the most exciting aspect of a project. Close observation of everyday objects such as bricks, tree bark or peeling paint may show unexpected colour combinations. Initial experiments in collage, for example, may be confined to a limited colour range, with different textures added for contrast. Subtle colour differences may be introduced later in collage, appliqué, weaving and knitting. Children should be encouraged to use colour expressively as well as representationally.
The visual environment is an excellent source of ideas for creating textural effects. Close observation helps children to see that everything has a texture, whether smooth, rough, shiny or matt. Ways of interpreting texture in fabric and fibre could include
- using fabrics that have interesting textures, for example knobbly, shiny, glittering, wispy, silky, corded, plastic
- using a variety of fibres, including wool, string, plastic strips, cotton thread
- pulling threads, making holes, fraying, folding, pleating
- attaching oddments such as beads, feathers, buttons, pieces of old jewellery, wire
- experimenting with stitches of their own invention and, as they acquire dexterity with the needle, with established stitches
- adding pieces of knitting, crochet or weaving to the surface of a piece of fabric to create an effect.
EXEMPLAR 23 - Weaving a small wall hanging (third and fourth classes)
Collage
Collage is a composition that is built up from card, fabric, fibre or other shapes and scraps that are glued to a background. Oddments from a scrap box may be added. It is a way of exploring and designing with colour, texture, pattern and rhythm. Collage activities that concentrate on a single element, such as texture, are appropriate at times. How the different textures feel and how they compare when placed close to each other would be important, and children would also be encouraged to think about the shapes created, the shapes between the shapes and whether some of them overlap.
Colour could be explored through tones and hues of one colour. Soft fibres and twines could be used to explore movement, together with a discussion on, for example, water streaming, flowing, eddying, bubbling, wind moving leaves and things, what it would feel like to be dancing or roller-blading, leading to abstract interpretation. Encouraging the children to make the movements with their arms helps to develop their feeling for rhythm. Colourful themes, such as unusual fish, birds, flowers or objects that relate to children's experience, are ideal for collage.
Tie-and-dye
This is a way of creating pattern with fabric dye. It is a 'resist' process where parts of the fabric are tied, bound, knotted or sewn so that the colour does not penetrate them when placed in the dye. The tightness of the ties is crucial, as the pattern that emerges is a combination of dyed and undyed areas. The simplest way of tie-dyeing is to gather up the piece of fabric to be dyed and to tie it with a piece of string. More experienced children will be capable of adding further ties for more complex effects. As they progress they should be encouraged to think about and to plan the effects they wish to create. Ornamental stitchery can be added around the shapes created for added interest. Tie-and-dye activities can be further developed through batik.
Batik
Batik is a pattern or picture dyed into a piece of cloth. It is also a 'resist' process, where melted wax (under supervision) is brushed onto a piece of fabric. The fabric is sometimes crumpled to make cracks in the dried wax. The cold dye will penetrate these exposed areas andcreate the textured effects for which the technique is noted. When dry, the wax can be removed by covering the fabric with a sheet of brown wrapping paper or very old newspaper and ironing over it. The wax may be brushed on haphazardly in initial experiments, but these should be followed by more carefully planned patterns and pictures. Tools and implements can be designed as stamp motifs to create new and unusual textural effects. More experienced children would be capable of several stages of waxing and dyeing. It is a worthwhile and enjoyable technique, because children often achieve colour and textural effects with relative ease in batik that might not be possible in other media.