pic of my dress

Here is a photo of my finished dress for interdisiplinary processes i forgot to post it before ...

Pathway choice and Fashion art and culture result !!

I made my pathway choice earlier on this week and once I had seen the presentation I was 100% sure I wanted to do B the modules sound amazing - tailoring processes sounds really interesting and so does the trend prediction. But what I am looking forward to most is taking inspiration from a vintage garment in one module. And I REALLY REALLY want to learn to be better at pattern cutting!!
We got out fashion art and culture marks back and I got 70% I actually could not believe that I got a first! I thought I had done really bad, but I think this was because I didn’t enjoy the project as much as the others. The feedback was mostly positive apart from that I could have done more design development from my research.

I had my last day with my third year yesterday – and it was a very stressful day! The hand in was at 4 and everyone was rushing about to get everything finished. For most of the day we were sorting out the exhibition area and finishing Zena’s portfolio.
We had a few problems ….a poster needed to be printed out and the printers were all booked up and there was no drop in time left ….And the exhibition space was difficult and the table that Zena had planned to use didn’t fit into the space so her original design had to be changed.
It made me understand some of aspects have to be previously planned, like exactly how work is going to be laid out with a back up plan just in-case there are any problems.
At the beginning of the day I was sticking the drawings to costing sheets and putting them on the right envelopes. Later I helped prepare the exhibition space, running errands and printing out any extras for the portfolio and technical file. It was really stressful but I learnt a lot about the ways in which you can display your work and the problems that you can face. Which I think will be really useful for my next two years. I was blown away by her collection, it was really well put together and to be honest all the third year work really inspired me and got me even more excited about what is to come. Here are some photos from yesterday ……..

Nearly finished !!

For the past few days I have been putting the finishing touches to the interdisciplinary processes project- today I did the ending illustration which I really enjoyed and pulled together everything in my sketchbook -its bulging with fabric samples- I have really enjoyed this project but I am pleased to be nearly finished with the garment because I found it difficult. Here are some pics of some of the work I’ve done recently....

Today I worked with my third year again I started off by cutting out the tags for Zena to sew in after we worked on the swing tickets together – I had to twist some wire around a pencil to create a spiral shape then thread it onto the cord. We also laminated the tags to make them stronger. It made me realise the amount of preparation that goes into a collection even after you have made the garments.
She showed me her whole collection today and I was really inspired, we sorted through the photos editing them on Photoshop to decide which pages to be selected for the look book. One of the sleeves on a garment really stood out to me it was cut in a way to create ruffles that twist along the sleeve. My third year told me how stressed she was and said this weekend she got 3hrs of sleep a night as she was up finishing her garments!! Just makes me realise how much harder I’m going to have to push myself in third year.

well well well since last thursday i have done really well yestaerday i managed to do the whole of my bodice and today i completed most of the skirt - its still really stressing me out because i find pattern cutting sooo difficult !!we did our evaluations today which was good i felt like i rounded he project up just the garment and illustartion next whichim looking forward too. i'm quite pleased with myself as i made some really devlopmnets with my garment these past couple of days ..

Scrap it, start again and just let it go !

I had such an annoying day yesterday I had decided on my final design and made a calico version of it, so at this point I felt ahead and prepared, then after talking with the tutors we decided that my design was too simple. I felt so crap because even though my design was simple it had taken me ages! But they said I was capable of something more complex.
I guess I had played it safe and got a bit of a complex about pattern cutting I had picked something that was safe for my final design even though I had made more interesting samples earlier in my design developments.
So I decided to throw myself in and do a different design that I had made samples of, I felt like crying because I got so stressed with my new design trying to work out how to make it. It’s so frustrating because I really want to be better at pattern cutting I just find it so hard to do.
Even though I got so stressed I am pleased that this was pointed out because now I have chosen something more adventurous. I have realised that I have also got to try not to let it get to me when things go wrong and just let it go.
I ended up staying til half six so I cold draw out the pattern for the bodice, it was really confusing but here are some pictures of my new design ……

Another day of hard work !

Today we took the garment we had moulaged and made it into a pattern - I learnt quite a lot from doing this. Firstly you need to spend more time working on the pattern rather than actually putting it together! I found it difficult to decipher between the lines I had marked on the dress and I think next time I would write more information on the dress as when you move the pins the lines become meaningless. My pattern turned out to be massive as i didn’t put many seams in it whilst working on the manikin.



I also did a rough mock up of what my final garment would be like for interdisciplinary - it should work out ok but I need to decide on fabrics choosing the right one so that it doesn’t get weighed down by the knit wear inside the pleats.

Fabric samples !!!

After hunting in charity shops for jumpers and lace etc and going to Samuel taylors to get some bondaweb. I did some more fabric samples this weekend – I’m sooo glad we did that workshop because I have enjoyed it so much and it has taught me to be so much more experimental when working with fabrics.....

Working with the third years ....day 2

Today I mainly traced patterns- it made me realise how time consuming it is to trace out all the patterns especially because of all the information that needed to be put on: grain lines, cutting instructions, what garment it is, what section of the garment it is, the size manikin it fits etc. and also this all has to be done in stencilling so it is clear to the manufacturer of the garment. I’ve also bought some wire because the whole theme of Zena’s project is the curve- so she wants to twist some wire into a spiral for the swing tickets so everything links in.

Moulage

Today was quite good - we learnt to Moulage its sort of a different approach to pattern cutting. We were going to Moulage the garment we made yesterday but mine was not really suitable to do this with so we made a new design. I worked with Faith and we created a dress using pleats at the front and different darts to mould it to the body. At first I started just draping it to the mannequin and this didn’t really work that well but once I had learnt to be more creative with the darts and not just wrap the fabric around the body it was really successful. I was pleased with the outcome. We marked on all the information we needed with a pencil and are going to make it into a pattern next week I think.
Also we had group tutorials they were ok but I’m just at a stage where I need to design more and work on the mannequin to develop my ideas and find a final piece ready for next week when we start making it. Here is my garment from the Moulage workshop today:

Today we had to make a garment by 3 o clock - I chose to do half of a garment of the full size manikin. At first when I saw we had to try to incorporate pattern cutting I was worried but once I got going I was ok and I had been putting it off for too long! to be honest now I want to do another so I can experiment for my final garment. Here is what I designed and made today ....



Also I saw the new display in Harvey Nichols yesterday and it is amazing - the detail is really impressive. The green section on the giraffe looks like it is encrusted with glass. The colours all work really well and its just all fits together perfectly. It’s definitely my favourite display there that I’ve seen so far ….

photos from the V and A

I forgot that when I went to London we went to the V and A and had a look at the fashion section - it was really impressive, they had some amazing dresses. oh and there were two Incredible ceiling hangings. Also we saw some of stephen jones' illustrations, it is amazing that he can capture what he wants in a hat in a few strokes, i was really interested in his work as i had researched him for my millinery elective.
Here are the photos .......