9/5/14

So by having the next couple of days off from university I planned to have my garment fully finished by the beginning of Tuesday as I am hoping to conduct my photo shoot at uni on Tuesday. 

Therefore on today I carried on with my toile because I find it greatly helpful by making a toile first because this allows for the making of the final garment to happen more efficiently. As on wednesday I had only finished making the construction part of the jacket today I focused on finishing the jacket which entailed adding in sleeves and also making the skirt. I know that I could finish my toile relatively quickly if I worked efficiently.

To make the sleeve I took an already existing pattern and altered it. The original pattern was a loose fitting sleeve that was a three quarter length sleeve and instead of having an even hem line it had a zig zagged edge. I used this sleeve as a block because it has the basic shape that I needed and I am confident enough to adjust the patten. In terms of alterations I cut the block in half placed in on some pattern paper, however making sure to add a 20cm gap in between the pieces, this is in order to lengthen the sleeve drastically. I also wanted to straighten the hem so in order to do this I just used a ruler and drew a straight line from on end to the other. 

Following this I cut out the new pattern, pinned it to some calico which had been folded so when I cut the pattern I will get two which will save me a lot of time. Once having two sleeves cut out, I pinned along the seam edge then sewed the seems. Leaving me with two finished sleeves. This was really easy and actually quite simple as well as this it didn't take me long at all and I am pleased at how well the sleeve came out. Also I'm happy that I added in the additional 20cm because now the sleeve is very long which exaggerates my distortion of the body concept even more.

Following on from this and Wednesday, when I cut the skirt up so I could see where the two different fabrics would join, I sewed the separate pieces back together and began to make the ruffle for the bottom of my skirt. For this I cut out a 1 metre long piece that was 30cm wide. With this one piece cut out I then cut it out four times in the calico. Sew the edges together so I had one 4metre long piece then along the longer edge I sewed all down it, making sure the tension on my machine was the highest as I was going to use this stitch as the thread to gather and make the ruffle. The first time I did this I began pulling the thread to get the ruffle and the thread snapped in several placing, this begin very frustrating I sewed it again, and the same thing happened again whilst trying to gather it. I changed the thread because i believe the thread I was sewing with was cheap, once the thread had changed I gathered it again and it worked with out any issue. However looking at the gathered ruffle I though it was quite tight and had a bit too much volume, so I took out one of the panels and the gathering looked a lot better because it was a bit more loose and fell more naturally. Then I attached it to the bottom of my skirt. I then tried the skirt on because I was at home and didn't have a manikin. The skirt looked good and so did the jacket, the fits were good and it looked like my final design, so I was ready to make my final garments. Although one thing I noticed was the the skirt was possibly a bit to long, so I pinned the ruffle so it lost 10cm and looking at it again I decided I would shorten the ruffle from 30cm to 20cm. 

Overall today was good, I am pleased with my toile now that it is finished and I am ready to create the final garments. Also I am pleased that I was able to make the toile relatively quickly because now I shouldn't get behind on the making of the final items. 

7/5/14

I feel that today has been a lot less stressful as I was able to work a lot better than yesterday. I started today by making adjustments to my paper toile on the stand. I left it yesterday with a hunched back and a bloated stomach. By looking at it again today I am pleased I changed the design as the front doesn't match the back, because the back has more structure and depth due to mix of different sized shapes, where as the front is smooth but just sticks out. I decided to remove the front and I began thinking of what I could do to make it more interesting, yet after reflecting on yesterday I knew that I wouldn't be able to make any shapes that would perfectly go. So with the front now flat I also decided to add on another lump to the side I think this highlights how the body will look deformed and distorted even more. 

So with the new design redrawn and the paper back finished I began to make it out of calico. For this all I did was cut out the pattern and I pinned the pieces to the paper pieces whilst it was on the stand so I could replicate the final shape. I did it this way because I knew that especially after yesterday I would not be able to get the same shape again very easily, but this way I was able to make the same shape out of calico very quickly. With this all pinned together I sewed the back together, but I i made sure I had a 1.5cm seam allowance because I had to leave enough room to put the boning in. Therefore once the back was sewn together I went back over the seams and sewed them again along the edge along there to be a tunnel for the boning to sit in. This was fairly straight forward and I didn't find it difficult just time consuming especially with inserting the boning and cutting it to the correct size. 

So with the structure of the back made I pinned it back onto the manikin and then began to start working on the front. Luckily I already had a pattern for the front made from previous projects so all I did was adjust to fit and pin this to the manikin as well. The adjustments I made were easy, simply just making sure the the seams lined up and that there was a big enough armscye for when I add in the sleeves. So once sewing this together, and I checked that the fit was good, I asked my model to try it on so I would know that the fit was correct, she said it fitted her perfectly, which is good as if it didn't I would have to unpick it and reevaluate the size. I then moved onto the skirt size which I also had an already made pattern for. I had the pattern already made because I have a block pattern for a normal a-line dress, which is where I got the pattern for the skirt and the front of the jacket. As I used these already existing toiled as a block that I adjusted, this saved me a lot of time as I didn't have to draw out a pattern then adjust it and then make it into a toile, I could simply take patterns that I had already made and just use them as a basis. 

Therefore for the skirt I cut 20cm off the bottom as this would act as the pattern for the purple shimmery fabric where as the rest of the skirt will act as the silver fabric.

Over the next few days I plan on finishing my toile so I begin with making my final garments ready for my photo shoot. 

6/5/14

Today I wanted to begin making particularly as I had my final design finished ad I am ready to begin making. However today has been very tiring and stressful. This is because I started to make my pattern pieces for my jacket. As my final outcome comprises of two garments first the jacket and second the skirt. I started with the jacket as I knew how complex this would be. It proved to be very complicated. I am making it the same way I created the items I made on the stand. This consisting of one shape that had been cut out in two sizes several times. I was working from the images I took of my stand work. However whatever way I pinned the pieces together it did not make the right shape. I spent most of the day trying to do this and each time failing to make the correct shape. I decided to leave it and return to it later in the day.  
I moved onto printing onto fabric. I bought my fabric making sure it was polyester, luckily I found the perfect fabric which is a white crystal organza, it has a really nice shimmer to it so it relates to my dream concept and it's also transparent which also relates well to my project. I chose it in white because I know that when I print onto it the colours will come out their best. However as the fabric is sheer the print will be too. I printed two samples onto the fabric first just to test it and also to decide which print to use. Once they were printed onto the fabric I feel that they came out really well and are just the aesthetic I was looking for. I printed samples of both, just in case the print I had originally chosen to go with didn't look good, nevertheless they both printed onto the fabric really well, and after getting a second opinion I decided I would stay with the original print I had chosen. 

Therefore I decided I would print this out larger onto my fabric. However I was unsure on how many metres I needed to print onto. I decided I would only print one metre first just to see how it comes out and then it could give me a better understanding of how much I needed. So when it came to printing my fabric onto the print paper the tutor said that to enlarge the image would seriously pixelate it. She showed me on the computer what it would look like, and it did become very pixelated but I decided I print it anyway because the pixelations may not be that clear on the sheer fabric. So once it was printed on to the paper I transferred it through the heat roller. The print came out really well and didn't show any of the pixelations either. 



After this I then went back to working on the stand and trying to work out the shape of the hunched back. After trying a variety of different ways I then finally worked out the shape I wanted. I then began to work on the front which was also a distorted shape. This was much more simpler to do as I just cut out three long rectangles that were slightly curved toward the end. I pinned this all to the manikin so I could see what it would look like and I really disliked the front as the shape was too large and actually distracted from the shape I wanted. So to get past this I redrew my final design actually making the front flat and this looked a lot better and made the emphasis on my concept a lot stronger. 

Today I faced quite a few different issues all mainly small and some very frustrating but I was able to work past them quite well I think, as I didn't let this demotivate me I just did something else in order to clear my head for when I returned to solve the issue. 

5/5/14

This weekend has been incredibly busy as I have been working continuously to get all of my design developments done and also to finish a final design because tomorrow in my plan is the beginning of making week which includes creating a toile and finishing the final garment. So things will be incredibly stressful as I have a lot to do which will take a lot of time and effort. 

However over the weekend I feel that I worked the best that I ever have. Well for most of the weekend. Friday and Saturday were very slow days as I was extremely tired from the week before and I felt very demotivated. However on Sunday I began to work more efficiently identifying what I needed to do and planning out all of the things I needed to do in order to get to my final design. 

On Sunday night I planned out everything I needed to do on Monday as there were several things I had to complete. Whilst writing out the plan I also decided how long I wanted to spend on each task. Most we're about one hour however the final task which was digitally editing my designs I had planned for that to take three hours.

I did this because I had to get everything done before Tuesday and I couldn't be wasting time. I also wanted to have the timer so I would work faster because in the past my tutor has mentioned that I work slowly. 

So Monday was when most of the work took place. I had about 8 hours of work to get through and I knew that I would most likely over run because in my plan I hadn't factored in issues I may face or even breaks. 

The first thing I wanted to do was to develop the disassembling idea and begin to design with my knit samples. I wanted to do this so I could combine to distorted body designs with my knits and disassembling ideas. 

To start off this designing I wanted to have two pages that acted as inspiration for the disassembling. These pages would mainly feature work from earlier on in my sketchbook as well as contextual references and samples. However I started having technical difficulties as my laptop could not connect to the scanner and then when I had resolved this issue by using a different computer and transferring my work via memory stick. However when I wanted to print from my laptop the printer wouldn't work. So as a starting point I got off to a bad start. I then decided I would return back to these pages as I could design without them being finished because all of the reference points I needed were on my laptop therefore I used this to help.

The next thing I did was I started designing over 50 Quick designs inspired by my disassembling developments. These took me about an hour to do which was good because I had planned to only take an hour on them. After that I wanted to develop these further by designing again another 50 designs that were a bit more refined and showed my ideas more clearly and pushed them further. At he beginning of this I was working quite slowly however with the timer going I was able to monitor how slowly I worked which allowed me to push myself and work more quickly and efficiently. I did spend more time than I had anticipated on this task about 20 minutes more which isn't so bad as I obviously anticipated a time that was unrealistic. Yet by doing this I did work very quickly. Especially as I wasn't even halfway through the day and I had already done a lot of work that I would usually spend a whole day doing. 

I then refined these into 8 more refined ideas that were neater and clearer I also introduced what fabrics and colours I would use, as this allows me to visualise what these garments would look like if I were to choose to make one of them. Then to develop these I wanted to combine the disassembling and hunchback idea together. Therefore I designed another 16 ideas that showed roughly how both concepts could be incorporated. As I mainly took the shape for the hunchback element but then the way I used the fabrics came from the disassembling concept. 

Following this I refined these combined designs into more developed ideas. Some ideas I really liked and could imagine making however others I disliked and I felt that they didn't represent my project theme clearly enough. Therefore with these 8 finished I developed them further and designed my final line up. I had planned to do 8 designs for this both front and side views however I realised this was very optimistic and I was actually going to run out of time and also I felt that 8 looks could have been too much. Therefore I decided on designing only 6. This way I would save a lot of time and I feel that my lineup would be better because I would 6 strong and interesting ideas compared to 8 alright ideas that weren't very exciting. 

With these six designs all drawn out I scanned them in and started to edit them on photoshop where I added in my prints and fabrics. This took me a very long time to do, mainly because there were may different things I needed to cut out and then add the different layers and adjust the settings of the layers in order for the colours to look right. So after spending many hours on this I finally finished all of them and then decided on a final design. I chose my final design because I think it incorporates all of the main concepts of my project, and would therefore sum up my ideas all together. It features inspiration from the lumpy hunchback shapes I had been focusing on. It also includes some of my knitwear which I am very eager to include. As week as this I lengthened the sleeves in order to eager ate the body shape and distort it even more. Furthermore the transparent and shimmery fabrics emphasise my dreams concept well and also work well with my chosen print with gives a really interesting aesthetic that emphasises the dreams aspect too. Furthermore the skirts fabrics where the transparent purple fabric is joined to the opaque silver fabric was inspired by the disassembling idea. 

Today went really well, I worked hard to get everything finished, I was able to work efficiently because I made a plan and followed it very closely. I'm very pleased that I got everything I needed to, as now for next week I am ready to start making my toile and final garment and now also buy fabric to print onto. 

30/4/14

Today I was in uni early, before anyone else was in so I made the most of this free time that I had and got on with some work. Getting in early allows me to get working quicker which I believe sets the day off to a good start. 

I began by focusing on the hunchback shape, looking back at the stand work I did in previous weeks. I chose four of my favourite stand works that showed how the similar lumpy hunchback shape could be worn on the body in different ways whilst creating a different aesthetic each time. I'm really enjoying this because I love the structural shapes that I'm able to create, I think they highlight and exaggerate the distorted body shapes. My aim with these shapes is too develop them presenting how they could be worn on the body and how they could distort it.

Therefore for each of the stand works I printed out several images all showing the same design but from different angels. With the different angels I then did one very quick design that I felt summed up what the stand design was trying to create, then developing from this I did 20 very quick designs inspired by the shapes. When I started this I began using a pen but I found that this was taking too much time as I was over thinking the designs. Therefore I began to just draw them in pencil as this allowed me to work quicker as they were more rough. I did about 20 different designs for each stand work. I feel that this worked well for me because I got the hang of it and was able to produce a variety of very quick designs that related to my theme. I think it's important that I provide a variety of very rough and quick designs as this allows me to produce as many ideas as I can which I can then develop into something more thoughtful and refined.  

I think I'm am on target with my work possibly a few days behind as following my plan and timetable I was planning to develop and design for all of this week and then make my garment or garments next week then the following week which is the last week of the project I will conduct my photo shoot. I wanted to also create a short film however I feel that I will not have enough time for this and also I am not too sure what my concept would be for it. However if I find that I have enough time and a concept that is fairly straight forward I will definitely produce one. 
Also today I had a group tutorial, I think it went well as my group gave me some ideas that I could focus on. For example when I mentioned I was thinking about using print in my final work I asked them if they liked my prints and if I should use them. Luckily they did like them which had given me some confidence in these ideas. As I wouldn't want to print metres of fabric and then find out that it was an unpopular print, this would've not just wasted money but also a lot of time. Also they suggested turning my knit samples into a print because they had seen how I had digitally placed them onto some designs. I never thought about doing this so it was interesting to understand how others look at my work. 

With this is mind I started playing around with my scanned in knit samples. On Photoshop I adjusted the colours, brightness, saturation even changed the colours. I liked how these prints looked and thought that they would look really interesting, however I felt that they didn't relate to my work very well even though they were taken from my knits, I think that if I were to use them in my final item it wouldn't relate to the main aspects of my work such as the dreams or hunchback elements. Although these prints did lead me onto creating a prints out of my heat press samples. I created a couple from the heat press samples. similar to the knit print I changed the colours and brightness of the images. I also overlaid my first print. I really liked this effect because it combined the two images creating something visually pleasing. Especially the way it looked like it was sparkling and it had many different colours all merging into each other. This reminded me of the videos I took when I played the Cinderella and DMT videos through the translucent fabrics as it blurred and merged the colours together. This is definitely my favourite print because it relates really well to project and is visually really interesting to look at. 

Overall I think today went really well as it feels like a big step in terms of developing my ideas into a final outcome. Also I feel like all of the different elements of my project are all coming together, and I also look forward to incorporating my prints into my designs. 

29/4/24

Today I struggled getting into uni due to the train strikes, however the night before I had prepared to leave early so I could still get into uni. Luckily I was able to get in alright it took me about an extra hour. I was determined to get in as now in our third week this is when I need to be at the beginning of making. I also knew that today there was going to be an introduction to print and as I had made developments from my prints over the weekend I would really like to include them in my final outcome. The introduction to print included the print tutor explaining how the printing worked and the formats our prints needed to be which is a tiff format, as this format works best when trying to print with the specialist ink and paper. I also learnt about the two different heat presses one for smaller items and then the large roll press that will easily do metres and metres of fabric. I think when I come to print my fabric I will use the roll heat press as I've used both ways of heat transfer before an I find the roll press to be much easier to use.  Furthermore the tutor mentioned that the fabric I can print on to should be a synthetic fabric preferably polyester. This shouldn't be a problem for me as I know that a majority of fabrics are polyester so I will have a variety of choice. However when I buy the fabric I will have to check that it is a fabric that will print well.  After that, which took up majority of the morning I began to look back through my work as I feel that I am at a point in my work that I can start to design successfully too.

 I began focusing on the hunchback shape and noticed that in my print similar shapes were present such as semi circles and tear drop shapes. Combining these shapes with the print I created and reefing back to the hunchback shape I started collaging with these shapes looking at how they could work and how the colours could be used. I painted these shapes onto figures and used acetate that had my print on it. I used the acetate because it gave a new effect to the shapes as its transparent, it also reminded me of the opaque fabrics I had been developing my work with.

This lead me onto developing these lumpy shapes by scrunching and knotting fabric and then placing it on drawn figures, this allowed me to visualise the shapes as well as looking at how the fabric can be manipulated. I carried on developing these shapes whilst referring back to my developments of the shapes and the voyeurism vs fetishism research, because it was emphasising the shapes of the body.

I think today's work has allowed me to visualise the shapes and fabrics I could use towards my final garment. Today was important because I feel that it has been to stepping stone from my research and developments to the design stage of my work because I am beginning to develop my ideas and thinking of them in terms of fashion now. Tomorrow I am planning on developing these ideas even further and hopefully start to design even if it is very rough. 

24/4/14

Today I made sure that I got into university early. I found this helpful as I was able to settle in and get on with work more quickly and I was more productive. The first thing I did was do some very quick initial ideas off of the knit samples. Unlike yesterday I made sure my drawing was quick and also in pen so I didn't waste time worrying about the technicalities so much. Once I had drawn out ten I scanned them in and began to edit them on photoshop as I wanted to digitally add on the knit samples which I had scanned in. I also scanned in some of my fabrics as I added these two to the designs. For the two new knit samples I did 4 quick ideas each. I liked these as they were a bit more relaxed from my other designs. I think I will carry on designing like this for future initial design ideas. 

Editing the 8 designs on photoshop happened very quickly and effectively I think I am able to work a lot quicker on the computer particularly on photoshop as I enjoy designing digitally because I can show my ideas quickly and I think I am probably more comfortable with digital developments. Yet in this project I have made sure to stay away from digital developments because I've wanted to push myself. As i've found in the past by featuring a lot of digital work in my sketchbook it can appear quite one dimensional and not very interactive. Thats why I've been trying to stay away from using photoshop so much as I want my work to speak to whomever is looking at it and intrigue them and I believe for this to happen I should be less dependant on digital processes. 

Anyway after finishing the digital designs I printed them out on A4 because I want them to act as a fold out. However I printed them on normal paper and after doing this I realised that I should print them on tracing paper because then they would look a lot better as fold outs. Although I had to wait until I got home to do this as that's where I left my tracing paper. Once I was home and they were printed on tracing paper and plead in my book they looked a lot better. 

Carrying on with the knit idea I used last weeks photographs that I had taken through the knit sample. I chose three of the best images that I felt showcased the blurring of the colours in an interesting way. I slightly modified them on photoshop enhancing the colours to make them bolder, this really emphasised the blurred colours and made something really aesthetically pleasing. I began thinking that these would make a really interesting print. Therefore bearing this in mind I wanted to begin to develop this print idea. 

Firstly I after printing the 3 images out I wanted to experiment with the prints. I printed them out again on acetate and this created a different mood and feel to them. I like the acetate prints I think they provide a new aesthetic and enhance the haziness of them which again reinforces the dreams element of my work. I am really enjoying how even though I appear to have many different elements of my work, I feel that they all link and relate together nicely. 

Overall I am happy with today and am excited for the direction my project is going in, I look forward to developing the print idea more. Although I am very conscious of the fact that time is running out, therefore I don't want to spend a huge amount of time on the print especially after looking back I think I spent too much time on my knit samples even though I am really pleased with them I am aiming for the rest of my work to not take as much time as now I have realised how much time I wasted on my knit samples, especially when I did not need to spend that much time on them.