Easter Holidays..

YAY... so the presentations are over. We now have too weeks off to explore the different terms used frequently in the fashion word :)

Final swatch boards...

Unfortunately I haven't been able to update my blog as I did my final 8 swatches... but now I'll just have a super long post explaining why I picked these 8.

So for the colour boards I covered my mounting boards in brown paper and then I tea stained a strip of paper and burnt around the edges. I did this so my fabric boards match my mood and colour boards and continue to give the same mood. I then cut rectangles out of the boards and placed the swatches behind the frames to give clean edges to my swatches.

So the swatch on the right.... I covered strips of wadding in different colour material. I then stitched them onto a piece of wadding and then used the sowing machines to draw lines down the strips and pinched every second triangle t give this bow effect.

The swatch on the left is North American Smocking in a lattice pattern. I picked this type of smocking for my mood boards as I feel its the most successful to show my theme.

With the swatch on the left I did double tucks with a zig-zag stitch down the middle. I burnt around the edges of the tucks to give and authentic feel.

The swatch on the left is rope tied in a square grid shape, I then painted the rope and covered it in latex to hold it in place. I burnt holes in a piece of material and stitched it to a piece of Hessian and then stitched the rope grid on top. I layered these three on top of each other to give the effect of peeling and layering.

With this swatch on the left I cut strips of material and sowed a line down the centre using a sowing machine. I then pulled a piece of the thread to gather the material. I then burnt around the edges for two reasons... 1: to give the idea of ageing and 2: to stop the material from fraying at the sides.

For the swatch on the right I spray painted a piece of rug mesh and cut strips of material and simply weaved it through the grid to create this pattern

 The swatch on the left was my attempt at shibori... but because my material wasn't natural the beads had to be left in to hold the form. I them painted the individual buttons to create a square grid pattern.

My right swatch was fairly simple... I covered strips of wadding in my material and hand stitched them together to create this diamond shape pattern.

-Sinéad

Colour and Mood Boards...

So I've decided on my colour and mood boards for my presentation on Friday and I have to say I'm very happy with them.

So this is my colour board... the image on the left is the image I took my colour story from :) The four colours in the middle of four colours I pulled from the images that were possible colour ideas for my swatches. But the  two colours on the right (the burnt orange and the beige) are my two final swatches i'm going to recreate my swatches in.

So this is my mood board. I wanted to give off the feel of ageing and things growing old. I tea stained paper and burnt around the edges to give my board an antique feeling. I put the picture of the old car on my mood board to show the idea of ageing as this car is covered in rust. I put the rusting grid on my mood board to illustrate some of my primary images and where the ideas of grids and antiquity link in together. 

I mounted my name and the title of my presentation onto a piece of Hessian as I used this material in many of my swatches and I feel it gives of the ageing mood I wanted to portray in all my boards. The name of my Presentation is called 'Antiquity. Even though it is just a one worded simple name I think its simplicity adds to the mood i want to give off from my boards.. I think anything too complicated would take away from my project.

-Sinéad

More Swatches....

more swatch experiments :)

SO with this swatch I just cut strips of wadding. I lined them up and did simple stitches in an organised pattern to create this diamond effect. 

This was one of my trickier swatches... with this one I tied knots in the rope to create this square pattern. Because the rope was white I painted it this burnt orange colour and then covered it in latex to hold it all in place. I then stitched a piece of material to the back of the rope.

For this swatch I cut thick strips of material and Put a wide straight stitch down the middle using the sowing machine. I then secured the stitch at one end and with the other I simply pulled one of the threads to make the fabric scrunched up.

This material is actually something i picked up from the pound shop. I like the grid pattern already marked on it because it fits in very well with my project. I simply painted some of the squared to create this pattern I found outside the college on a drain.

I got this material upstairs in stores... its actually rug mesh People use for the underneath of carpets and rugs. I spray painted the mesh with a burnt orange colour that is in one of my colour stories that I'm thinking of using. I then cut thin strips of fabric and weaved this pattern threw the holes and stitched the material at the back to secure it.

-Sinéad

Smocking

Smocking is one of my favourite fabric manipulations. I tried a variety of different types of smocking and I picked my top favourite three to post on my blog. All of these three are different types of North American Smocking.

 

So this is called the lozenge pattern. I did this swatch to interpret the bricks on a wall. This was one of the simpler smocking patterns I tried.

This pattern is called lattice. I think this was one of the more challenging types of smocking but once you practice it it does get easier.

And this is a different variation of the lattice pattern. For all these pattern i simply just drew a grid of dot on the back of a piece of fabric... each dot being 2 inch apart from all other dots surrounding it. This swatch is created by alternating between slack and slip-knotted and pulled stitches.

-Sinéad

Swatches

So I'm just working on my swatches at the minute and I'm using neutral colour materials because I still haven't decided on what colour story I'm going to use... eeek! 

With this swatch i got some bubble wrap to and painted random circles orange.. when that dried I did a simple weave with another piece of material to create this grid like shape.

I wanted to experiment with the idea of square patterns as that's the most dominant pattern in my primary research. So I pleated individual squares and attached them onto a piece of fabric using bonda-web.

With this swatch i simply drew a diamond shaped grid on the back of a piece of material. I did a circular stitch around every dot on the grid.. when I pulled the stitch it forced the material to gather which gave this diamond shape grid on the front of the material.

I did simple tucks on a piece of material and stitched perpendicular lines down these tucks. With every second rectangular tuck I did a simple stitch to gather the material to give this pattern,

-Sinéad

Mark Making Workshop

So today in we had a mark making workshop and these are some of the marks i took from the pictures i took.

 I just created these out of black and white paper just by weaving, folding, tearing, pleating and cutting the paper.

-Sinéad

Theme of my project

So I decided that my theme is going to be of grids and the stuff in our environment that provide protection.

<  Bench outside in the smoking area of college

tiling of the floor in college  >

 This was the cover of a

 radiator in college  >

<   this was a decoration piece i found in the park across from college

- Sinéad

Fashion Design!

Yay so i got into fashion :) :) woo woo.... and now the work begins.

We have a 3 week project concentrating on pattern. During the weekend we had to take pictures and rubbing of our urban and natural environment. So i took a few walks around town both at home and in limerick looking out for different types of patterns in the environment. Here's some that i found that i thought were really interesting.

<   the radiator in college

a napkin i found lying around my house >

 < a vent from outside the college

A broken window outside the college  >

< a drain that reminds me of a snowflake

railings outside the college >

< this was a window i seen in the library with the pattern squashed in between 2 sheets of glass

 < pattern on the bark of the tree... reminds me of camoflauge

    ^                      

the roof of a house in ashbourne

 < the tyre tracks of a tractor i found in a field near my house

^

The drain near my house with a diagonal pattern.

Know i have to selected the images carefully to form some sort of theme for tomorrow.

-Sinéad