Hello,
Firstly I would to start off by thanking everyone who read my blog last week and also took the time to look at my Etsy page (Karmann Jean). I was overwhelmed by the response and support from everyone, so thank you so much.
After the change to my blog post sequence last week, we are now back on track this week with the continuation of my textiles journey, with what i did during my second year at uni in the first semester. Which was solely based around learning the digital side of textiles for knit, print and weave.
Summer Project:
Over the summer we were set a project called 'flowers for my heroine' which was all about selecting a woman who we found inspiration and looked up to, due to her being an icon of a particular decade. We also had to link this topic with floral designs. In our sketchbooks we had to create a variety of different drawings, for both of these topic separately and together. This involved continuous line drawings, ink, ink and bleach, gouache paint ect... As you can probably already guess I chose the 1960's as my decade, because as you already know this is my favourite decade. For me the face of the sixties was model twiggy (Lesley Lawson). When ever I think of the sixties she is one of the many people that stand out to me. Her whole image helped changed both the fashion and model industry, therefore she was my heroine of choice. I started this project off by creating drawings based on both the 1960's and twiggy combined. Once this sketchbook was full I then moved on to my second one which was all about flowers. This included flowers that I found, online, in books and magazines as well as what I found in my garden, in fields and in shop bouquets. Next I began to mix these two subjects together by looking at some 1960's flower designs via wallpaper.
Flower mood board using images from a variety of gardening magazines
Ink and bleach flowers (from a fabric swatch from an old top).
Ink and bleach flowers (from a gardening book).
Ink and bleach flowers (from a fabric swatch from an old top).
Gouache flower (from a wild flower in a field).
Gouache flower (from a magazine).
Gouache flower (from Google).
Continuous line drawing (from a bouquet).
Ink flower (from a gardening magazine).
1960's fashion inspiration.
1960's flower mood board.
Continuous line drawing of a pattern on Twiggy's top.
Pencil drawing of a repeat pattern (Twiggy modeling Paco Rabanne).
Gouache painting of a pattern on Twiggy's outfit in the sixties.
Gouache painting of a 1960's flower design.
Print:
After starting back in September my first rotation of the year was print. This involved creating designs on Photoshop using images from our sketchbook, which in the end would be printed on to fabric using a Mimaki printer. The brief was to create six A4 samples which at least three had to be a repeat pattern. They all had to be made with the intention of either being a fashion or interior fabric, which would be displayed on to mood boards. In Photoshop we had to edit colours, shape, position, sizing, create repeat patterns and place the fabric in a real life setting such as on a model or on a chair.
I decided to do some more simple line drawings to that I could edit them more easily in Photoshop.
I decided to do some more simple line drawings to that I could edit them more easily in Photoshop.
Adding colour to a continuous line drawing in Photoshop.
Test sample on paper by removing the black outline.
Test sample printed on paper.
My fabric design Photoshoped into a interiors setting, for my mood board.
Sample 1.
Sample 2.
Sample 3 (this is the same flower as the purple one in the summer project sketchbook, of a flower i found in a field).
Sample 4.
Sample 5.
Sample 6.
Knit:
The next rotation was knit, where we were introduced to the Shima Seiki, which is an industrial knitting machine, that uses a special software to programme knitting patterns. It can also make fully fashioned knitwear. In the beginning the Shima was very intimidating due to all the different programming codes on the knit paint software. It was a mind field to me, so I was so thankful that our lecturer knew the whole thing inside out. As well as having to create four different Shima Seiki samples, we also had to create six domestic knitting machine samples. For these I based my designs on partial knitting as I wanted to create Paco Rabanne inspired knits, based on the holes created in his designs due to the interlinking plastic discs ect...
Knitting triangles on the domestic knitting machine.
Knitting checkerboard squares on the domestic knitting machine.
Sample 1.
Sample 2.
Sample 3.
Sample 4.
Sample 5.
Sample 6.
Shima sample 1 (repeat jacquard flowers with lace holes).
Shima sample 2 (triangle lace holes).
Shima sample 3 (repeat flower designs with triangle lace-holes in between).
Shima sample 4 (smaller flower repeat flower designs with normal lace-holes and triangle lace-holes).
Shima sample 5 (same as sample 3 but with a boucle yarn on the 5 gauge machine were as all the other were on the 10 gauge).
Shima sample 5 reverse side.
Weave:
For the first half of the weave rotation we had to create six samples for a competition set up by a local business, Trimmings By Design. For this we had to create our own warp and thread up the 8 shaft loom, which I had never done before. The second half of the rotation brought the introduction to the digital side of weave via the use of the industrial jacquard loom. We had to create two designs which would be split into three each, resulting in six final sample including front, back and an edit version, by cutting into the weave, embellishing or removing yarns.
Image research from the Trimming By Design company.
Warp ready to be threaded up on the loom.
Design plan.
Design plan.
Making up my own triangle pattern.
Painting the warp to create a tartan pattern.
Samples on my 8 shafted loom.
Sample 1 (triangle stripes).
Sample 2 (tartan)
Sample 3 (fading stripes).
Sample 4 (waves).
Sample 5 (thicker triangles).
Sample 6 (attempt at circles).
Sample 7 (attempt at flowers).
My two Jacquard designs on the jacquard loom.
Jacquard samples 1&2 front and back.
Jacquard sample 3, with the center flower cut out.
Jacquard sample 4&5 front and back.
Jacquard sample 6 yarn threads removed.
Display:
Part of our hand-in was to create a display of our work using the white display boards provided. We had to use these to show off all our work from all three subject areas. To begin with this was a bit daunting as the board looked so big and not all my samples across the three ares mixed well together. But doing this was good practice for future hand-ins and our 3rd year display show.
My hand-in display boards.
My hand-in display board with the table.
Summary:
This semester helped to confirm that print was not for me. I struggled at time with Photoshop as it was a lot to get my head around, due to being the first time really having to use it by myself. I also found that I just didn't enjoy this rotation, I didn't like just being sat down at a screen all day I much preferred actually creating something on the loom or knitting machine, to me I found it more creative. Which helped me with my decision over Christmas as to what I wanted my specialized subject to be. I loved the Shima, I was amazed as to all the things it could do, all 30 of us (students) ended up with something completely different. I particularly liked that the lecturer had never done triangle lace-holes before, but was still willing to give a try. I didn't really understand the process of creating digital weaves but I did like the end product, to me it really resembled a piece of fabric. I also loved experimenting with different yarns on the loom, as well as trying to make up my own patterns such as triangles and flowers.
I'm sorry that there was a change to last week and that this is technically a week late, but I thank you for understanding and supporting my new venture by starting my own business.
Thank you so much for reading.
Love Karmann Jean.
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