A Day In The Life #5 - Printing Silk Scarfs

My plan for today was to go to college this morning to cut out my holographic heat transfer material for my big scarf as I need to do this first before I can start sewing on my needle felting's. When I got to college the print room was free and I was able to print which is a bonus as I want to get everything printed as soon as possible then I can concentrate on other things such as my needle feltings for my scarf and for in my petri dishes and also for my rings and earings which came today!! So excited about that!!

Today I printed two small scarf's, one silk and one muslin, using very different colour's. The first one was my silk scarf. I started off by masking taping the silk down to the print table which I had previously cleaned and dried. 

The first colour I printed was a turquoise and blue colour and after I printed it, it looked like this.

After I had printed blue I washed my screen and squeegee and put them to dry, I got out my second screen and put some clean gloves on and got printing, This time I printed a bright pink colour.

I really like how this one looked after the second screen but I was struggling to think of what colour to use on my final screen. I decided to use the silver pigment, Although I had not used this before or sampled it I thought it would look good so I went ahead and used it.

The end product looks really amazing the silver pigment gives such a good finished look and I am so glad I used it!! I washed my screen and squeegee and put them to dry and took the fabric I just printed into the classroom to dry, I then washed and dried the table.

The next scarf I printed was one I dyed, pressed and washed yesterday which is the orange and yellow muslin one aswell as an off cut from my big scarf which I had dyed a few days before. I started off by masking taping the fabric's to the table, I then got my colour's and first screen ready and started printing!! The first colour I used for these fabrics was a coral/orange pigment I mixed myself. 

Leaving my pigment to dry on the fabric I took my screen and squeegee in the wash room to clean and then placed my screen in the drying cupboard. When it was time to do the next screen I went for a bright pink and hoped it would look alright.

You can not really tell on the picture above but the out come of the second screen looked really good and bright. The pink and orange really complimented each other on the background colour of my fabric. I next printed a purple pigment after I had washed and put my screen to dry and got my last screen out. 

I really liked the outcome of this scarf, perfect for summer! When I took it off the table and into the class room to dry, The colours look really beautiful when the fabric floats! I am so happy I got to print today as printing a little every chance I can get makes my time management better and means I can focus on my needle felting.

The jewelry making earings and rings I ordered came today and so did my petri dishes for my exhibition. I was so happy when they came as that means I can focus on doing them and I now know the sizes so I can needle felt for them now. 

I am really happy with the work I have completed today. My plan for tomorrow is to maybe go into college (Its my day off) to use the heat press if not then I shall be spending the full day doing some needle felting so I can use the heat press on Friday at college and also use the hot glue gun for my rings and earings.

I really hope you enjoyed my blog post and if you have any ideas for my exhibition or any feedback please feel free to get in contact with me, You can see how to find me on my about me page or just leave a comment on here. 

Thankyou for reading. Come back tomorrow!!

A Day In The Life #4 - Printing My Big Scarf

Today has been the big day!! I've finally printed up the main part of my exhibition which is my big scarf!! Keep reading if you want to know how I did it and see how it looked in stages.

To get started I washed down the printing table I was working on and dried it too. I then measured to where my screen would be once placed on the registration bar and laid my fabric in the correct place on the table so my fabric would be clear of 1 inch on each side so I can clean the ends up on the sewing machine at a later date. I used masking tape to tape my fabric down, making sure its straight and its pulled tightly. 

I then got my pigment's together, As I am recreating one of my samples I am using the same colour pigments I used on that sample.

ignore the back colour as I did not need this or use this for my exhibition scarf. 

Once I had my colour's sorted it was time to print, As my screen's and fabric are so large I had to have the help of kathryn to help me print my screens also because I had not used the registration bar before. First off I printed the pink pigment.

After I had printed this colour I was so excited because it was finally coming to life, I washed and put my screen to dry while this pink pigment was drying, I then got my next screen and got ready to print again this time in blue pigment, This will go over some of the pink at a slight angle to make a purple colour with a blue shadow and also just be blue in other places it is printed.

 I then used my third screen and printed the cells to my fabric and this is what the end product looked like.

I am so so so so excited and in love with the outcome of my big exhibition scarf I can't even put it into word's, The colours are just beautiful and I am so proud of the print. I now need to add my mixed media onto the top of it, Such as sewing my needle feltings onto it and adding my holographic heat transfer, Also using dissolvable fabric and angelina fibers to sew onto it. I still have my work cut out but the end product will be so so worth it. I got gave so many packets of angelina fibers today from my tutor it felt like Christmas!!

After I had printed my big scarf I had time to print one of my normal sized scarfs which I shall sell at my exhibition, The one I chose to print was the orange/pink coloured light silk scarf. I started by masking taping the fabric down. I used similar colours but not exactly the same as they were different shades and instead of doing my cells green I did them a coral colour for this scarf. Here are the pictures after each screen print although I failed to get one of the end product, However I know you shall see it in a future blog post.

I did not get a picture after printing the last screen so I am sorry about that. After I took this off the print table and hung it to dry I instantly fell in love with it, The way the pattern and colours move on the floaty silk amazed me. I am so happy with the work I have done today and I cant wait to produce more.

My to do list from tonight is...

- Sew my needle felting's onto my big scarf.

- Do more dissolveable fabric on the sewing machine.

- Use angelina fibers and interfacing to create more mixed media for my big scarf.

- Use my holographic heat transfer material on my big scarf.

- Print up my other smaller scarfs and dye more material.

- Buy Petri Dishes and Jar's

I hope you have enjoyed tonights blog post, Come back tomorrow to see what I've been getting up to tomorrow.

Thankyou for reading.

A Day In The Life - #3

Today's day in the life blog post consists of me dying up fabric, washing and pressing my fabric, Helping out my friend print onto her fabric and needle felting so keep reading if you want to see and read in more detail what I did.
Up and out early this Monday morning, 9AM start at college, I started off this morning by dying the fabric that was the off cuts from my big exhibition scarf, as they are different sizes they shall just be little bits of fabric for headscarfs or what ever people would want them to be, waste not want not, I'm not one to chuck fabric out. 

This length of fabric in the picture above is one of the off cuts from my previous pieces of fabric, I found this wasent long enough for a scarf so I dyed it some bright colour's to use maybe as a headscarf. After I had dyed this and put it to dry, The colour's left behind on the printing table were so so amazing...

I decided to use another piece of cut off fabric to lay on top of this dye, To see how the fabric would pick up the colours and see what it would look like.

After just one press on the dye this is what the fabric looked like, I really think it looks really good, I put this fabric to one side and used it after I had dyed some fabric, each time I would lay this fabric on the left over dye on the print table. After I was happy with the outcome I pressed and washed it and used it as a headscarf for my own personal use as it was not suitable for anything else.

Excuse the mirror selfie, the apron and the sweaty face but this is what the final outcome of my improvised head scarf looked like, I am going to keep this for my self as I would make it neater and longer if I was to sell it but I personally like it how it is.

After I had cleaned up my space on the table I had a think of what I could dye up next and decided to go with silk scarfs, As I will be selling some scarfs some people will not want crazy wacky colours therefore I shall print some on just white backgrounds and some on block colour backgrounds. After cutting my silk scarfs out I filled 2 buckets with water and measured out some procian dye mixing them to make lighter or darker shades and testing the colours with little silk swatches. I left my silk in the buckets (each had their own bucket as they are different colours) and left them in there untill the end of the day when Kathryn will take them out and place them on the table to dry over night. 

After I had done all this I helped my friend Thea who's blog you can find here. To print one of her fabrics up. I have never used the registration bar to screen print, tomorrow I shall be using it to print my own fabric up. Today I used it for the first time to help Thea print her fabric up and I was so amazed at how easy and quick it is, It will really help me with time management to get my final pieces printed before the exhibition. Here are a few pictures of me and Thea printing her fabric up...

After we had finished printing this fabric up I still had an hour left of college, I decided to dye up one more piece of fabric, Muslin this time, Using orange,Yellow and Pink colour's. 

This was really simple to do, I just wet my fabric by painting on water then splatted the dye on the fabric with paint brushes. It leaves such a lovely effect when the fabric is lifted off the table. After doing this I then pressed and washed all my fabric I had dyed that day. Early this morning I also pressed and washed my big exhibition scarf by using the heat press then putting it on a quick rinse in the washing machine. 

When I got home I decided to do some needle felting as Iv still a lot to do and I figured an hour or so a day will make it easier than letting it all build up. I did a few more bacterial petri dish needle felts and created some little needle felts which I would describe to look like looking down a microscope, These shall be attached to plain rings by the hot glue gun to sell in my exhibition, I am still trying to perfect these as I shall be making a lot of them for my exhibition. Here are a few photo's from today's needle felting session.

The needle feltings which are to sew onto my scarf I am not creating them as detailed and creative as the first ones I did as they will not be shown close up and I am trying to manage my time well, Although the ones which will be in the petri dishes are really beautiful to look at.

Tomorrow's blog post will hopefully be showing you how I printed up my big exhibition scarf as well as the fabric I have dyed today. And some more needle felting. So keep your eyes peeled!!

Thankyou all for reading! Come back tomorrow x

Needle Felted Petri Dishes - Tactile Sampling

It has been decided that my main scarf I shall be making which will be purely for my exhibition will be as tactile as can be. Taking this into consideration I had an idea of sewing some needle felted creations onto samples I had already created to see how it would hold and look like. I took one of the needle felted petri dishes I made a few week back and hand sewn it onto a silk printed sample. 

This is what the outcome looks like. I really really like it and I shall make some more of these petri dishes enough to put out for my exhibition and to sew onto my scarf. I hope you all like it and if you have any other ideas for my exhibition please comment! 
Thankyou for reading x

Creative Business Cards Completed!

Things are finally starting to come together, As the hand in date is tomorrow as you can imagine things are getting a little stressful and heated but trying to think positive and stay calm is the best thing to do. If you read my blog you know for my creative business cards I created some needle felted cells to relate to my theme. This morning I have finally finished them, I decided to buy some labels with string attached to them and hand write my information on the tags, I think this gives the creative business cards a more personal touch to them.

All in all I have created 13 of these business cards as the minimum was 10. Personally I do think I should have done more but managing my time and prioritizing was what made me stop at 13, I can always do more if I run out of them. I really like these business cards and I think they are very unique. I am proud of what I have created.

I hope you have liked this short but sweet blog post just to update you on today's creations. 

Thank you for reading.

Corporate Business Cards - Completed!

My first blog post since I got back from my holiday! This morning I completed my corporate business card's. After creating a few designs I took inspiration from the research I did. I decided to create my business card's double sided as I wanted to incorporate some pictures I taken my self onto my business card's, To do this and make it look professional I thought it would look better if I used the pictures as backgrounds. 

As you can see I used white box's with a thick black outline to keep my information in, I used different pictures for the front and back. Keeping my name and title on the front and my information on the back to keep things spread out and giving it a professional look.

Here are my final business card's I used the spray mount to stick them together as glue and double sided wouldn't leave a very professional look. 

I hope you like my business card's I created for my exhibition. I am very happy with them and I am glad that they are finally done.

Thankyou for reading.

The Science Of Textiles - POM POM'S!

I decided to create some pom pom's for my final major project, Using pastel coloured yarn to support my colour theme. Pom Pom's remind me of bacteria through a microscope as they are furry and circular. I did not know how to create pom poms untill I looked at some youtube tutorial's therefore I shall not explain how to do it as I'm not experienced enough, If you are eager to learn how to do it then check out any of these videos. 

As you can see I have used blue and purple colour's to create this pom pom but if I get time I shall experiment with colour's size and maybe add some angelina fibers. 

I hope you all liked this short and sweet blog post.

Thank you for reading! 

The Science Of Needle Felting

A few blog posts ago I wrote about how I experimented and created a sample of needle felting using the topic of my final major project and using artist influences, You can find that blog post here. If you have read that blog post 'Experimentation- Needle Felting' then you will already know that I really liked the outcome of my experimentation. During then and now (a few days) I have had a one to one tutorial with my tutor and we both discussed that the needle felting unit - a unit has set criteria which I am marked against - Is a unit I could improve after all my target is DDD. Taking this in mind I decided for my final major project exhibition, Instead of doing one major outcome, I would create a piece of installment art. Now I'm not giving too much away, But one idea I shall share right now is that I am going to create 6 or more needle felted bacterial petri dish's and place them in actual plastic petri dish's which I will buy off ebay (for under £10). 

Today I have created another two needle felting creations and in this blog post I shall talk and also show you through photo's how I did it.
If you have not read my previous blog post about needle felting and you are not familiar with needle felting you should check it out before reading this blog post, You can find it here.

Step one
Firstly, I gathered all my tools, just like before, except this time I used both the single needle handle, and the handle which fits four needles. By using more needles at once I saved time. 

Step two

On the photo below you can see the starting point of the needle felting, I created a base with white wool, Where as before I built up the base with different colours. I wanted to see which was the best technique. To start this base I simply made a ball of white wool the size of a small apple and used the large needle handle and needles which you can see in the back of this picture to needle felt the fibers together, I then added onto this to create a more flat petri dish looking shape.

The start of my second needle felted bacterial petri dish.

Step Three

After I had created my base I then used different colour wool and also yarn to add on top in different size circles, I did this by using thing strips of wool/yarn and wrapping each one around my finger to create a circle then transferring that to my needle felting and using the single needle I felted it carefully on top of the base I have already created. You can see what it looked like after this step in the photo below.

Added coloured circles to the needle felting.

I then added more wool and yarn circle's to my creation to make it more layered up aswell as organza. I also added more wool around the edge as I felt the edge was a little limp.

Step FourAfter I was happy with my needle felting it was time to add angelina fibers.

Angelina fibers Angelina fibers are little fiber's the size of strands of hair's - the one's I used are neon - They can be needle felted into felt and then ironed to fuse the fibers together. I decided to use these mainly to support my holographic colour scheme, not only that but without the angelina fibers the needle felting looks boring and plain but with them they look amazing, not to mention they look like little growths sprouting out of the felt.

Final Outcome

I also created another needle felted bacterial petri dish using darker colours as I did not want them all to look the same. I used a similar technique by using the larger needle holder but instead of creating a base and working on top of it, I built up the base with different dark colours and built on top of it with lighter colours. 

Final Outcome

The picture above shows the second needle felting I did today - Third one in total - I used different colour angelina fibers on this felting, As you can see it is green which supports the colour wool I have used.

In conclusion to this blog post I have found today very productive. I have really enjoyed doing the needle felting and using many different colours to create my outcomes. To improve on this I could try incorporating different techniques into my felting such as hand sewing, I could try this on the next needle felting I do.

If you have any questions or feedback for me comment below!!

Thankyou for reading.

Final Major Project - Artist research So Far

To support my project I have done two artist/designer research sheets that reflect my project in some way or another. The first artist I researched is Klari Reis, She creates her work using a new media plastic, epoxy polymer, and the fine control she brings to its reactions with a constantly expanding variety of dyes and pigments. The UV resistant plastic, similar to resin, supplies a common framework for the methods and language she used to explore and express interactions of material and colour on a microscopic level. She pigments the plastic with powders, oils, acrylics and industrial dyes, built up through many layers of the super glossy plastic. The shapes and colours bleed, blur, shift and spread becoming remarkable through their eccentric detail. The outcomes of Klari Reis work really support's my project with it being science based, I am focusing my development on cells and bacterial petri dishes. I am really happy with this sheet as I got to do some painting on it and I think it looks really good. The only thing I do not like about this sheet is the white background as I usually fill up my backgrounds although I had to keep it simple to show off the petri dish paintings.

Next, I wanted to research into a designer or an artist to support my holographic mood board so for this I did a sheet on a menswear/unisex designer called Jade Clark, Her work is seriously amazing. Jade uses holographic colours in most of her work which supports my holographic moodboard, this has inspired me to defiantly take this idea into my designs and experiment around with it. Here is my research sheet on Jade Clark....

To get in contact with Jade Clark, visit her Facebook or Big cartel to purchase some of her lovely creations @ http://jadeclark.bigcartel.com/ or https://www.facebook.com/JADECLARKSBADMAN 

In conclusion I am happy with my artist/designer research so far and I am feeling inspired from researching into both Klari Reis and Jade Clark.

Thankyou for reading.

The Start Of My Final Major Project

My final major project is here! It's come around so quickly. Officially it started 3 week ago, the past three week have been crazy busy with university interviews and mind maps and proposals. So I shall talk you through it in this blog post, Firstly I was instructed to create a mind map of different theme/topic's I could use for my final major project, then a mind map that focus's on the theme you would most like to do, It is vital that the chosen theme was broad enough to do plenty of research and that I could get a lot of primary research. At first I chose to base my FMP (final major project) on the theme travel but after looking into it I decided I would not have enough primary research and I struggled to find artist research. I was stuck and did not know what theme to chose. Trying to forget about this problem, I attended my textiles with surface design interview and Huddersfield University and was informed I would be in a group interview with my friend Thea who is in my class at college, but we would be the last ones to be interviewed. After hearing this news we decided to go have a look around and ask some questions to the students who were in the classes, whilst doing this I saw the most amazing work which captured my eye instantly. A big pin board of inspiration for one students work was filled with pictures of science based patterns, such as bacterial petri dishes, different fabrics cut into circles which she had tried to recreate the petri dish patterns with dye. This instantly inspired me and I knew from then I wanted to base my fmp on science. After my interview (which went amazingly good) I went home and wrote up a mind map on science and what I wanted to research into. 

During the past three weeks I have also been writing up drafts of my proposal for my project as this will get sent off and marked also. In my proposal I explained what my project is going to be about, what I shall be focusing on, What techniques I plan to use, Where my primary research shall come from, What inspired me to do this topic and how I plan to evaluate and get feedback from my work.

To keep track of my progress for my final major project, I shall be updating my blog frequently so keep a look out!

Thankyou for reading.

Huddersfield Uni - Final Major Project Inspiration

During my time at Huddersfield University which I went to attend one of my interview's, I had a look around at the work people were currently working on. As I am currently in the process of making mind maps of themes and my proposal for my final major project it gave me a lot of inspiration and idea's. Here are a few pictures.

The section of work in these photo's inspire me to use colour and more specialised materials in my work. The shapes and colour are really inspiring.

This section of work looked really interesting, the patterns really inspired me. Although this section of work did not inspire me for my final major project, It was interesting to look at.

This section of work was what inspired me most. Still not knowing what I wanted to do as my topic for my final major project I was waiting to go in the studio for my interview and I spotted this section of work, at first I thought it was eye catching because of the colours and I was trying to think of a topic/theme where I could do something similar to this, The I spotted the chart at the side of this work, and it was cells. This inspired me a lot and will be playing a big part in my final major project. The section of work next to this also inspired me, you can only see a bit of it on this photo and I sadly could not get a photo of this section of work as I was called in to my interview but it's science based, featuring holographic's. 

I really enjoyed my time at Huddersfield University on this day, it was lovely to have more of an independent look around whilst I was waiting for my interview and I am thrilled to have got a conditional offer for both textiles and textiles with surface design.

Thanks for reading.