Textiles and surface techniques: constructed and decorated textiles, stitch and applique, dyeing and resist methods, fabric printing, and using surface, texture and colour in fabric as a medium.

What this dot point is asking

Textiles is a major medium and the basis of the J174 Textile Design title, with its own family of techniques. This dot point is about the main ones: constructed and decorated textiles, stitch and applique, dyeing and resist methods, and fabric printing, and about using surface, texture and colour in fabric as a medium. Choosing and refining textile techniques is an AO2 decision, and the techniques carry the formal elements (colour, texture, pattern) into cloth.

Constructed and decorated textiles

The broadest distinction in textiles is between making the cloth and treating it. Constructed textiles create the fabric or structure itself by combining fibres or yarns: weaving (interlacing yarns), knitting (looping yarn), felting (matting fibres) and knotting or macrame. The technique makes the textile. Decorated (or embellished) textiles work onto an existing fabric to treat its surface: stitch, applique, dyeing and printing. Many pieces combine both, building a structure and then decorating it, for example weaving or felting a ground and then stitching into it. Knowing which family a technique belongs to helps you plan a textile piece.

Stitch and applique

Stitch is the textile equivalent of drawing: a line made in thread. Hand stitch (running, back, chain, satin) and machine stitch can describe line, build texture, and shade through density, just as mark-making does on paper, so think of stitch as drawing with thread. Applique stitches pieces of one fabric onto another to build shape, colour and layering, like collage in cloth. Together they let you draw, shade and compose in textile. The skill is using them to describe and compose, not merely to decorate.

Dyeing and resist methods

Colour in textiles is often added by dyeing, and resist methods turn dyeing into pattern-making. The principle of a resist is simple: something blocks the dye from parts of the fabric, so those areas keep their original colour while the rest takes the dye. In batik, hot wax is painted onto the design; the waxed areas resist the dye and stay undyed, and when the wax is removed the pattern is revealed, with fine veins of dye where the wax cracked. In tie-dye, tightly bound areas resist the dye. Resist methods let you build colour and pattern in cloth deliberately.

Fabric printing and combining techniques

Fabric printing transfers ink or dye onto cloth, using block printing, screen printing or stencils, and it carries pattern and repeated motifs into textiles much as relief printing does on paper. The richest textile work usually combines techniques: a printed and dyed ground that is then stitched and appliqued, layering colour, pattern, line and texture. Combining techniques lets the formal elements work together in cloth. As always, choose techniques because they suit the idea, and refine each through sampling, so the combined piece is controlled rather than busy.

Try this

Q1. State the difference between constructed and decorated textiles, with an example of each. [Knowledge recall]

• Cue. Constructed textiles make the fabric or structure itself (for example weaving, knitting or felting); decorated (embellished) textiles treat the surface of an existing fabric (for example stitch, applique, dyeing or fabric printing), and pieces often combine both.

Q2. Explain how a resist method such as batik creates a pattern in dyed fabric. [Short explanation]

• Cue. A resist blocks dye from reaching parts of the fabric, so masked areas keep their original colour while the rest takes the dye; in batik, hot wax is applied in the design and resists the dye, so the waxed areas stay undyed, and when the wax is removed the pattern is revealed, with fine veins of dye where the wax cracked.