Printing, stitching and pleating.....

I have a progress review for my course and wanted to make something that incorporated some of the things I have been trying out so far. Although we do not need to produce finished work for this review I am in the process of deciding whether I want to make work for fashion or interiors. I feel making a dress that uses some of the techniques I enjoy doing will help me see whether this is the right route to take or not. These pictures are the pattern pieces for my dress before I put it together.

Smocking, Seams and Indian Embroidery ....

I am very interested in old craft techniques such as smocking. I decided to try to make some embellishment ideas using smocked circles of fabric playing around with the smocking stitch patterns. I will be developing these using different fabrics and size of circle.

Smocking, Seams and Indian Embroidery ....

I have also been practicing Indian embroidery techniques, I have been exploring this more creating new patterns with stitch.

Smocking, Seams and Indian Embroidery ....

As I have been playing around different seam techniques I decided to make some samples to see how I can make a aesthetic feature out of seams.

New screen print ideas

Need to get back into the print room and i discovered some ideas that I already had in the back of my mind but I think now is the time to use them as my progress review is coming up. These designs I created by using pictures I took of lattice work in India.

My Work: Start or term until now

After struggling with my written work over Christmas I found it hard to get back into the making aspect of my course. I decided I needed to get back to working with discarded garments so I looked at some of the shirts I had taken from LMB. I feel I need to create more exciting seams that join the fabrics together so took inspiration from some of the shirts and some tutorials on Vimeo. I need to practice these seams to make them look as professional as possible, I do not want my textiles to look like an average homemade recycling project. I have also started looking at some traditional Indian embroidery techniques, the stitch in the picture is a Rabari stitch from Rajasthan. 

My Work: Start or term until now

Whilst producing these laser cut textiles I looked into how I can utilize scraps of fabric that are left over. I feel these samples could be used for embellishment on accessories. I also investigated flocking, dyeing the flock with Dylon dye to create new colours as well as splashing and dribbling the dye onto the flock to create texture. I was also excited to try flocking onto felt to get a double texture which was fairly successful, although because of the dye the flock stuck very well onto the felt which meant it was a real hassle to peel it off. In the next few weeks I want to look into creating my own felt out of discarded woolen jumpers.