Deadline day...

YES everything is finished!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) I have really enjoyed the past few weeks even though sometimes I have been very beyond stressed!, but I feel I have learnt SO much, and am pleased with the outcome of my shirt, shorts, bodice and skirt!.... bring on next year :D

shirt construction...

WOOHOO ok so I think my shirt is finally finished :)(Hopefully I wont find out the whole shirt is wrong though!)I actually found the whole proccess alot better then I expected, as I was really worried I wasn't going to be able to remember everything, but in the end I did. I only had a few problems with the sleeves- Where I found I had to sew and un-pick one sleeve like three times? this was only because the material kept bunching up. So just got to put the buttons on tomorrow and then its all finished...oh actually apart from pressing all four garments and THENNN I'll be finished and ready for hand in on Friday!

Inspiration...

I want to be desiging clothes like this someday --->
<3

construction of the shirt...part one...

Once again the day seemed to go pretty well!....I did sew a few things wrong, but this all part of the learning curve and I just then corrected what I had done wrong (the seams) I also managed to sew on the collar, but thats as far as I got so I went into uni on sat to continue with this and managed to pretty much finish sewing the shirt together (all I have to do now is put the sleeves in, sew the hem and press the garment! I feel like I am actually getting somewhere! so this is good :D

Construction...

We had to cut our pattern out today on material without any help from the tutors, and at first I was kinda thinking that everything would go wrong but everything was actually sooo much easier then I first thought and I seem to have remembered quite alot from previous lessons! Just gotta actually sew the shirt together now!!! :) Overall quite a successful day!

I <3 NICK KNIGHT!

I am officially in love with Nick Knight's work, I have always liked the photos he takes, but after seeing his exhibition in London (which by the way was THE most wackiest I have seen by far) I think he is simply amazing! :D and I feel inspired to create work as good as his!. The day was quite good, I also saw some of Norman Parkinson's work which was good as I had to research his work for a previous college project so was nice actually seeing the proper photos! and then had a quick look round the V&A which also inspired me. It was nice to be in London again with the buzz of christmas in the air and everyone rushing around :)

Construction...

Today we finished putting our shorts together, this was our last tutored construction lesson and next week we will start putting together our shirt. The day started off quite stressful as I had to unpick some previous sewing, but in the long run this helped as I sewed much better meaning the rest of the sewing wasnt as difficult. I really feel like I have come on in leaps and bounds and have improved SO much compared to what I was like on the first day! so I am very pleased and as they say things can only get better!!! :)

Last pattern cutting lesson ....

OK so today was our last pattern cutting lesson of the year (yippee!) but this lesson we had to try and complete our own pattern for a shirt, of which we will sew together next week! I thought I was going to HATE this...buttt actually found the whole day kinda OK! nothing too major went wrong and my pattern is all correct (I hope) I can even bring myself to say I quite enjoy pattern cutting now...which I never thought I would say as I didn't think I would ever master it! but alas after much practise I am becoming a budding pattern cutting (well maybe not that good! aha)

Diver on illustator

This is finally my diver which we did on like our first week?!?! but mine was so bad as I've never used illustrator before, so I decided to re-do this before our deadline next week! :) I am more pleased with this one.

Melted Pot project...

Today we had to have our final illustrations drawn up and ready to show in the afternoon to the class. Mine was pretty much nearly finished but I felt really ill so went home at lunch and then carried on working on the project in the evening. My illustrations have defiantly improved alot since we started the project so I am pleased with this :)

Pattern Cutting...

This was our last pattern cutting lesson where we get help- I can't believe HOW quickly these past few weeks have gone and I'm surprised I'm actually starting to remember everything even though we have learned sooo much! Anyway so today we were focusing on patterns for collars. I thought this was going to be really simple, but was actually quite complex. Once I had made one collar though I found the rest simpler! I also stayed behind after and re-did my circle skirt as I knew it was wrong and made another sleeve pattern for extra marks. Overall was a pretty good day! and we have tomorrow off which means I can try and get ahead on the 'Melting Pot' project! :)

My abstract illustration...

Today we have been experimenting with making shapes 3D and blending shapes together!. As you can see in my illustration I firstly made all the shapes 3D and decided on a purple theme, I then blended the shapes together. I really like the outcome and am going to experiment with different colours and shapes now!

lost and found....

here is the shirt I drew out a few weeks ago, which I thought I had lost :( but then found! so all was good with that!. I enjoyed the process of drawing this, as you saw how you improved as you progressed.

Catch up day...

Here is some of the work I caught up on today, I was ill on the day we started it so decided to catch up today! Basically we had to trace round trainers and then add different colours, so was pretty easy and I quite enjoyed adding the different colours, my favorite is the white pair with the hearts and stars. I also found my skirt drawing, which I thought I had lost so woohoo! :) and I also found my other skirt drawing, which I need to edit before I upload to my blog.

flat drawings...

Today we had to practise doing our flat drawings for our melting pot project, I am beginning to enjoy this project more and more as I progress through. I also feel my flat drawings are slowly beginning to improve! We have three weeks today till the project has to be handed in finished...sooo starting to panick alot but if I do abit each day then I wont have to worry!

Tomorrow we have a catch up day in Jamie's lesson which is good, as I have a fair bit I need to catch up on!

Catch-up day round two...

I managed to finish everything (pattern cutting/construction related) today which is good as I felt I was lagging behind on Thursday!. So finished my skirt, samples, zip for my shorts and my pattern for my gathered sleeve. I also finished at 12:30 so this was a bonus as I thought I would be in all day! :)

Contruction..

Today has been one of 'them' days, everything that could have gone wrong went wrong! The day started off OK, I had stayed behind on Monday to finish my zip on my skirt, but I had sewn this wrong, which meant Un-picking and doing again! and again when we started my shorts, nothing seemed to go right. But overall I pretty much finished everything and we have a catch up day tomorrow so I can finish everything then. I also think where I keep doing things wrong this time, then next time I will be more conscious of this and hopefully wont get as much wrong. As they say Practise makes perfect! (which is so true)

Peclers Paris Lecture

Instead of having our usual Wednesday afternoon Illustration class we had a speaker come in from 'Peclers' to talk about the up and coming seasons of which they forcast the next trends for. I found the talk really interesting and am looking forward to seeing if these are the next trends. I am also looking forward to starting projects based around fashion forcasting.

Dr Noki...

Today we had to create a slide-show on one of our favourite designers, I chose Dr Noki. The reason of doing this is so we could get some practise of using Powerpoint before we have to do our presentation to the class. I already knew how to use Powerpoint (think I learnt how to use it in like year 5?) so I found this task quite easy.
We have a catch up day next week which is good as I missed last weeks work and saved my work from the week before in the wrong file, duhh!.

neww yorkkk <3

We also found out more information about our New York trip next year! ahhh :D is quite expensive (err £600?) BUT I WILL find a way to pay for this trip! I HAVE to go!

Flat drawing and Melted Pot project...

Today we started practising flat drawings, because the end outcome of our current project is a flat drawing of a model wearing our outfit that we have designed. I actually quite enjoyed this, we began by looking at a group of manikins and drawing them, trying to get the proportions right, then traced over them but with legs and arms this time and the next time with clothes drawn on. Eventually ending out to be more of a fashion flat drawing.

We also carried on with our 'Melted Pot' project and I am now beginning to think I definitely want to chose the theme of 'African Tribes', particularly leaning more towards the 'Zulu tribes' as I love how they use so much colourful beading in their clothing, and think it would work really well in a dress, with accessories of beaded necklaces, beaded earrings and beaded rings.

Overall has been a pretty good day and I'm enjoying this sketchbook project so far :)

Thursday 12th and Friday 13th = lots of pattern cutting and constructing...

OK so these past two days have been pretty hectic to say the least, with lots more knowledge to cram into my already overflowing brain!!!!

Thursday 12Th - Pattern Cutting:
So yesterday we started to learn about sleeves with gathering and button holes on shirts. At the beginning making the sleeve seemed like a long process, with lots of tracing, re-tracing oh and guess what more tracing?? finally though we all had a pattern for a gathered sleeve and I plan on using this at some point soon; seeing as it took me so long to do!!!!
Overall pattern cutting seems to be getting better, the information is actually sinking in now and I feel more like I know what I'm doing...even though I still do make millions of mistakes! :)

Friday 13Th (uh oh bad luck day?) - Construction
today we began making our A-line skirts, once we had cut out our patterns onto material (which took us all morning for some reason? ha ha too much talking maybe!!!!) we then looked at different inter facings and tested them. Near the end of the day we began sewing the back of the skirt together and adding the zip (which may I add I was DREADING!). I found this process the most difficult of the day, but what I learnt will definately be good for future reference!. At 4:30 I still hadn't finished my zip, so I will stay after on Monday to make sure I catch up ready for next Thursday!

Illustration..

Today we had to finish our fashion logo and fashion image, I decided to name mine 'Miss Mac', and used the colour purple as a theme. I really enjoyed this mini task and I am pleased with the outcomes. Next time I would make my image much sharper and clearer....

I'll upload the logo when I get chance :)

Melting Pot project...

We got our new sketch book project today and I'm really looking forward to getting started and getting delved into researching the different cultures, I'm kind of half and half on which culture I want to pick, but I guess this may change when I start looking into others. The main two I'm torn between is African tribal or Harajuku Japanese. I also like the fact we get to work more on our drawing illustration skills now and the whole project is a sketch book project :)

also...

I forgot to mention that I'm going to be working at LONDON FASHION WEEK next year?!?!! ahhhhh excitment!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

Catch-up day...

Today pretty much was to catch up, so all I needed to do was attach the second sleeve to the bodice, and re-do some of the sample seams which we did in the first few weeks... the first sleeve I mucked up on at first, by accidently sewing to of the same sleeve, but this was sorted quite easily with abit of un-picking and re-sewing. I then went on to re-doing the sample seams and was really worried about trying to sew on chiffon as I DID not get on well with it last time, but I guess what they say is true: practise makes perfect and I actually managed to sew it well!!! even though I was only planning on staying in uni till 12:30 (hm somehow thought I would finish eveyrthing really quickly) and ended up staying till 4:30 I'm glad I got everything finished! :) anyways enough of this for now, weekend commences now!

Construction...

After putting our bodice together, today we started to put our sleeves in and finish off everything. With the first sleeve I found all the proccesses quite difficult, and couldn't seem to put the thing together without getting bits of material caught under the thread meaning I had to unpick and try to sew flatly, eventually I managed to sort this out though and was quite pleased. In the afternoon we had to sew one a few more samples, one of them being a box seam. The day went pretty well and tomorrow is a catch-up day so I can FINALLY get all my seams re-done (and neatly this time!!!)

this is the logo I started in illustration, we had to get an image of the internet and trace round it and add colour and text. This will be used for my own 'fashion label'. I quite enjoyed the task, and am looking forward to next lesson, to finishing this.

I'm going to london to buy a heat magazineee!

Today we headed out into the big city of London to hunt for some fabric samples! at first when we arrived and started looking in fabric shops I wasn't at all impressed, the fabric wasn't very nice and seemed abit tacky in some of the shops. But then we moved on to berwick street and the material shops were AMAZINGG. The materials were just wow, for instance one piece of material that I found was £99 PER meter!. So the day was pretty good and I got lots of pretty samples ready for next weeks project!

sharp darts

Thursday...

okkk so today we had a whole day of pattern cutting... darts were to be the main focus of today, which I was quite pleased about as I don't really find darts very difficult. This was until I found out HOW many darts you can actually have!, to list a few which we had to do: neck dart, shoulder dart, armhole dart and french dart (this isn't even all of the darts we have to do!)

But overall once each step was explained and I had tried them out mostly 9 times out of 10 the darts worked. We also learned how to pivot the darts out, which I never even knew you could do; its an alternative to cutting and folding the dart out.

Friday...

Today we started drawing out our skirt patterns (of which we will use in a few weeks in construction) we made an A-line skirt pattern and a circle skirt pattern. with the first skirt we put our new found pivoting skills into use and pivoted all the darts out of the front and the back of the skirt and then finally with the circle skirt we used our pattern master to create it.

Illustrator clock

I.C.T + illustration

Today we have been on Illustrator, creating paths with the pen tool. Basically for each shape you start on the horizontal grid line and then you go from there and place the anchor lines where the shape would be. Firstly I found this quite difficult on my mind kept wandering but once I payed more attention I found it less complex :)

Black and white final day

Over the past week I have been working in my sketchbook on research and I have been slowly working on my headpiece. I have decided I am going to make my headpiece out of wire- which let me tell you this is not as easy as i thought! but onwards and upwards as they say!

I have gathered lots of information on different designers who inspire me and now am taking tiny pieces from each one to create my own piece.

Yesterday we had all day until 3:30pm to mainly finish everything. My final piece is done (wire headpiece with material wrapped round the base) and my sketchbook is nearlyyy done too- just gotta tackle the designs now. feedback seems positive and I have really enjoyed this project!

again I'll upload photos later (well once I have taken some photos!)

Construction

I was actually dreading today...but against all odds everything went really well! We started to put our bodice together, sewing the darts in first, and then pressing. Then went on to putting the edges together, remembering to match the darts on each side, then over-locking and pressing. we then did exactly the same to the sleeves :)

overall was a pretty successful day, apart from a few minor hiccups...I'll upload photos of the final bodice on my next blog about it.

Illustration update...

Illustrator update...

Now learned how to actually use illustrator AND enjoy using it!

-I know how to create a block man

and woman, to fill a shape with writing and to write on a curved line!

-I can also now create weather shapes

I found the lesson fairly easy and fairly useful and am looking forward to the next lesson!

Black and white

We got set our first sketch book project!!! yess and triple yess! :) think this is one of my favorite briefs so far, even if it is just for a week (which scares me a little as I feel dead set on filling a whole sketch book! - obsessed much?)

But anyway the brief is based around communications in black and white, at the end of the project we'll have some form of garment, whether it be a whole one or just an extravagant sleeve or head piece (- which

is what I am planning on doing!) and sketch book work and maybe a mood board separate to the sketch book? but we can put the mood board in the sketch book if we want.

For my head piece I thinkkkk I am going to use wire and build it up really big and then add black and white material in some form or way. I need to finish my research/designs in my sketch book first.

So far my main inspirations have been architecture and

Issey Miyake.

I'll add a further post for this soon when I get some pictures and more ideas.

Manikin Patterns..

OK, so last time we made a pattern we did flat pattern cutting, but today we did pattern cutting straight on the manikins. I definately prefer flat pattern cutting, saying that though i have never really had much practise with the other method. It was a very stressful day and from the start I knew it would be one of 'them' days where you feel like you can't do anything right and literally EVERYTHING goes wrong. We had to start by taping out the bust line, waist line, neck line and so on, then we had to drape our calico over the manikin and begin pinning, cutting and working out the darts. We then had to take our calico pattern and put it on paper, measuring out all the darts properly and drawing all the bits in. But for the life of me I COULD not get the hang of anything, everyone else was whizzing ahead and finishing before me, which equalled in me rushing and therefore making tiny mistakes and having to back track. Overall from the day though I did learn alot and I think with time I will (hopefully) get the hang of this, otherwise I can just stick to flat pattern cutting. I also learned that I need to stick to my own pace, and not try to rush ahead to keep up, otherwise my work will not be to my best standard.

S.W.O.T

STRENGTH:
Motivated

WEAKNESS:
sometimes doubtful

OPPORTUNITY:
being on this course?!

THREAT:
everyone else on the course :)
(^ but guess in some ways thats good as will push us to work harder!)

P.C illustration = stressss!

Today we went on Illustrator on the computers, this was the first time I have used the programme and I didn't really find it very easy. We learned how to create shapes and how to fill them with colour; which was quite cool as you could use different effects such as swirls and squiggly edges. We then had a template of a diver, which we went round the edge of and filled the outline with block colours. Overall this lesson was OK, but not the most enjoyable thing I have done so far....

<- this is the tester pattern I did to try out illustrator, I'll probably upload more pictures once I've finished them properly :)

Photoshop Military mood board

After creating a mood board by hand and on the theme of 'Random' I designed another mood board but this time on the theme of 'Military' and on Photo shop. I quite enjoyed this task as I like making collages and blending photos in together. I didn't find the task to difficult either: normally me and Photo shop do not get on, but this was quite simple to pick up...

pattern cutting...

On Friday we began pattern cutting- which in all honesty is not my favourite part of the fashion design industry. After drawing out the first part of the bodice I got to grips with the situation and found the rest much easier. Everything had to be very specific, and at first I took a long time trying to add the seam allowance perfectly but again with practise I slowly got better.

that's all for now...sleep deprivation and blog writing are never a good combination.

Seemingly good seams...

Today we got introduced to the hefty, scary and monsterous industrial machines...and we did not hit it off on a good note! :P but on the other side of things they are quite different to the machines I have used before, so I'll give it some time.

I found doing the seams quite simple and easy to remember, although because of my disagreement with the machine, the seams took longer then what they usually would. I also found out today that chiffon is actually IMPOSSIBLE to sew!, note to self; avoid this material at any cost!!!

but overall the day was really good (even though I have never felt so tired in my life) and I learnt alot and am looking forward to using the skills I learnt today in garments :)

(also tomorrow we are starting pattern cutting which should be marvy as I well want to just start the projects now and get desiging and making!!!)

Fresh-Fresh-Freshers!

Sooo the first week has flown by, after listening to numerous different talks about the uni, meeting my course mates and finding out whats in store for us over the next two years I am now very very scared...(but also beyond excited and into the land of nervy-b)

Freshers week has also commenced...dont quite know how I will handle learning pattern cutting on Friday with a hangover? but I guess this comes with the teritory of being a student!!!!! :)

Runway hopes and dreams