Buddy week 

It’s the end of the first buddy week.. And I can say that Vaida and Tian still have the same energy they came with at the beginning of the week, they are so helpful! The past two days we have cut my headers to size, tucked in my overlocked corners, stitched on my headers, tucked the stitch in, cut out stickers, stuck them on the headers, put stickers on my hangers, cut out bookmarks, made tags for my cushions wallpaper and teepee, made sleeves for my press packs & tidied my space ready for preparation over the bank holiday weekend!

Thank you ever so much girls!

Reflective journal Statement

I have been continually improving, discovering and learning more as a designer through this project. I can say that my current interests and strengths are in photo shop design and digital fabric printing. I love to draw free hand using a continuous line style of drawing, then to take these drawings into textile practises. This current project shows interest in children’s interior design, working with both fabric and paper based products where my continuous line drawings have been, and are often manipulated on photo shop to present unique linear repeated patterns including border, placement, scattered and tossed design methods. Although these stand as my current design interests, I would generally count myself as a very versatile textile designer and maker. I have particularly enjoyed finding my area of strengths this term, which only came by discovering some weaknesses. I can say that I am a consistent designer, when I have something on my mind I like to get it all out on paper. These drawings or designs may not be what I expect, therefore leave myself with a massive build of up back up work and less time to work on them as actual croquis designs. I have particularly enjoyed the process of creating my collection created entirely on photo shop. I would have loved to have been able to spend more quality time in stitch as this was my strongest workshop area in the past two years. Nevertheless I am glad that I made my tepee and cushions from hand with the use of the Mimaki machine in print workshops then creating the pattern and final products myself. Keeping to a self set timetable was something that I found to be very helpful, I usually set myself too much time in research and less in design development. But I thought that my time keeping and organisation this term was much better. My favourite part of designing for this project was being able to share my ideas with niece whom was my main inspiration for the project “Tribal Adventures before bedtime” I spent a lot of time drawing through this module, and particularly getting everything hand written. I am still growing as a textile designer therefore decision making was something I battled with this term, but with the help of tutorials every week I was able to develop my croquis ideas into a collection suitable for production. Outsourcing my work had a sense of maturity. Not to mention when it was time to design postcards and business cards along with professional press packs I felt like I was ready to become a textile designer. Professional practise lectures every Wednesday were very helpful in terms of setting my self up ready to leave university and I am sure I will refer back to these notes for a long time. Being in charge of my own exhibition space was very exciting, planning, drawing and setting up a space in 2 weeks was a great challenge with of course the help of my two second year buddies. I learnt a lot from the buddy experience last year such as ways of displaying particular croquis designs, CAD visuals, product placement etc.. I hope that my buddies will feel the same way next year after helping me with my collection. I feel that my computer based designs in particular have progressed through experience this term, I have used photo shop in a number of designing processes, such as designing my tepee, cushions, wallpaper, CAD visuals, press pack information, creative CV, technical folder, stickers, tags and logo images. This has come from the help of online tutorials, first year folders and from other students in the cohort being kind enough to help with a few tools and tricks. I would say my strongest point through this project would be professionalism, everything I have done has been kept to the same standard, and each of my products, research folders, mood boards and design folders are very coherent. I am very passionate about my textile work both in and out of the studio and workshops, but have also taken pleasure in being a course representative for textiles along with being a member of the ‘Summer Show Committee’. Through these I was able to communicate with other designers across the art school which included a lot of organisation, leadership and team work, this is something that I have become very comfortable with and love the idea of collaborating with other artists. Organising fundraising events, feeding exhibition information back to the cohort and of course feeding questions, problems or positive feedback back to tutors from the cohort. I have been a very motivated designer this term and always met my set aims and deadlines. I have became very happy with discussing and exhibiting my ideas to others including academic staff, technicians and the external examiner. From this I have become very accepting towards criticism to only learn from mistakes and better myself as a whole round textile designer and maker. I worked heavily along the brief, and have made sure that I have done everything required. I really enjoyed working on this project, definitely by far my favorite time of University so far. I was able to experiment, and keep it organized and controlled each week, which is a massive achievement for me. I really hope that everyone can see and feel the fun I had through each stage of this project. It will be very sad to leave, but can truly admit I have had the best university experience!

CAD Visuals

Cad visuals 
I created these CAD visuals for display in my exhibition. I am SO happy  with the results! I taught myself how to create the visual effects. I wanted to demonstrate how the teepee, wallpaper, book and cushions could be used both in a bedroom and outside.

Buddy week

Woah! This week has come around a lot quicker than I expected! I’m excited to be working with two other textile students for the next two weeks. Vaida & Tian have been on time and eager to get busy around the studio, which is great. I have set a list for them both, which is to paint my space, help with tucking in my overlocked corners on my croquis, help to stitch my headers and tuck them in, put stickers on my headers and hangers, and help to cut out some stickers, book marks and tags.

It’s now Wednesday and they have already emptied,filled in holes and painted my space & plinth! Way quicker than I thought they would be! Some of the girls buddies didn’t turn up yesterday or today, so I asked Vaida & Tian to help them paint their spaces, and they were more than willing to do so!

Day 3 and I’m already so greatful to have them as buddies!

Wallpaper!

Wallpaper has arrived! wooo! and i LOVE it! I would love to see this on my niece’s wall! I do however have one very minor problem with the printing which is not my error. I outsourced this printing with Bags Of Love, there seems to be two very thin white lines going straight across the design. I messaged them and was offered a refund or an exchange but wouldn’t be back in time for deadline. But once i hanged the wallpaper I thought it was barely noticeable.  

Bookmarks

As I have designed and made a children’s book, along with colouring books I thought it would be a great idea to create some simple book marks. Something to add to the press pack’s to! I have simply taken the head of Madi and Maisie and added a long rectangular shape to fill the length of the book. I then added a line of flowers to the bottom to match my other floral designs. Half of the book marks also include my logo and half of them are left with a plain background colour. I have had 24 of these bookmarks made with the Print Studio in uni.   

Colouring books

Initially I spoke about creating some of my designs in black and white, or leaving some of the drawing in a blank colour so that children could colour it themselves with fabric paint or pens. Now I have filled my designs with colour to co ordinate with each other. But used a block paint bucket tool on photo shop so that each design can easily be changed if necessary. I didn’t want to lose the idea of children being able to colour them in themselves as my niece was particularly looking forward to testing out her new colouring set (OH NO)! so I have made some colouring books. Its a 10 page A5 booklet type with a character on each page taken from the book “Adventures before bedtime” It has been printed by the print studio in Uni with a good quality finish, Elin (my niece) very excitingly tested a book out for me and it works with either colouring pencils or crayons! Yey! I have decided to get 10 booklets printed. 5 for my press packs and 5 for display in my exhibition which will also have a pot of pencils and crayons if anyone wishes to join in with colouring fun.

Making the teepee!
Yes, I made the pattern and the teepee myself. Printing the teepee design out in Print workshops was great, it was so amazing to see my own print getting done right in front of me. And the whole processes I undertook before stitching it all together. I.e Steaming, washing and ironing. Stitching the whole thing together and ensuring there is enough space to add the poles was tricky but it was done! in just a day! wooo me! I am so pleased with my teepee, and Elin loves it. Can not wait to see how it looks with all my other final products in the exhibition..