Specalism Choice

 

Today I had to make a huge decision on what to specialise in next year and I was set on Print but ever since my teacher mentioned Embroidery I didn't have a clue which specialism was for me! We have a choice between Print/Weave/Knit/Embroidery and Accessories/Knitwear and I really enjoyed each rotation like I like influencing all areas of textiles into my work and present a broad spectrum of techniques and abilities but for my specialism I was really struggling on which I was benefit from the most but I have decided to choose Print! I now know after transferring onto Image and Manipulation (Embroidery) for two week and trying to convince myself that this is what I wanted to do that is wasn't where my main focus were and I find Embroidery for a solid two year would be very tedious and time consuming and I would get bored very easily and wouldn't gain the most out of it that I wanted. In comparison to Print Embroidery is very precise and neat and your limited to transferring your image onto Yarn whereas with Print it creates such a broad spectrum and especially with the fact that I wanted to go into Interiors and Fashion Print is brought into everything around us and there is such a big industry for it. So I have made my decision and just need to keep my fingers crossed that I get my first choice! So hopefully a very exciting 2 years ahead and hopefully a placement year!
 

Design, culture and context essay

Today I am going to hopefully finish my design, culture & context essay which is based upon 'the influence of minimalism on 20th Century design' where I am focusing on the comparison between modern minimalism on contemporary minimalism and also bringing my own design work into it and if it's influencing me. It has been interesting to discover different works of artists and designers from modernist minimalism and I didn't realise just how much comparison it has with my own work. 

Updating blog!

Its been a suuuper long time since I wrote on here so I thought I would do a post on my current work and fulfilling experience at Nottingham Trent University studying my Textile Design degree. I have been soo busy ever since starting my degree but it has learnt me so much already and I have met so many people and learnt so much more about textiles! We started the degree by going through various rotations to get a feel for each of the options we can specialise in for 2nd and 3rd year and I did the rotations in this order; Knit, Embroidery, Weave, Print and Multimedia. I really enjoyed experiencing all the rotations and felt I gained skills on each but the Multimedia rotations was quite difficult to get into at first and its based on recycled materials and 3D aspects so its a different area of textiles I wouldn't usually use.
The main rotations I enjoyed were Print, Knit and embroidery as I feel you have a wider spectrum in things you can experiment with and achieve in these 3 areas and would consider specialising in these for my 2nd and 3rd year. We have also been taking part in workshops in Fashion and Interior visualisations, Boards and verbal presentations and Computer Aided Design Photoshop, I have benefitted from all of these and found them really interesting.
I am currently on my 2 week Easter break so it has been an opportunity to spend time with my family and friends and to catch up on my work and also to prepare for our material presentation after Easter!
I don't have many images of my work but the images I do have I will post so that you can see the work I have been getting involved in and the journey my theme has been taking throughout the rotations, then when I return to university after Easter I will make sure to post more on my Textiles work!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Final Major Project Exhibition

 

For my final Major Project I created a dress based on five of my favourite flowers and ones that had a lot of sentimental meaning and value to me, I took time researching microscopic and patterns of the flowers and looked into todays floral fashion and concentrated too on the 1950's. I wanted a bright contrasting continuous pattern that ran throughout the dress and wanted something also that was unique to todays floral fashion of mainly bright roses. So this was my final outcome and the display I put on for my exhibition which I was very proud of and felt it presented the role 1950's played in my project and how my ideas and designs came to create my final item. I decided also to present some of my Textiles samples in frames to make them presentable and neat and also it made the detail and the pattern stand out more to the viewer. If I could of done anything different with this project it would of been for the bottom half panel of the dress for the print to of been of a bigger context because I feel this would of therefore been a more advantage for my time scale and it would of made the dress less busy and defining of detail but once the bottom panel was connected to the top the flow of detail flowed into each panel and actually made the dress look quite interesting and unique to the minor detail that is applied to todays floral summer dresses. I enjoyed making my first dress garment thoroughly and felt it learn me a lot and helped me towards future opportunities as to what I would do different and I'm glad I decided to do something different and challenge myself in comparison with making a Patchwork quilt last year, so I very much enjoyed making my dress. 

Screen printing samples

Today I was dying up some fabrics to be printed on tomorrow, I chose a variety of fabrics so that I could get a full variety of choice to chose from once my design is screen printed onto them. For the procion dyes I applied to my fabrics I concentrated on bright and contrasting colours that would create a pattern of both clashing and blending on my fabric but i was also experimenting in seeing the different ways in which the procion dyes reacted to the fabrics. I did some samples creating just plain flat colour then on other samples I dropped the colour on the fabric then picked that fabric up from the surface and tilted it or held it upright to let the colour run and blend. I also used the pipette to transfer colour onto the fabric which was very effective and I also did some colour samples so that I knew which colours I'd worked with. I also bought my three meters if cotton fabric today to be printed on tomorrow for my dress and drew out on paper my top half if my dress which is a fitted block bodice and I drew out the front and back panel which needs to be transferred onto the fabric and then cut out. Tomorrow my five screens will be ready to use and print with so I can begin printing on my samples and on my 3 metre of cotton to then print out my pattern.

Sketchbook and log book work

Today I am working in my sketchbook bringing together the information I gathered in the following books: fashion forecast, floral frocks and textiles now. I am researching different dress garment patterns and layouts and the past, present and future of dresses and floral designs. Today I have also got up to date with my log book as I think it's important to set myself targets and to note down any ideas or improvements and reasoning. I am hopefully going to start my screen design today as I am wanting my repeated screen print to be of 4-5 colours so I need to do at least 4-5 screens demonstrating different colours and a floral pattern for my dress. I am going to draw up some designs and ideas and then draw up my final design for my screen and then I need to transfer it into acitate. Above is some recent pages on my sketchbook I have been completeing with my recent research and development and my log book catch up work.

Sheetwork for final major project

      This is my second found imagery/drawn research sheet in which for this perticular drawing with oil pastels, chalk and felt tips I have combined a four leaves clover and a golden wattle but also bringing into it my continuous line drawings and continuous details creating lines and spreading the detail. For the background of this sheet I have combined different images from various magazines to create a blended but textured collage so I can work over the top of it and bring the details of the collarge into my drawings and paintings. The above image is my sketchbook in which I need to yet apply a decorative front and back cover for but I have quite a few filled pages inside it which I will show on one of my next blog posts.