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.