End of Year One!

That's right, Friday was hand in day for all my work, so year one of my degree is officially over! How time flies! Naturally I have a lot of personal work which I want to complete over the summer, so my blog will still be as active as ever!

I have passed my context modules, Achieving an A on my final essay about challenging gender stereotypes within design so its just the waiting game for my practical grades.

Here's to a creative summer and the end of year one! Hopefully Ill achieve good grades and be accepted onto my chosen specialism, Print!

'Weave' been busy!

Sorry, I apologise, no more bad weave puns, although they were looming. Ill stop, I imagine your all yarning.
Yes, completing my weave and therefore virtually all my practical work for year one created that out-burst of poor humour.

After a tiring but worthwhile month my weave is complete, all that remains is to cut and mount my final samples and make my finished piece, a corset. Its taken 6 metres but my weaves are ready and raring for some finishing touches.

And in a reminiscent farewell I wave goodbye to my loom (for now):

Weaving History

On a trip to my hometown of Nottingham I visited the Medieval Market on the square. Immediately a rather large vertical Loom caught my eye and interested me:



I inquired about the loom and discussed it with the lady (in full medieval attire) who was giving demonstrations. I enquired if she was weaving linen as I had always wanted to see wet weaving. She was infact weaving a coarse wollen fabric suitable for a tunic. I asked if she carded and spun her own wool, it didnt surprise me to hear that she did (mostly because Id already spotted her basket of fleece.
She was also hand weaving a trim for a tunic as well as doing a tapesty.



The market was in abundance with textiles, including; leather mugs, rag weaves, recycled textiles, felt and many more crafty things!
The market was just one of the events celebrating Robin Hood month. Celebrate medieval history with fun events for all the family throughout may, visit the website for more details:

http://www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/robinhoodmonth

Get Weaving!

Well, its been a busy few weeks, what with making my warp. This was a new challenge and I had heard tell of the soul destroying process of making a warp from other students. I was eager to begin my weave so jumped at the chance to start my warp. Winding the yarns onto the warping mill was easy enough, even if it was dizzying at times. Winding the yarn onto the Loom was time consuming (with over 6 metres of yarn to wind and having decided to have a double warp it was bound to take time) but not incredibly trying. Threading the loom however was a different matter. Threading almost 200 needles in sequence was frustrating to say the least. And when the hard work was over, my warp broke several times, needing to be mended on various occasions.

Despite a few little hiccups I got into the swing of weave very easily and I'm currently enjoying producing my samples, here are some quick snaps of my progress so far:




'We sleep, but the loom of life never stops, and the pattern which was weaving when the sun went down is weaving when it comes up in the morning.' - Henry Ward Beecher.

Bradford Textile Society Award Ceremony

Today was the day of the Bradford Textile Society design seminar and Award presentation! The long, busy day left me somewhat exhausted, but it was rewarding to see my work on display and to have achieved something.

As I rather foolishly forgot to photograph my entry before it was posted, here I finally bring you a photograph of my board!
Here is my 2nd prize entry in the Clothworkers' Foundation award for First Year Students for a Knitted Fabric in any Fibre or Blend (quite a mouth full I know!):



The day began at around 6.20 for me, travelling to Derby and walking to university, something I do every day (although never in a dress!). Unable to catch the election results before I began my journey I bought a paper on the way, only to see my strong support of Labour had not been enough to win them the election. We left on a University of Derby mini-bus for Bradford at 9am, managing the journey at a fair pace until we arrived at Bradford and got lost attempting to find the 'Rio Grande', our first port of call for registration. Eventually we arrived and were then taken on a tour of the 'Bombay Stores, which boasts the title of the 'UK's Largest Asian Department Store'. In a word the place was incredible. Everything seemed to shimmer or sparkle or glint, and the rolls and rolls of fabric and ribbon got me snapping away madly:






As usual I could see inspiration and ideas everywhere, so a few close ups were rather tempting too:







After the tour of 'Bombay Stores' we returned to Rio Grande for lunch. I decided this was the perfect time to take some photos and fly the flag for the University of Derby, and here are all the UoD prize winners (I'm far left lol):



And Jackie and Kay:



After lunch we walked to the National Media Museum to view all the winning entries on display and then have our design seminar and award presentation. The seminar was given by Sabine Le Chatelier of Premiere Vision. Then everyone received their awards from President John Dyson.
Congratulations to all the designers who entered into the Bradford Textile Society Design Competition, well done to everyone and thank you to the society and its sponsors for an enjoyable day. Best of luck for next year everyone! :)