Final Exhibition

The final exhibition for the course was in June and it was a hectic couple of days of setting up. It's not something I enjoyed I must admit. It was incredibly hot and busy and not something I would want to do again. Having said that, the exhibition itself went well and people seemed to like what I had produced which was good.

This picture was taken during the setting up of the exhibition, hence the bin in the corner! One of these bags has now gone to a new home, with a friend of mine, as a Christmas present, and another I have kept as I fell in love with it while weaving it. I hope to sell the others as soon as my easy shop is up and running.

I have currently started spinning again, now that I have some time free, and have got loads of knitting done which I missed while doing the course. 

Getting There!

I have been working flat out on creating the fabric and assembling 5 bags for my final project, on top of sketchbook work, contextual studies essays and technical sheets.the work load seems to be getting bigger not smaller.

Dispite this I have assembled 4 of the 5 bags I need and hope to get the 5th one finished this week when more leather arrives for the sides. 

I'm really pleased with what I have achieved with these bags and hope to continue making these when the course is finished. They are quite expensive to make but they look fantastic when they are finished.

Final project

For my final project I have decided to go back to the reason why I started my textiles HNC in the first place, Bradford's woollen history. 

It's something that I've been interested in since I learned to knit 7 years ago. Been a Yorkshire lass and having family from abroad who worked in the textile industry, I've always felt at home in Bradford's Industrial Museum. As my dad used to deliver wool here, I decided it would bring my whole experience on the HNC full circle: I started my HNC with a love of the woollen history, I've finished it with the same love but with a greater understanding of the processes involved.

I started my project proposal and initial research over Christmas and I've been looking at recycled materials, 100% wool and recycled yarns in colours and textures I've taken from the Industrial Museum. 

Project 5 finished!!!!!

In the last post I showed images of the final samples I had woven on my table loom. Since then I have woven and created 3 bags using these samples as inspiration. I asked 2 good friends of mine, who fit my customer type, if they could model for me using Bradford City Park as a backdrop. Unfortunately the fountains were not on that evening, which would have looked lovely all lit up in the background.

Project 5 samples finished!!!!

Ok so all 6 of my samples are now finished and hung up ready for presentation. The last 3 samples are quite different from the first 3. There is no felting used in any of these samples. The first of these 3 is a fabric using elastic within the warp. I put an elastic thread in every inch across a 10 inch warp. 

The second of these 3 samples was done on a new warp with a lighter red on the bottom layer. This sample has warp floats floating over the bottom fabric.

 

The last of my 6 samples has floats in the weft instead of the warp. I also used fishing wire within the weft to show more of the bottom fabric underneath. The floats were created by removing sections of warp after weaving and before finishing. 

I'm really pleased with the way my samples have turned out and have picked which ones I will be using for my final bag fabric. Fingers crossed that it works!!!!!

Creative Day

I've been full of cold this week, again! This is the third one in 2 months. The first one never really went away and came back with a vengeance, that one was caught off the students at work, this one has been kindly given to me as a gift from the boyfriend. I should never complain he never gives me anything!!!

Anyway today has been a very creative day, I made a name plaque out of clay, with some entry level students, which I'm very proud of! I just hope it doesn't crack in the kiln when it's fired. I can't wait to glaze it.

This afternoon, after I finished work, I did another fabric sample. It's definitely different to the other ones in the collection which I'm pleased about. 

Happy days!

Had a very good tutorial with my contextual studies tutor. Made a great start with my research and I'm not so daunted by the word count, in fact I'm worried I'm going to go over! I hate to admit this but I'm actually enjoying reading around the politics of Soviet Russia and Communism. I'm such a sadist!!!!!!