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.

UPDATE; Where I Am In My Current Project.

Four Week left of this project, Oh dear! Scary stuff, This project has gone by so so fast, This whole year has. As It's only 4 week left I thought I would update you on what I have done so far and what I need to do and my idea's for my exhibition. I am now at the point where I have completed the following; 3 mood boards, 3 artist research sheets, 2 visual sheets, 2 development sheets and one I am currently working on. Aswell as my sketchbook which is on going. My original plan for my exhibition was to create 3 summer scarfs each with the same print on but with different colour way's. Then have my needle felted petri dishes in actual plastic petri dishes and other needle felted things in jar's. After a talk with the print room instructor/tutor I decided I would create one huge scarf which is more of an exhibition piece rather than a wearable scarf,  This will include lot's of techniques (which will depend on time management), This will be to show off the skills I have learnt in the past year. I shall also do 2 more scarfs which will be just printed, on a light fabric which will be wearable and could be sold.  I am happy with this idea as I can show off my skills more, although I will have to manage my time management to perfection!! My plan from today is to focused on getting my last development sheet done and my paper tracing done ready to put onto kodatrace to expose my screen so I can start sampling. As my main scarf I shall be creating will be really huge I will be using the registration bar to make sure my screens line up properly and to make sure it has a professional look. I shall blog about this when the time comes. My needle felting, knitting and weaving will be done in my own time at home as my time at college is needed for sampling. All my sampling will be photographed and blogged about each day. I hope you understand my thought process by reading this aswell as previous blog posts about my final major project.

Thankyou for reading.