Deadline

Well today was D-day for my minor project - War Memorabilia. Here is a quick pic of how my bay looked after I had set it up ready for marking.

pulling things together

Well tomorrow is D-day for my minor project. I started off with anything war related as my inspiration. I began with medals and just let it take me wherever from there. I ended up with keys, watch parts, WWI embroidered postcards and the such.

The last two weeks have been spent embroidering all my final desgins. All of my finals are unisex ties and are heavily embroidered. I have mounted them as you will be able to see and have made up a paper collar to present it a little more professionally. Here are three of the six designs, I will add the other three when I get my work back.

Progress to date

My minor project is coming to an end, we only have 2 and half weeks left. The whole year group has been given an extension due to problems with the emulsion used for coating the screens.

I have finally dyed my fabrics today with lovely coloured hands to prove it!

I will be going into uni tomorrow to expose my already coated screen and will be spending all day printing - I actually hate printing but it must be done, I always feel it is such an experimental process and there is so many factors that can go wrong, which it tends to with me. Anyway I'm hoping I will get enough printing done not to have to go back into the print rooms before the end of the deadline. I am using the printing process as a indication to my designs rather than having the printing as the main focus. All of my designs will be heavily embroidered. I will try to take some pics of me printing tomorrow and post them later in the week.

Bracelets Galour

Yesterday in our Professional Studies lecture we were asked to think of a product and packaging that we would be able to sell at the Knitting and Stitching Show at the back end of this month. So I got thinking and came up with the idea of making bracelets with the beading technique we had been shown recently in a workshop with Tracy Franklin.

So I set to work last night and have managed to almost finish two of the bracelets. I am pleased with how they have turned out and plan to make a few more.

time passes too quickly

I swear someone is tinkering with the time - it seems to be going by far too quickly. Since last week I have been trying to work on my development. So far I have managed to sort out 2 multi-directional repeats and get the 2 koda traces done for each of these. Although there is still no photo sensitive paint in the building to coat my screen with, therefore I cannot print as yet!!! I have also started doing small amounts of sampling with stitching and beading.

Last week I was able to attend two mini embroidery courses at uni. I found these really enjoyable but am unsure as to how I am going to translate any of the techniques into my project. Having misplaced my camera's memory card I am unable to show you what I have done so far, but once found I will show you how it is going.

Just over 3 weeks to the deadline - yikes!

Determination

I have tried so hard to get out of doing more uni work this evening, but it was fruitless! So here I am on a Friday evening doing another drawing sheet to enable me to have more imagery to work with for my development. Although I have already started the development process I did think I started to wonder today if I would have enough imagery.

I was a little disheartened this afternoon, after spending a good part of the day on doing my koda trace, I was hoping to expose my screen with said efforts. It exposed well, but when I went to use the jet wash i realised all of the emulsion came off, along with the design! Well they do say God loves a trier so I thought I would just coat another screen ready to re-expose on Monday and get cracking with some printing. One of the first years was coating her screen only for us to realise that she had used the last of the emulsion with no more supplies in the building. How does that work! Oh sorry they have some on order which will come in at SOME point next week!

So I plod on with development and drawing tonight and over the weekend.

progess is slow

I finally started to get some work done today on my minor project. I got to grips with multi directional repeats - much easier than I anticipated and I am quite happy with the outcome, although I still have to draw it all onto a koda trace and then sort out a screen ready for printing. Oh the joys of printing - I hate it with a passion so much effort and my prints never seen to come out the way some of the other girls do!

still got a long way to go with oh so little time , we only have 4 weeks left from this project and I still haven't got much of my development done. I really need to try and get stuck in this weekend.

waste of space

I came to uni this morning full of enthusiasm but for some reason I don't seem to have gotten anywhere near as far as I would have liked. I hope tomorrow will turn out so much better.

Here is a picture of the Tyne and the Sage taken on Friday from the Baltic when Dawn and I went to visit the Design Event Mart where one of our lecturers had been exhibiting, well done Claire.

research day

Well I was hoping to get another drawing sheet done today but no such luck. What I did mange to get done, was quite a lot of research giving me loads of ideas towards my end product and also a way of bringing my ideas together so I am feeling quietly confident.

I also bought some fabrics and beads today. One of the fabrics is a gorgeous wool which is £22.70 per metre, so I only got 35cm, but it is fabulous. I also bought some beige linen. I also bought some satin to experiment with later this week when I go into uni.

Here is one of the two drawing sheets I did over the weekend.

Time to get busy

Well here I am almost half way through my first project and I am soo behind so this weekend I need to get a crack on and get some more drawing sheets produced. I am sure I will manage somewhere to be able to squeeze some baking in too!

I have added to my visual research in my bay at uni and hopefully you can tell from the previous pic the differences.

Well here are two photos of where I work at uni . The one above is of the studio next door to mine with all the bays covered in each of my fellow students inspiration. The pic below is of my bay. I haven't put up a huge amount up yet so I'll have to take more inspiration into uni and make it look better. I am also going to produce an A2 mood board (when I don't know) but when I do I will take another pic and post it so you can see my progress - if any. LOL

Inspiration

I am posting a few images that i have gained inspiration from for my minor project. I am going along the lines of militaria and went to DLI museum at the weekend to get some photos for my project. Although the DLI is only a small museum I gleened a mass of imagery from it and was pleasantly suprised by it too!

I am wanting to do fashion accessories for the project rather than garment shapes hence the pic with the beautifully embroidered broaches and bracelet which I found at http://beates-fabric-art.blogspot.com/. I had a quick trip to Newcastle yesterday and managed to get me some supplies which I hope will be of use for this project even if I just use them as samples.

Im hoping to get a crack on with some drawings tomorrow and then I will feel at least I am getting somewhere.

byes for now x

well I am trying to figure out how to do things on this blog!!! I think I might try and upload a few images over the weekend. I will get some photos of our studio at uni and maybe one of my own bay, we will see.

so here we are

So this is my very first blog. We have been asked to set up a blog for part of part of my Professional Development on my uni course.

I am studying Textiles and Surface Design at Cleveland College of Art and Design. I am starting my third and final year. This is my first week back and I have begun my minor project which is a 10 week brief and hopefully over the next coming weeks I will add pictures of how I am doing!!! My theme is based around WWII and could possibly evolve along the way - we shall see.