Tuck Foot Samples

My last day at college before the Christmas holidays and I'm in the textiles workshop to work on a sample for 3DSP. For 3DSP I've explored the basic quilting techniques and now I've made the decision to look at fabric manipulation. Looking through The Art of Fabric Manipulation book and talking to Becky I got to try out using the tuck foot on the sewing machine. The tuck foot requires two needles which was new for me as i'd never tried two needles at once before and it was tricky as the threads would tangle. The tuck foot pulls up the fabric and sews it creating lines of folds. I started by seeing what I can do with it, whether I can curve it or sew over them. For my second sample I tried doing continuous lines next to each other. I think having the lines alongside each other to work the best but you can't be sure on the change of size of the fabric as it will get smaller with each line.

Torn Fabric Samples

I went into the metals and wood workshop with a pocket full of scrap fabric with the plan to find a way to make fabric look worn and torn. After a discussion with Rich it was thought that anything that is hand held and can scratch or damage something. I found four techniques to tear into the fabric that were:

• With a hook in a hand power drill, hook into the fabric and power it to leave little holes where the hook tears out. 
• Scraping over it with a file scrapper that cleans them, slowly wearing away at the fabric
• Using a saw to scratch into the fabric, tearing it
• Using a wood rasp which looks like a cheese grater for wood to scrape into the fabric

I found scraping into fabric to be quite difficult as it doesn't stay in place and I had to staple it to a piece of wood. I don't know how it will work with larger pieces or layers. I found that the wood rasp worked the best and easiest to wear into fabric.

I tried the wood rasp on some layers of fabric stitched together. I found that it only tore through the top layer. This could really work but I want to try seeing whether I should stitch it then tear it or tear it then stitch it. It would also help to see how it would look with coloured or patterned fabric to see how it looks in conjunction with the torn fabric.

Hand Drill & Hook

File Cleaner

Hand Saw

Rasp

Rasp on Layers of Stitched Fabric

Gravity - Paddy Hartley

Another gravity lecture, this week from Paddy Hartley. From looking at his work previous to the lecture I was unsure I was really going to be interested in his work as it seemed they outrageous and obscure. During the lecture I found it to very interesting to see the ideas behind the work, which really changed my perspective of his work. After the lecture I noticed that his work really focuses on body adornment and thinking of it in this sense made it more appealing to me. I liked his face corsets work that focused on the idea of body manipulation. I like how he took this idea and saw a great deal of potential in it with the exploration of it in materials and shape. His work relating to the patient records of the First World War's Servicemen about the origins and development of surgical facial reconstruction pioneered by New Zealander Sir Harold Gillies was really his most popular of work. This was also focusing on the face but swayed from the face adornments to making uniforms decorated with personal documents and information about the surgery they undertaken. I thought this was something very sentimental and delicate issue and make it into something beautiful. It was very well done with relation to how the surgery worked and replicated it in the work.

Tutorial with Kate

My tutorial with Kate today was really good. We discussed what I could do for my finished piece and discussed that I could make a sample quilt instead of a full quilt. I could make a series of sample quilts, like 3, but I'm not sure I could manage to finish 3. 

I showed her my leaf and gave me some ideas on how I can use them as well as actually expressing my own ideas that could just be ideas for in the sketchbook. We discussed that I will need to after I've finished sampling to then begin combining my ideas to form the quilt.

Kate gave me a few really good quilting books to look through to help finalize or inspire some of my ideas. These books will be really useful for my sketch booking, sampling and 3DSP.

3DSP Tutorial: formative feedback

I had my feedback for the 3DSP formative assessment. The only concern was that I didn't have any samples for quilting for the assessment when I had described that Quilting was what I wanted to explore. But by this point I had already a nice range of quilting samples made. The formative assessment really triggered a desire to work continuously on my 3DSP project.

Knitting Machine Workshop

This week starts with an introduction to the knitting machine workshop. Even though I had already attempted the knitting machine before and have a very basic understanding of the machine but I attended with hope to further my knowledge of the knitting machine. This was a wonderous workshop as I learnt so much and recapped lots in one day. I went over casting on & off and lace holes again but found out about picking up dropped stitches, twists and changing colour. I was able to create a sample patch for each process where I'd try to show a range of what I could do with the process. I was shown how to create my own ball of yarn by combining yarns together that I then knitted with. We also got demonstrations on how to use the pattern cards and to hook the end back on and with the addition of lace holes in the middle give a nice lacey bumpy finish. I also learnt that I could knit with jewelers' wire. I sampled knitting the wire on it's own and combined with yarn to see the difference. Knitting with wire allows it to be molded and shaped. Knitting with the wire on it's own was difficult as you need to get the tension right. It took me a couple of attempts as the wire would break.

Michelle Griffiths

This weeks Gravity lecture was from Michelle Griffiths. Michelle creates three dimensional formed fabrics. When first seeing her work I was really interested in how she even makes this possible. She began using a technique similar to schibori where we would wrap and stitch the fabric around screws and by steaming the fixed thing for it to keep the form. She also experimented with the addition of oil paints to the fabrics which made the most amazing and vibrant pattination. With her visit to the origin of schibori textiles she was able to see and learn more about the process which allowed her work to expand more in the manipulation of fabrics. Her formed pieces remind me of the sea plant life and urchins  Even though made with man made objects, her finished pieces look very much like natural forms.

Machine Stitch Quilt Samples

Carrying on with my 3DSP samples I explored the difference in the effect of quilting with the change in the distance between the stitching. I sewn lines of stitching across fabric sandwiched wadding. Each sample's stitched lines got further and further apart to give a variety from little to big spaces between the lines. I also tried another range of samples where I had stitched another set of lines over the first lot creating stitched squares. As the space between the stitching got smaller the piece became less malleable and stiffer. The smaller spaced samples were flatter and more controlled. The larger spaced samples were very loose and flexible. The extra layer of crossed stitching in a different direction became more fixed and stiffed the fabrics and wadding quite strong to the one way single layer of stitching. When crossing over stitching I'm creating pockets and with pockets you need to be careful to keep the fabric flat out when making so not to get lumpy fabric.

Patchwork Samples

Later today I carried on with my 3DSP quilting by looking at patchwork. Using The Singer Quilting Bible I was able to look an assortment of different patchwork patterns. I wanted to try the range of shapes, Square, rectangle, triangle and curves. I started with square and rectangle patchwork which was relatively easy with straight lines to sew. Following the books instructions and previous patchwork projects for cushions has taught me that it helps to iron down the seems of the pieces after each stitching. It takes a lot of planning and measuring before actually putting together a patchwork piece, even small ones. Planning for the triangle patchwork was not as easy to prepare the patches as I had to use the  Pythagoras theorem I used in maths lessons many years ago to work out the lengths of the some sides of the triangle patches. The curved patches were the most difficult to pin and sew together and they still didn't match up properly and had ripples in the fabric at the seems. Like the others it was supposed to be square but pinning and stitching the pieces together was so difficult that it became misshapen. I really do not want to do curves ever again, they really don't work out very well at all.

Made In The Middle: Jennifer Collier and Imogen Luddy

Today we had lectures for Discourse from artists Jennifer Collier & Imogen Luddy exhibiting at the touring Made in the Middle exhibition. The exhibition considers the ‘Pathways to Craft’ by picking out artists as case studies to show the various routes to careers in making. This then was the theme for which Jennifer Collier & Imogen Luddy talked about in their lectures. They Started with what they did at university and followed with their series of work that led from that and how it changed at got them work. They also talked about what other work they do alongside their career in making. Collier discussed her work spaces that she rents out to other makers and Luddy expressed her fondness of teaching that assists with her own making. As I am considering going into teaching myself I related to Luddy's talk and agreed with her reasons of teaching as they are very much like my own. After the talks I got to look at Luddy's sketch books that were incredibly beautiful with a mix of delicateness and dark themes, an interesting contrast like her use of techniques of working that are traditional crafts with technology and digital process.

Jennifer Collier

Imogen Luddy

Stitch Quilt Samples

With my 3DSP formative assessment tomorrow it has kicked me in the arse to get focused on my quilting samples. Alongside getting my tech file ready I have been exploring the different stitches on the Bernina sewing machine. This was a a great first step for my quilting looking at the many different stitches I can quilt with and see how the stitches react quilted. The different stitches from the Bernina show a range of different patterns. The great thing about the Bernina sewing machine is that it has a display of how to set up the machine for each stitch pattern.

Book Making Workshop

This Monday I had an amazing workshop with Marian Eliot learning about different forms of book making and book arts. Starting with an informative power-point I was shown a range of different books, giving an introduction to the basics of book making. During this workshop I got to make four different books. I learnt a pamphlet bind to stitch together folded sheets. I tried this with long envelopes and different sizes of pages. I thought the envelopes were a very interesting addition to the book, making pockets in some of the pages. Second I revisited the flower or star fold I had learnt from a workshop last year with Becky Adams and explored vigorously when looking at paper manipulation. When making this flower folded book I put thought into the types of papers and the formation of colours together. After making the three books I found I had made a series of different books that all shared a similar colour scheme. After making my books I requested for a demonstration on how to bind single sheets as I had an ideas for my sketchbook. Before I was struggling to work in a sketchbook as whenever I thought of it I paniced about the formation of pages and just didn't do anything. After this workshop I had the idea to work on separate sheets and to then bind them together at the end. This demonstration showed us how to stab bind sheets that I now plan to use for my sketchbook at the end of my project to bind together my sketchbook pages. These books were made without a purpose and more to look nice on their own without any thought about the content but with these new binding skills I can put a lot more thought into book making.

Wally Gilbert

Today we had a gravity lecture from Wally Gilbert. I wasn't to interested in the process of jewellery making and how complicated it must be to make it but I really liked the patterns he made in his work. I specifically liked the natural shapes in some of this work. I was quite interested how he had touched on so many different areas, whether it was print making or iron casting. I really liked his unique style that you can see in each piece of his work. I also liked in the lecture how he mentioned all the people he'd met on his journey of being a maker and the places he had visited. I thought that was quite nice and sentimental.

Anne Gibbs

Yet again another lecture from a ceramics artist. I wasn't too interested in her ceramic work I found it a bit plain with not a lot happening. I liked the idea of having a collection of items together but I found Anne's collection uninteresting. I liked the places Anne visited whilst on her artist residential  I would find these places very inspirational. Her lecture showed me what artist residentials could entail giving me a better idea of what they are and give you.

Illustrator workshop

Today I had my first workshop in using illustrator to use the laser cutter or vinyl cutter but mostly for the laser cutter. I found it to be a refresh on what I'd already learnt in a introduction in foundation.

Quilting

Carrying on from my dyed fabrics I had decided to cut them up into hexagons and stitch them together on a fabric backing giving a quilted effect. I really like this but I feel like this needs adding to but it's certainly my favorite sample yet. I could use a different shape to hexagon and try segments of leaves

Tutorial: Claire

Since I talk to Kate about my 3DSP and DD work, I have been so worried about whether my sample are DD or 3DSP. Unable to work out for myself which was what I need to find help. I discussed my problem with Claire and cleared it all out for me that if I when I was making it was new and to try out then it's 3DSP but then if I were to then explore that process with my DD themes then It'd be classed as DD. I found it really difficult to differentiate between the two as I had used elements of DD as subjects when testing processes as I had no other images to use.
Afterwards we talked about how my DD is coming along and I got an interesting idea to add messages within my textile pieces but they don't have to be seen.

Bev Milward

Again we had a ceramicist lecture, this time from Bev Milward. I'd seen Bev Milward's work before at craft fairs around Hereford and Rather liked it's sentimental element. What I liked about Bev's work was how it was all self narrated and changes as her life moves and changes. You can certainly see a development that has changed with her drawing/mark making in the work that always add more to the images she creates. I very much like her style of drawing and colour choice that make it very much her own. I also liked how she kept a similar style that she knows works like "two figures and a landscape".

Tutorial: Kate

I am scared of my sketchbook and I've only just realized it and had to talk to someone about it or I'd never input into it. During my tutorial Kate told me that it doesn't matter on the presentation and to keep it solely on the quality of the content. I still can't decided whether to be putting my 2D samples in my sketchbook or photos of them in. I'm tempted to put them in my sketchbook like I did on my foundation which I was happy with and I might not need to be so concerned with how my sketchbook looks.

Also I need to differ between my 3DSP and my DD as my samples have been very much the same. I need to get into the textile workshop to start weaving. I think I now know what I'm going to do for my weave by looking at more patterns rather then seeing what I can weave with.

Natural Fabric Dyes

I spent my morning boiling the most unusual foods in an attempt to dye fabrics with natural dyes. I was surprised to see how it worked so well. I got some really strong colours and some weak. This is my first great addition to my 3DSP. I think i may need to redo some of the ones that didn't turn out so well but it was a good first attempt.

Fabric Dying

I skipped cultural studies because I was having too much fun in the textile workshop playing with fabric dyes. I took the colours from my colour scheme from the plants at Berrington Hall and autumn leaves. I'm going to then cut them up and stitch them together in a quilt form. I could try to recreate the the shapes in the segmented leaf I painted or reuse my theme of hexagons. Oh an idea I could create leaves out of them with stitch. I'm going to try that after I've done patches.

Textile Mark Making

I joined the first years today int he textiles workshop for some mark making. I wanted to try these processes for 3DSP anyway so it was good that I got the chance to tag along.

I revisited dysperse dyes again as a resist with photocopied images. Where the photocopied image was on the sheet it wouldn't pick up the dye. I experimented with my hexagon prints and layering.

I also got to return to procion dyes as well but by painting it onto screen and using binder to transfer the image onto a fabrics or paper.

I tried emulsion printing that I've been waiting to attempt for a little while now. Printing onto fabric or paper using emulsion paint as a transfer. I reused my hexagon photocopies and looked at how different colours effected it.

I'd like to try some of these techniques again but with my own drawings of leaves.

Batik

After doing reliefs with dysperse dying I got the idea to try batik. I started just testing how the wax worked with different shapes and the procion dyes for 3DSP. I then tested using metal shapes from the metal workshop to make perfect squares and circles.

Once I'd got the idea for how it works I created leaf shapes and played with different layers and colours to get autumn leaf effects. I really liked how it turned out I'd like to do some more and work out some of the kinks. Try mixing up some colours and make it darker.

Digital Print and Stitch

I was certainly looking forward to this in digital print and stitch workshop for a while now. With a digitally prepared image we were able to transfer it using the software onto fabric using the special fabric print. Very much like when I photocopied onto fabric in foundation, except this time it'll be way more permanent. I had mine printed on assitate which made the image really faint. I should have probably picked silk.

After trying printing we got to have a go on the digital stitch sewing machine. The machine was instantly able to stitch text so we each had a word stitched out. I could think of a word relevant to my work yet so I just had my name stitched. It was the most beautiful text ever. My name should always be written out in stitch.

Dysperse Dyes

I was advised to possibly look at dysperse dyes and how they looked using leaves. I collected a range of leaves to try disperse dyes with. The dysperse dye are used in dry layers under the heat press to transfer them onto the fabric. I created leaf shapes on different materials. I tried painting on leaves and printed with them onto the materials which created different effects in the print with the leaf textures that I really liked.

I really liked how the dysperse turned out with the layers I'd like to see what other techniques i could then layer on top of this like stitch or other print.

Tutorial: Simon

Another tutorial, for 3DSP this time where we discussed in a group individually what each of us wanted to look at. I was a bit worried as I hadn't created a great deal to begin with but once I started talking I remembered loads of ideas I had. It was good to have it all written down so I have record of what I was thinking about doing without forgetting again.

This is my list so far:

• Dyperse dyes
• Natural dyes
• Batik
• Experiment with heddle ridge loom
• Learn to use peddle loom and experiment with pattern
• What different stitches can be done on sewing machine
• Knitting machine?
• Digital stitch and print
• Emulsion printing

Tutorial: Kate

I really needed my tutorial for DD today as I have been stuck in a rut all of last week, I haven't been able to start making anything. I talked with Kate about what I've done so far and discussed what I had planned in my proposal. Because I'm stuck it was suggested that I should just start making stuff. I should do contextual research and collect interesting stuff to inspire making stuff. I was also set the challenge to create 10 textile samples for Friday to really motivate me getting stuff done. I'm feeling really doubtful about getting that done by Friday as I already have a busy week ahead of me.

Lecture: Claire Curneen

I can't say I was too excited to see Claire Curneen's lecture this afternoon as she is a ceramicist and I'm not a big fan of clay but there were still some things that I like about the way she works. I liked how she uses drawing as a way to work out ideas that may not be possible and to get a certain detail to do something. It keeps her ideas alive as they are not lost in thought. I need to draw more myself, as my mind is completely rattling with thoughts i just need to get them onto paper.

I also liked her source of inspiration. She would look at famous raphaelite paintings and Greek mythology for narratives to her work, which I find interesting to work in that way.

Workshop: Photoshop

This afternoon I had a workshop how to use photoshop in preparation for workshops in digital print and stitch. I found this to be a bit boring as I already knew the basics of photoshop from A level Media and Foundation. I'm hoping that the next workshop will be a bit more advanced.

Design Development Crit

I had my first group crit for Design Development today. It was certainly was a different experience I struggled to get involved and ask questions. I also found it difficult to think of questions for people working in a different material and I think people had the same issue when suggesting things for me. Maybe because I already have an idea in my head for where to go but I found what people were suggesting not to be entirely helpful as I certainly don't want to work in wire, glass or mosaics. I suppose the use of light to reveal secrete messages within the layers was an interesting idea but I'm rather pessimistic about it and the complications of getting a light for it. I also feel like I've done light before and I'm not sure I want to do it again. I think I'll just leave that idea for now any maybe come back to it later after I've worked more on making first.

Initial Drawing

This week I've been working on my sketchbook and starting to do some initial drawings expressing my ideas of quilting and segments I found in the samurai armor and natural life in the garden.

Tutorial: Claire

Hoping to start on my project following my first initial idea but I found myself to stuck with how to start. So to get myself out of this rut I ask Claire for a tutorial to start bouncing some ideas. We discussed my inial ideas I talked to Kate about and got some ideas flowing that I could look at the layers and trying to create these initially with collage and then moving to fabrics. Also to consider a torn and worn effect and including text referring to the samurai armor. This certainly has sparked my motivation and ideas to start flowing.

Workshop: Tapestry & Weave

Today I had an amazing tech workshop in tapestry and weave with Karren where I were shown gradually how to prepare and make tapestry and peg loom. After lunch I was taught how to thread a loom, that can be tedious, and how to weave. I certainly enjoyed it, I was thinking of working on weave a lot more for 3DSP, maybe work my way up to the more complicated looms and create fancy patterns.

Low-Relief Embossing and Clay & Print

Happy Birthday to Me!

Today was a busy day with two workshops in one day. My first workshop for embossing and print was good. I didn't know what I was expecting when I arrived but I enjoyed it. I got to use the vinyl cutter which was new. We decorated blocks of wood with vinyl cuttings, sand blasted them to give them definition and used them to emboss paper with Roger using the Albion press. Afterwards we added paint to our blocks to print with again giving this really awesome print.

After lunch I went to the clay and print workshop as well but once it was explained I realized it was certainly not what I wanted. I thought it was going to be screen printing onto clay, when actually it was pushing things into clay, slips and oxides, digital transfer and printing using object. I know for sure now for certain that I don't want to do this for 3DSP. I still have to write about it in my technical file and be done with it.

My First Samples

After my tutorial with Kate I had so many ideas I needed to start making something so as a start I went to the textile workshop and looked at sandwiching wadding between fabric to make little hexagon quilt samples. I did two different thicknesses to see the difference as the first one seemed a tad flat. Next I'd like to add colour or different materials.