A-Level (AS-level Part 1): Informative 1960s Wall Hanging

Hello,

This weeks blog post brings us to my A-level textiles project (16/17 years old). After my GCSE's I chose to stay on in the 6th form at my secondary school, that was mixed together with another local school, which I surprisingly (due to school rivalries) was actually glad for, I'll explain later. As I made two products in my first year at A-level (AS-level) I have chosen to split this blog post up into two parts, else it would be too long and boring.

As I explained before my secondary school merged together at A-level stage due to them being able to offer more subjects. Which meant that I had a new textiles teacher, I must admit that I was very nervous about this as I had fallen in love with textiles at my school and was very comfortable where I was. However, I am very grateful that textiles was taught at the other school. Firstly because they had so much more resources and equipment. For example, they had a fabric cupboard and yes we had one at my school but it was just full of old scrap pieces that were tiny, where as here they had rolls of fabric, and I was amazed. Also I thought I liked my old teacher and this isn't to put her down as she was very good but there was something else about my new A-level teacher, she was the best. She was so enthusiastic about all things textiles and she really did let us make what ever we wanted to, except a wedding dress, which was a no no for her, but I had previously struggled with creative freedom at my old school so this was great for me.

Anyway enough of the back story and back to what I actually made. We started the year off by learning textiles techniques, which was a new and exciting thing for me as I had previously been taught that textiles was about making things like clothes but here I got to learn all sorts of new things. I know this might sound like I am putting my old school down, but I'm not because I am so thankful that they introduced textiles into my life. However, they definitely could do with some improvements as other design subjects seemed more equipt. Anyway, some of the decorative techniques that I was introduced to were:

- Applique

- Batik

- Cello-tape technique

- Cut work

- Devore

- Felting

- Mola

- Quilting

- Rust dye

- Screen printing

- Sticka

- Texi-foil (with texi-foil glue, not bondaweb)

- Tie dye

- Thermoheat setting (using marbles)

- Thermoplastic Angelina fibers

- Thermoplastic entrapment

- Thermoplastic plain weaving

- Transfer printing

- Trapunto

all of these processes are shown in the images below.

After learning all these techniques we were then set our first project. Our brief was to design and create an informative wall hanging based on our chosen decade from the 20th century. It also had to include at least 4 of the new decorative techniques that we had just learned.

Once I had done some light research into the 20th century I instantly fell in love with the vibrant and bright colours, of the flower power 1960s era. If anyone knows me then this is when I fell in love with the 60s and if you don't know me, then you will soon realize that if I am offered the choice to chose a decade I will always go for the 1960s. After thinking about some design ideas based on the hippy trend, I then decided to go in the opposite direction and create a magazine/newspaper cover idea. Since it was meant to be an informative piece of work a newspaper style would explain why there was text on it. Also, the 1960s is not only defined by the hippy trend, so if I want to inform on the whole decade, why focus on only one of the many trends within this time period.

Once I was happy with the newspaper cover idea I then started to look at iconic news headlines and stories that happened at this time. The four stories that stood out to me was the first man to walk on the moon. This was an iconic thing to happen in history so it had to go on my newspaper. Being a big football fan myself, the fact that England won the world cup in 1966, meant it was definitely going to be featured. Next, I decided to feature the death of Marilyn Monroe as she was such an iconic women, through out history and although it was her death, I wanted to use it to celebrate who she was. My final story was quite hard as I had chosen to feature the shocking story of the Moors Murders. Although this is a horrifying story and I couldn't believe what I had read, I thought that I should still include it as, informing isn't just about celebrating the good things, such as winning the world cup. It is about telling people what really happened after all my brief was to inform and many newspapers don't just feature the good parts.

At the time I found this piece very hard to do, as I had never had to create something to inform so for me this felt like a much more serious topic. I didn't want to just stereotype the 1960s in the way I was beginning to with the hippy designs. Instead I literally wanted to inform people on what the sixties was like which is why I covered the wall hanging in writing. Looking back there are so many things I would change about this wall hanging, to begin with, I think I was just trying to get as many techniques as I could on the wall hanging. I don't think I really thought about the final look. I mean the pink tie dye mixed with the multicoloured lines, what was that about. I would have also paid more attention as some of the transfer printed text is upside down. Although this is not my favorite piece of work I have to be thankful for it as it allowed me to learn new decorative techniques that I had never done before and I also go to find my all time inspiration which is the 1960s.

Below are some of the images of the techniques that I learned as well as the process that I went throught to create this wall hanging.

Thank you so much for reading,

Love Karmann Jean

(PS. Sorry that it is so long, I just felt that there were a few things that needed explaining, I'll try to be shorter next time).