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 - #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

A Day In The Life - Needle felting and New Idea's

This morning I spent time doing some needle felting as I still have a lot to do. As I need to create bacterial petri dish needle feltings to sew onto my large exhibition scarf as well as bacterial petri dish's to put in actual petri dishes just for show in my exhibition. I then also had an idea to create some little items to sell in my exhibition to make my money back, I have ordered some jewelry making rings, earings and ear wire's and I shall be making needle feltings to glue onto these with the hot glue gun to sell at my exhibition. 

I gathered all the wool I had, not sticking to any colour schemes and set off to make some needle felted bacterial petri dishes, nothing too detailed, just some quickish colourful needle felts to sew onto my exhibition scarf. 

I only had time to do a couple of these. I then started to create a couple of little ring sized cell needle felts which I will glue to a ring and which can be sold. I did not get any picture's of these as I feel they could do with some improving but I shall write a blog post as soon as I perfect them!!

Sorry this blog post is only short and sweet as I've had a busy weekend and if you read my blog you probably know this blog post is a day late too, I hope you enjoyed it nevertheless.

Thankyou for reading 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.

The Textiles Of Science - Creative Business Card's

As I said in a previous blog post, I have been designing my business card's both corporate and creative. As I said I was to use acetate for my create business card to layer it up I did sample this and the ink seemed to smudge on the acetate and even though I could spray with glue I could easily spray with glue to stop this issue but I decided to go with something more textiles based. I've decided to needle felt my business card's in the shape of the cell which is in my tracing therefore will connect with my pattern on my scarf and the colour scheme too as I will be doing them light green and dark green. I have made a start on this and I am enjoying the outcome so far, I have produced 6 business card's in just under 2 hour, I am planning on producing 30 of these for my exhibition so this will take me 10 hour in total, although this is a long time I shall be breaking it up as I shall be doing these at home and using my time at college and days off at college to do my samples when my screens are exposed. I shall be doing my business card's at evening when I would normally be blogging this may mean I shall not be blogging as much as I need to get most things done before I jet off on holiday on Thursday morning. Here are a picture of what they look like at the moment...

Using light green and dark green wool to needle felt these business card's. Your probably thinking where's your information? Well I have decided I shall print out my information on a small tag (big enough to read) and attaching it to my business card's. I hope you all like the idea and if you have any questions or want to give me any feedback feel free to comment or contact me.

Thankyou very much for reading.

Development Sheets - Final Major Project

My development sheet's, To create these I took inspiration from my visual sheets and used different scale and colour and merging different patterns together to do this. I created these sheets using pencil first, Then painting it with gouache and silver paint pen. Here are a few photo's of my first development sheet.

This sheet concentrates on cells (close up) and bacteria. I like the shapes and colours used in this sheet particularly, I am really happy with it. The holographic silver paint pen really makes the sheet come to life. Here are pictures of my second development sheet.

 This sheet concentrates on petri dishes, although cells are still a running theme in the background. I also like this sheet as it shows development rather clearly, I also used many colours on the petri dish looking circles as I wanted to see what colour's worked best. I like how the background makes it come to live and I shall bare that in mind when doing my tracing.

I also have started - not yet completed - another development sheet where I have drawn out the patterns I want to take into my tracing's, This is tying all of my sheets together in one final sheet. I shall upload a photo when this sheet is completed. I did these sheets to the best of my ability and I don't think I could improve them. All I would say to myself is to keep the same level in my tracings.

In conclusion I am happy with my development sheet's and think they are to a good standard, I can't wait to get my tracing's done now and start sampling.

Thankyou for reading.

Having Fun Making Hole's With Tyvek!

During my day off college I did some experimenting with Tyvek as I have never used it before. I looked on pinterest and found some images which I assumed were created using tyvek, You can find my final major project pinterest board here. 

Firstly I collected my equipment that I needed these include; Tyvek, Brusho's, Paint brush, Towel, Paper and an iron. 

To start with I used a paint brush and brusho's to paint onto the tyvek, making circles in different colours to represent cell's. This is what It looked like when it dried.

Now come's the fun bit, Using my iron and taking a piece of paper to place over the top of the tyvek before the heat is applied. I held the iron on the paper covered tyvek for 5 seconds and pull away, this will leave holes in the tyvek which I think can look like cells. 

I made sure I used a towel on the floor whilst doing this as I did not want to burn my carpet! Here is a picture of the final outcome.

I could now improve this by sewing into it to add more texture. I will do more experimentation with this material as it is something I would like to take further into my final major project.

I hope you liked reading about this. Leave some feed back if you can.