week 15 (6/1/25) - (10/1/25)

With my first day back, I was a bit nervous because of the end of term break which had disrupted my schedule, but I managed to get back into the swing of it quick enough.

Lareen taught us different ways we could dissect out patterns into different sections to add depth to our design ideas. This has helped me to develop my thought process and think of all the different things that I could do my splitting up the plain bodice. I also redid my mood board that I had done during the break because it wasn't very good, and it needed to be more about shapes and colours compared to what it was. I cut out shapes from different colours of paper that I had printed out and placed them in different positions on the page to see if I could create the most effective mood board for me, taking pictures along the way.

I also spent my study session doing this and starting out on my initial design ideas.

Photography was supposed to be taking pictures inspired by Wassily Kandinsky, however only a few people were able to carry out that so I spent the time catching up with some of the patterns I had yet to finish off from Lareen's lesson.

 

Tuesday marked the start of my new project in stretch. We are beginning on a project with the chance to have our work in an exhibition for the college and it begins with research. Our topic is the 17 UN goals for sustainability, and we had to research into all of them and chose 5 which we were interested in to talk about them. This helped me to develop my writing skills because i had to think about why I chose the 5 different goals and consider their importance to me or my morals.

Sam taught us a way to do applique which I found very helpful. I wanted to take what she had taught and apply it to the artwork that I had chosen so I used a circle to start out and built into it with different shapes, small and big. I appreciate the structure and stability that the Bonda web gave to it which allowed me to build onto my design and not worry about the pieces moving while also allowing the satin stitch to work better than it did on just the single layer of calico that I was using as a base. I wish I chose some more colours to use for this, but it is not my final design and is only a practice. I also need to remember that what I draw on the Bonda web that I cut out is flipped so that I can keep my work accurate and showing my actual ideas.

Charlie is giving us the lesson this week and next to carry out project work, so I didn't learn anything from him in terms of cad and simply spent the lesson adding to my sketchbook the places that I had missed.

On Wednesday, I created more of my designs using the knowledge that I learnt on Monday about how I can split the bodice up into different sections. I feel like I have improved since Monday with my designs being a bit different and unique. I also learnt from Lareen; pin tucks, how they work, different ways to manipulate them and create them. This has taught me an interesting way to add things like flare and shaping.

I have to catch up with quite a bit of work so I decided to work on Lareen's work on Thursday where I caught up on missing diary of making pages and evaluations along with finishing off my initial design ideas pages. The last thing I did during the day was creating different applique samples from Tuesday's lesson. It took me quite a while so I only managed to do one hand sewn one. I found it difficult to complete this one because it was challenging to get all the stitches in some semblance of even and neat. I did a couple of layers of fabric, sewing one at a time. Due to the time becoming later and later, the piece doesn't have a lot of detail. I found that the original style of applique that I had done (with bonda webb) was more favourable to me since I could use small pieces of fabric to create applique in an amount of detail that could fit with the art that is inspiring my garment.

Sam introduced us to quilting on Friday. I have already done quilting before but I only did a simple diamond pattern for that and this is more decorative. I decided to paint on the fabric with watercolour dyes. I think this turned out alright with the only messy parts being where the colour had spread due to the water. In the future I think I should use fabric paint for a cleaner look, I also believe it would more closely resemble the art that I am basing my garment off of. With the quilt that I did in class, I made it small which I think wasn't the best choice because it made it a challenge to sew. I think I was able to successfully sew the design and I experimented digitally to see if adding more stitches would help to define the piece. I decided to do another one that is larger making sure I keep in mind any mishaps that happened in the original to stop them from occurring in this one. (like not backstitching and instead bringing the stitches to the back and tying them together)