quilt in progress

Well as promised here are a couple of pictures of the mini baby quilt I am in the process of making.

new challange

well it has been far too long since I last was here. So much has been planned and at times so little achieved.

I am now at a new stage in my life - I have a baby on the way and my creative streak has turned to creating all things baby inspired! After searching for baby products and not really finding what I was really after I have decided to make my own baby cot quilt and a quilt for the pram in a similar design but with colours that will go with my lovely pram - purchased by the in laws.

This pregnancy has not been easy and for far too long now I have been unable to do very much therefore limiting what I can do on a daily basis. But I have managed to finally make a start on my pram quilt. I love the nursery rhyme theme which is what I have gone with and picked colours to try and match in with an already purchased nursery set. I will post some pics very soon to show my progress and am hoping to keep this blog a little more up to date that of late.

My degree is finally over

Well today was the deadline for my Final Major Project. I managed to get 10 finals handed in as well as all the stuff we had to hand in to go with it, my portfolio was a lot heavier than I anticipated. It was a very strange morning at uni, i don't think many of us really knew what to do with ourselves.

I am relieved it is all over although really can't believe how quickly this year has gone by and I am left wondering what I am going to do with myself!

here are a few pics of my final pieces.

Easter holidays

I thought I would let you know what I have been up to over the Easter period. I have managed to work on some of my final samples and instead of working at one until it is finished I like to do a little of one and then a little of another so often feel like I am getting no where.

I have been wanting to print at home for quite some time and have often thought I could use my old A1 drawing board as the base for it. After a talk we had at uni my Maria Thompson (I think that is her surname) who printed all her final samples by using hand cut stencils I decided this was the way forward seen as how I am not really keen on printing. So I have made up a printing surface (well its not a table) and have been using it today. I must say I am pleased with my results but just wish I had mixed up a few more colours to print with before the holidays.

sneek peek

Here is a sneak peek of what I have been up to over the past few weeks, with a few images of my design development as well as one or two printed samples, although none of them are finished just yet as I will be using my embroidery skills on most of my samples to give it that eye catching zing.



The image on the left is my development and the image on the right has been printed but will be embroidered into making the image pop out at you.

printing progress

I was so happy when my fabric from Whaleys turned up on Tuesday. Sadly I was at work and had to wait until Wednesday morning to pick it up from the Royal Mail sorting office. I had a hurrenously busy day on Wednesday such that I did not get a chance to dye the fabric that night, but did manage to, very early on Thursday morning!

With dyed fabric in hand I went into uni on Thursday to start on my printing, of course after I mixed up my dyes to print with. As always things never seem to go to plan but with a little bit of tweeking here and there I have finally managed to get 1 sample printed and it is waiting for me to work my magic on it over the weekend with my embroidery skills.

Oh note to oneself - must be more careful when using screen with metal framing as it can turn out to be a lethal weapon!!!

the end is in sight

It has been far too long since I posted anything. Since my last post I have been working hard on my development stage, there have been days where I have been chasing my tail but I do now feel it is all coming together. I feel I have a good range of sample designs and also have sorted out the koda traces for 6 of my 8 designs as well as 2 co-ordinates. I have another co-ordinate in my mind but it's not out onto paper as yet.

I have been dreading going into the dye lab as I never seem to get the colours I am aiming for and usually feel my time is wasted in there. Well yesterday I decided enough was enough and I had to brace my fears, get in there and get some colours mixed, otherwise I would have everything ready to print but no fabrics dyed! I took my colour palette in, like a good little student, and low and behold after only a one or two attempts I actually have the colours I was aiming for!

After dying an assortment of fabrics (cotton lorn, cotton sateen and Worsted twill) I have decided I much prefer the Worsted twill to work with. Typically I only have enough of this fabric for 3 potential designs so last night I logged onto Whaleys and ordered 6 metres of it. Hopefully it will get here VERY soon so I can get it all dyed and start printing.

I will get a few pics up here tomorrow to show you my progress. They will only be my black and white design layouts but at least you will get the idea of where I am going. Oh just in case you don't know I am aiming my collection at women's fashion wear.

still drawing

I had planned to do more drawing today but got sidetracked as ever with housework, cooking and baking. As tomorrow will be my last day for drawing and coupled with the fact I only have 7 sheets so far, I really need to pull my finger out as the saying goes.

I am aiming for this whole project to be more organised than any of my previous ones and I therefore decided to log onto www.photobox.com and upload my photos to create a photo book. I should get it by next week so I hope it turns out as well as I am expecting it to.

I definitely need to start on the development side this week and I already have a few ideas floating round me my head. I would also like to get some fabrics dyed this week too. I already have one of my fabrics sorted which is a cotton lorn that I bought metres and metres of in the summer. As I am wanting to use light-weight and heavy-weight fabrics together I am going to buy some heavy-weight linen and light/heavy-weight wools to try out together with the cotton lorn.

One of the lecturers at college on Friday told me to have a look at a book called All Wrapped Up, it contains pictures of gift wrap from the 1960's. After I had looked thorough it I went straight onto Amazon and ordered it! It has some really lovely papers in it and you can never have too many books - can you?

Threads for Life

Well the major project is well underway but I am still at the drawing stage. I was recently thinking of changing my whole theme as I wasn't sure I would have enough media to draw from but after speaking to one of the tutors on Friday I have decided to stick with it and take it along a different avenue.

I went to Hexham on Saturday with a friend hoping to gain some inspiration and to gather some drawing material, both of which I gained, although I spent possibly a little too much money.

So here I am on a Sunday with plans for more drawing today. I have included some pics of my mood board for this project - Threads for Life as well as a few of my drawing sheets although I still have some work to do on each of them to finish them off.

New Year - 2010

Well I went away to Spain for 10 days over Christmas and arrived home to a blanketing of ice. It was that bad even the taxi driver wouldn't take me to the bottom of the street so I had to brave it with case down the small bank - much to the amusement of the neighbours I am sure.

Well today is the start of a new year, lets hope I get through it without any major traumas. I awoke this morning to a few inches of snow covering the whole street. It looks beautiful knowing I do not have to go out in it. Since taking these pictures the sun is now shining and outside looks so beautiful.

Well I have had a long break from uni work and unfortunatley it cannot go on, so my plan for this afternoon is to work on my disseration some more and try to get it almost finished as the deadline is looming. over the next few days I will have to start drawing at some point and sort out some sort of brief for my final major project!

While I was away in Spain I got to thinking I might change my major project, not the theme but maybe the end product. I will see how things go and assess at a later date - and see how confident I feel (which will really be the deciding factor).

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.