Year Two Week Eleven

 Week Eleven

This week I added the pleats to my collar and cuffs and sewd these both down. This went well as it meant I know now how much fabric I need to pleat to find the measurements of these perts of the garments. 

I also made my shawl pattern by connecting the front and back bodice together at the shoulders. I then put it on the mannequin and roughly drew the shape I would want this to take. Drawing this on the mannequin was useful as it helped me to see how far over the shoulder I wanted the shawl to be and how far down the front it should be. Once I had done that I made a more confident line whilst it sas flat so l could cut this out. I like the way that this fabric has draped with this and I have a similar thickness fabric from my wedding dress which I think replicate this well. I like how it covers the shoulder of the sleeves but stops before the main design on the sleeve showing the cuff.

For my personal project portfolio page, I shot my tutu. Styling my model to find my moodboard and posing her to show off my tutu but also making it look like a costume as how it could be worn. I am happy with the result of this photoshoot as I made sure to get multiple angles and ballet poses to make my portfolio page diverse. 

I completed my last session of life drawing this week. It was interesting that this week was a female model as it meant I could experiment with this different form and shapes. I also like how we did quick timed drawings and walking as this is something that I wouldn’t usual experiment with. I think this looked interesting on the page as of the way it looks like multiple bodies and different poses. I think this will work well in my portfolio as it is a talking point as is interesting to view as someone who didn’t draw it. 

This week I managed to finish my sustainability page, adding a quote to the page to better explain my concept and adding three initial design ideas from my sketch book but illustrated better to link to my page. 

As my sustainability page didn’t take too long as I had already been working on it, I managed to move on and complete my white shirt page. This went well as the night before I had already planed what I wanted to go in the page and where. With minor tweaking and adding a small pattern to this page I have managed to finish it. I think this page where’s well to show my process as I feature my moodboard, fashion flat, pattern, samples, diary of making and then the photoshoot of the final garment. 

Year Two Week Ten

 Week Ten 

This week in pattern cutting I continued to work on my toile sewing the collar together, I found this shape has worked well to reflect my design but it is slightly not long enough. To make this work I will alter the pattern and make it wider to fit around the whole neck. I’m not sure why it is not wide enough to fit the whole neck but I will measure these both again to work out how much more I need to add. I also continued to unpick the wedding dress, detaching the two skirt layers from the bodice. I found unpicking the lace layer from the bodice to be challenging as it is sewn in many places and the beads on this layer come off easily so some of these have fallen off whilst unpicking. However, these fallen beads do not affect my design and I think the roughened dress will not be affected by these missing as of the style. 

In the textiles lesson this week we worked on portfolio, and I clarified my moodboard for the personal project- tutu that I made. This was useful as it’s helped me to set up the beginning of this page and help to inspire me for the photoshoot I planned for the next Monday. 

I worked on my next page pulling work from my sustainability sketchbook to see what I can use for this page. I decided to pull some of the initial designs and re illustrate them to make them of a higher quality and so they fit into my page better. I decided to cut up my final garment for this page as I havnt done this yet and I felt it will make the page stand out better and to ensure my pages don’t get repetitive. I am finding this page challenging to do as I feel like it has been a bit of a struggle to get the elements of this page to work together and show the journey of me making this garment. 

In photography I shot my white shirt and my garment in the group architecture project. I feel that my white shirt has worked well especially in the photographs. The way I have shot this shirt has made the sleeves stand out and look overly big at the top with volume, the way I wanted it too. I like the way that the netting is coming out of the slit in the top of the leg-of-mutton  as it shows the structural elements. I think the dark great background has also helped to make my shirt stand out as of the contrast against the white. One of the tutors asked another class to guess what the pathway I want to go into is based off of my white shirt and they said costume so this proves my white shirt is working and clear what I want to go into based on the historical side. 

Year Two Week Nine

Week Nine

This week in pattern cutting to develop my shirt, I added the Dorset buttons that I made. I found the process of making Dorset buttons slow at first because I was using thin embroidery thread which took too long to blanket stitch around the ring of the button. After doing this for one ring I decided to switch to embroidery thread as this is bigger so it takes less time to blanket stitch. 

As this was my last session in making this shirt I had to also add the bias binding to my shirt neckline. This slightly twisted when sewing it but as this is covered by the bib this isn’t a big issue. If I had more time I would maybe redo this so it’s flatter. 

This week I completed my patterns for my white on white dress. When making the belt part of this belt I stated by roughly sketching the shape I wanted by putting it against the stand, I then solidified the lines so I was easier to see this. The first draft I thought is more accurate to my sketch but doesn't look exaggerated enough and looks quite plain. I decided to extend the bottom curve deeper and the curves is more fluid and sits better on the mannequin. I also like the shape of this as this pieces sits just under the bust with the high curve and how the bottom goes to the dropped waist making the audience see this as the attention is drawn to it.

To help me physically visualise the height of the collar I want for this design I used a collar I had made for my white shirt project. This then helped me to measure and draft my new pattern by being able to measure how much longer I wanted to make the collar based of this band collar.

As the sleeve block is quite fitted I made sure to open the slashes enough that this would be a comfortable sleeve without being too baggy to replicate the style of dress I am making accurately.

I then started to make my toile, which start simple as all I had to do to start this was sew the darts in the bodice and sew the shoulders and seams together. When sewing the sleeves I made sure to think about all the ways I could sew them to get the best result. I like how the sleeves flow over the cuff as it creates a nice drape and doesn’t go too far over the cuff. 

Year Two Week Eight

 Week Eight 

In the last week during half term, I’d decided to make my personal project as I had interrupted days where I could make this in one go. I decided to make a tutu as this is something I would be interested in learning how to at University if my course allows this. I thought because of this if I create a tutu which I know would need improvement as I was self learning this it would give me a good talking point for the portfolio page. Before stating this project I made sure to research into how to make a tutu through watching videos on multiple platforms and reading into the steps on websites. This was helpful as it helped me to gather different makers opens on how to make it and to find the similarities that they all use, to understand the base steps. When cutting out the fabric I decided to mark a piece of large pattern paper with the measurements to help me get these accurately as I need to cut lots of layers of each measurement. I found gathering the tulle layers of this tutu challenging as when pulling the gathered stitched through they kept on breaking,  this could have been as if the quality of the thread. So I then had to pleat the tulle which was time consuming as there was metres to pleat into the small fabric band.  Once I had sewn each layer top the fabric band from the bottom to the top I put it on the mannequin and inserted the boning hoop into the channel I sewd. I then tacked down the layers in groups of three to eliminate some of the volume making it into more of a pancake tutu.  When pressing it from the bottom up I could see this really taking place as of the layers flattened. I think that overall this has worked well as of the way it doesn’t completely fall and holds some shape and it gives me a starting point on tutus that would be nice to develop in the future. 

In pattern cutting, I made and seed in my sleeves. I was confident in both these sleeves after doing them multiple times. Making sure to pull the elastic tight enough it will fit to the arm but not tight enough that it’s too fitted and uncomfortable. 

In this week I made a portfolio page on textiles, selecting the work I feel flows together and shows off skills. I also like how this shows I can work in a sketchbook.  

I also photographed my colour dress styling it to look 60s as this was my idea behind this dress. I think this was successful as people could tell the idea and the style of hair and poses help to show this.

Year Two Week Seven

 Week Eight 

This week we started our timed session of sewing our white on white shirt. I found that this went well as I had timed my toile making so when planning out my sewing time I knew that I wouldn't have to rush and I would have time to complete everything needed. In this session I completed everything I wanted too including the collar and the bib. I feel that the ruff collar process went well as this time I was familiar with the process, but this time did take longer as I wanted it to be neater and I talked it down more to the collar tie so that it was more stable. As I had thought ahead about it taking longer as of these extra steps I did allow more time so I didn’t need to rush. I think that the extra fabric tied all along the neck instead of adding this at the back has worked better as it looks more fluid and neat. 

In the next session, I sewd my bodice together which took less time than I had planned for so I also added my welts to the sides which I had planned to do the next session. I’m glad I could do this earlier as it means if something takes longer that I thought it would next time then I will be able to have abit more time that I had left for the eyelets to go in. 

I managed to shoot my colour dress this week, styling it to suit the dress. I also made sure to do my models hair to make the shoot look like the 60s. I think the results of this shoot are good as I gave my model poses to do so there is a range of movement and fluidity. This aided me to be able to finish this colour dress page as I had the foundations done but just needed the photoshoot. 

As I finished this I could then start on my individual architecture portfolio page. I found the process of setting up this page went well as I had an idea of what I wanted these page to feature. I like this page as I have shown the process of making this garment, from my moodboard, designs and then the garments. I think this works well for this page as it shows other ways the garments could be worn with the moveable ties to the paniers. 

This week we went on a trip to The William Morris Gallery to see the Women in Print exhibition which was inspiring to see all the prints made by women. This was also nice exhibition to see as we have a pattern crazy project this college year so it was nice to the range of patterns and colour which were put together. We also had a talk at Liberty archives this was insightful to learn the history about the company and how they store there prints to be exhibited and transported.

Year Two Week Six

Week Six 

In this weeks Pattern cutting lesson I learnt how to sew button holes on the new machines. I like how this has turned out as it is more straightforward than my own machine as this does it automatically with the settings. I think for my white shirt I want to use bigger buttons as these small ones got lost in the white bib. I think this bib works well over the top of my white bodice as it isn’t big enough to distract you from the shape of the bib but is long enough to look proportional.

At home, I worked my on white shirt toile sewing the sleeves with the new patterns to allow for me volume. I learnt that for my final shirt I need to gather the sleeve caps more so they fit into the armhole without any puckering. The Marie sleeve would also benefit from me pulling the elastic tighter so it fits around so it can hold the puff shape. The shape was also not holding as well as it could, as for this toile I used a poly cotton which is heavier pulling the sleeve down slightly. I like how the sleeve looks with the slit as it makes you see in the sleeve and how it’s constructed. When sewing this next time I will sew the netting in one piece instead of cutting it in half as I think this will better show the structure and will look neater and more intentional. Once I had done this I cut out my final fabrics and overlocked them so I was prepared for next week when I start making it finally.

This week we had life drawing, which I hadn’t done before. I found the process interesting as I don’t usually take time to draw fathering focusing on textiles. I liked experimented with poses as I usually only draw from the front angle on a two dimensional flat pose. Next session I would like to experiment with different media when drawing and now I am familiar with the proportions of the body I will try to keep the proportions right in each pose to make my drawings look more realistic. 

In textiles we produced cut and slash techniques. As this was a technique I was familiar with I wanted to create more developed techniques. I did this through sewing in different directions so when slashed the texture was all over. I also made sure the layers of fabric would ensure the top fabric would fray as I like how this looks when the thread is loose. 

For my portfolio this week I decided to work digitally to create my illustration for my colour dress as I wanted this to have sharp lines, I also need to draw small circles and emails and I thought this would be the best way to do this. I like the way that this has turned out as through the model I drew with the dress you can clearly tell the time I wanted this to be based on, the 60s though the style and hair. 

Year Two Week Five

 Week Five

In Pattern cutting this week I decided to make a ruff collar after creating my mood board for my white shirt project. I felt like this would match my inspiration of historical structure well as I was inspired by a picture of Queen Elizabeth the first with a v shaped hem and a ruff collar. I have decided to make my ruff collar go from either side of the the neck instead of going the whole way around as i felt this would work better given the ten hour time constraint. I still feel like this looks good with the garment as from the front it covers the whole neck but from the back you can see how it is structurally held t the garment and neck. I feel like he shape of the ruff also links to my structural theme as of the shape it makes with the curves. 

I found the process of sewing this ruff to be fairly straightforward in steps but time consuming taking about an hour, however this is a big part of my design so with the ten hours I feel like this is a good amount of time to take. When sewing the ruff you use three needles at one with a similar process to suing a princes pleater but done by hand. A few times the threads got twister when sewing, so I amended this by sticking the needles I wasn't using at the time to the table so they wouldn't get caught. I found this worked well as it meant the threads stayed neat and easy to work out the position for each needle to sew in. Overall, I like the outcome of this ruff as I feel like the shape is accurate and stands up well, next time for my final sewn shirt I will make the band on the inside of the ruff  long enough s that it can be tide round the neck instead of adding extra fabric to the band to do this, I'll do this as I think it will make this more sturdy and neater around the back of the neck. 

After doing this, I constructed a bib, which I found making the pattern for straightforward, matching up the front and back bodice together and working out the shape I wanted. As I made this experimentally I wasn't sue if it would lay right or work properly, but after making it I am pleased with ow it as turned out as I will be using this pattern for my final shirt as it lays on a person well and I'm happy with the length and width. This also didn't take long which is good considering the time limit. 

In Textiles we are sharing techniques with each other to experiment with. One peer started this off with knitting, as it hadn't been too long since the last time I had knitted once I had been reminded how to cast on, I got into the rhythm of kitting, but I did struggle on my first attempt with adding an additional loop when I was changing between needles. By my second try I have managed to create a long piece of knitting with minimal mistakes. I found it useful to have knitting demonstrated again as it meant that when casting on and especially off I did this with the right technique as this is what I usually struggle with. 

We also got taught smocking, which was my first time doing this technique and I found it interesting how it manipulates the fabric, however I feel for my wedding dress it may be time consuming to do enough of this to make a feature. I did like the they way that it made geometric shapes on the fabric, but I think I underestimated how much it will shrink the fabric down with the smocking so next time I will use bigger pieces of fabric. 

Within this, I also demonstrated a heat manipulation technique which I enjoy using a heat gun and fabric to melt through or using coins or other objects to leave their shape once the fabric manipulates around them. Our class hadn't done this before, especially with the molding so it was good they got to experiment with trying different fabrics and object to mold with. If my dress fabric allows it I think this would be a good technique to include as I like the way it manipulated the fabrics so it looks melting and burnt but also holds shapes which are bubble like. I found the experience of showing people this technique went well as I found this familiar to my work experience in the textile room at a secondary school. 

When working on my portfolio this week I decided to make the focus of my page photography, but still featuring designs on, as I haven't had a page with this focus yet. I feel like this worked well as to show I can also pose and photographing the skirt after making showing a wider range of skill.