The Exhibition Experience

The big day has arrived, All the hard work, long nights, stress and tantrums have come to an end. After two years at Barnsley college, last night marked the end of it. The skill's and confidence I have gained in the past year specializing in textiles was shown through my exhibition last night. It was so surreal and content to be able to take a step back and look at all my hard work and the final outcomes of my final major project, From the needle felted petri dishes and brain's to the huge 4 meter long scarf, I can actually honestly say to my self I put every single bit of my brain and body into making this project as amazing as I can. It was so lovely to see all my class mate's and their supportive families and friends looking around at people's work I am so proud of us all. 

I had an army of people come see my exhibition (well 11 people - still a lot of people!) we all met up outside college and waited in the sun for the last few to arrive. When we went into the college we all got stickers for the show and carried on to the huge que for the lift, We were all so hot from being out in the sun and waiting to get in a crammed lift wasn't the best start. However when we finally got to the 6th floor where my exhibition is, There was wine, white and red, Juice, Orange and blackcurrant flowing and smiles on all the proud teachers face's. Of course we went straight to see my exhibition first before we went to have a look around and I greeted both of my tutor's (Kat and Kathryn) with a little bit of a present and a card each with a paragraph full of thankyou's inside! My family were blown away with what I had created, All my family and friends are really supportive and are so proud of what I do (textiles) however it's so hard to explain how to screenprint and the design cycle and what not to people who don't really understand it all as it's more of a practical subject, Once they saw my exhibition they were more clear and understanding of it and they instantly fell in love with it. We had a look around other peoples work and looked in other room's and saw lot's of talented young students work. After we had looked around it was far too warm and we decided to have a little walk to a near by pub to cool off and have a few celebratory drink's before we headed off home. I had such a nice time with all my family and my friends coming, It was a nice evening and when I got home I did feel a little smug (haha!.) 

Something I realised was that the feeling of achievement is much bigger and better than the feeling of stress and anger which you can feel like during deadlines and big project's. I'm so so happy I pushed my self as much as I can because I've proved to everyone that I can do it. One way I look at it is like a game - You do not want to be stuck on the first level for the rest of your life do you? You have to push yourself and set your self goals to get to the next level and that's what I feel I have done. From starting specializing in textiles a year ago I have grown so much, The skills and confidence I have gained are so amazing and I would say I have defiantly developed my own style of textiles and my own use of colour. I have successfully completed the foundations of which my career may grow on and that's super exciting! 

Big thank you to both my tutor's for pushing me to have independence in my work and to do the best I could. They have both been my motivation and both been such a big help when it came to printing things up as my screens were so big it was a two man job! They are defo the best teachers I've come across and If you are every considering taking textiles at Barnsley college I would recommend it so much!

The next step for me is university, at Huddersfield to study Textile Design with surface design. So unfortunately this blog has come to the end until September time where I shall be using it to blog my journey through textiles at uni! I now have a second blog which I am going to be putting more time and effort into which you can find here at 'threadsanddaisies' this blog will be more of a craft, fashion and lifestyle blog which will be much more personal as this blog is just for college and will be for university projects.

Here are some photo's from my exhibition.

If you are interested in looking at my exhibition as well as other student's work you can see it on the 6th floor of Barnsley college for the next 2 week open 9-5. If you are interested in buying a scarf from my collection (more colours available) silk are £22 and muslin are £18.

Thank you to everyone who has followed my journey through textile's at Barnsley college and I shall be back when I start university with whole new project's and exciting thing's! Thank you all for reading!

Sneak Peek Of One Of My Silk Scarfs!!

Here's a quick sneak peek of one of my scarfs I shall be selling at my exhibition at Barnsley College from the 23rd June - 27th June. Every scarf to be sold will be different colours and will range from silk to muslin. I hope you all like it and you can manage to come look at all the hard work I have done!!

A Day In The Life - Dying Up Fabric

Today's blog post is a new series of blog posts which will lead up to my exhibition, Everyday I shall post 'A Day In The Life' which will give you an insight in my life every day up until the big exhibition day! Today's day in the life consists of new Tumblr posts and dying up my fabric for my big exhibition piece scarf... enjoy!

This morning I had a thought to my self, I decided that as my final major project is now over and all is left is to print my exhibition piece's, So I decided to make my tumblr blog a little more personal and not completely textile's based, This means I shall be posting non textiles post's and using it for inspiration for fashion and other things not just textiles. With this in mind I decided to change my URL from tthreadsforthought to threadsanddaisies.

Above is a little snippet of what my tumblr will be like from now on but don't be worried I shall still be posting many textiles based things. Follow me at threadsanddaisies 

This afternoon I went to use the print room to dye my fabric for my big exhibition piece scarf, The fabric I am using for this is white musin and it is the length of the big printing table in our print room which is 4.5 meter long. I had already kept my procian dye's from my samples so I was all set. The only problem I experienced at first was how I would wet that amount of fabric as I like to wet my fabric then splodge the dye onto it so it bleeds and smudges and gives an Klari Reis (artist) effect on my material. Soaking it in a bucket would mean a lot of water which would be a safety issue so I decided to paint the water on my fabric. I had help with this from the print room instructor Kathryn, She painted water onto my fabric while I followed her splodging the dye onto my fabric. I used the sample colours as I did my samples but instead of keeping them all at a strong colour I made a diluted version of them aswell. Here are a few photo's from today's print room activities...

These picture's above show me cutting the fabric, I cut it to the length of the table then cut it down a little bit so it was just the width of my print. I then got some water ready and started painting on my water then Kathryn took over as I followed her with dye.

As you can see here I used the dye's to dye the fabric by moving around the table doing one side at a time, I tried to equalize the colours out too. To put the dye on the fabric I used different methods such as just tapping it onto the fabric, flicking it and splodging it onto the fabric. This might seem like a bunch of made up words but if you've ever painted or anything like that you will understand what I mean. I also tried leaving a a few white part's as I did not want it all to be covered. 

As you can see on this picture I layered up the dyes putting one on at a time, Being careful of what colours I put on top of what as they can mix and make different colour's, This did work in my favour as I created beautiful purples and greens. 

 This is the finished outcome in the picture above. I am really happy to how it has come out. Although when it has been pressed and washed it will look more faded and blurred but this will prepare my fabric to be printed on to. I have really enjoyed doing this and I am glad I am making progress for my exhibition. 

After today I had a chat with Kathryn (Instuctor) and she said to make my money back from my fmp I should make lot's of things and sell them, such as earings and rings with my needle felted (smaller) creations on. So i've hopped on ebay and bought some plain rings and earings for jewelry making and tomorrow will be filled with all sorts of needle felting fun which I shall blog about in tomorrows 'A Day In The Life' blog post.

I hope you enjoyed reading my first a day in the life, I hope you have all had a lovely day. Come back tomorrow!!