Nearing the end of the first lap.

Now that we have finished our fashion rotation we are now hit with the pressure of creating a final piece led from our project from over the past two months. It has been a wild and tiring past couple of weeks, and changing each week can definitely test your sense of organisation and commitment as no week can be classed as an 'easy' week; but I could easily pick my favourites from the bunch, that being print and knit.

Since print and knit were my favoured weeks I know I want to interweave these two mediums for my final piece to create a substantial outcome which represents my project and theme of identity clearly. Throughout my project I have been closely looking into hearts and genetics linking to my fathers illness which is something I am eager to include; and since my prints from the digital print week are formed of my heart illustration, I want to use them in some way whether through digital print or a physical accessory.  One thing I have had in mind was printing on to knit to combine different aspects of textiles into a single piece but I am not sure on whether to create my own knit of to simply put together different recycled knits to represent recycled genetics. 

I have two weeks left until the deadline and I'm confident with my project to lead me towards a substantial idea to build upon, hopefully combining all my ideas into one successful piece. I already have some idea's of where to shoot my piece, its just a matter of figuring out what my final outcome will be.

Knitting you away

Along with digital print this was also a week that I much looked forward too, to actually get physically involved with making and creating something with texture and dimension. Knit has always been something that intrigued me and when we got introduced to the machine I couldn't wait to get stuck in.

\We started off with basic row knits which wasnt as easy as it looked as we had to pull out the needles for each row hoping it wont get stuck, but once the clamps were applied everything seemed to go smoothly and soon enough we go the hang of it.

Every hour we learnt a new technique; cable, weave, drop stitch, polka dots ect all as difficult as they look but somehow me and my partner Ronan managed to get the hang of most of the techniques breezing by each time and enjoying it as we went which was super. Finding each of the steps fun instantly led me to believe that I was definitely more into textiles over fashion design which was a perfect eye opener.

For me this was the most rewarding week in that I learnt to use a new piece of equipment and along with it learnt many many different techniques; and even taught myself to fix problems and faults whilst I went along which meant my confidence was at a high during the last day. I felt I didn't struggle at all this week because of how much I enjoyed doing knitwear, it usually meant my positive attitude reflected on the knits I made. But I do have to mention that if there is a difficult part it has to be packing the machine up, it's like a metal jungle.

Digi-digi-digital print.

Being someone who has always been attracted to colours and prints, digital print week was the one I most looked forward to! The concept and process of prints and textiles excites me; and using Photoshop is something I love love love to experiment with as I love the basis of creating something totally new out of a single image, and learning new tools to progress is always a plus. So learning and creating prints based on our family history was a fun and rewarding personal experiment.

We started by learning the basics of crating print patterns as we learnt how do create patterns which repeat as well as drop repeat and using different tools such as cloning and how to control layers on Photoshop. At first, even though I've used Photoshop in the past I found it difficult to catch up as we were learning one thing after the other, which definitely challenged me memory wise as I couldn't note steps down but eventually once done I managed to get the hang of the new tools. 

With some pre-prepared Photoshop edited hearts I created some prints using the new pattern tools which was a great part of the learning process because we were finally able to create original prints. I used the tools to clone, chop, merge, distort and filter the prints in various crazy ways which kept on developing my ideas and patterns which eventually led me to a wild bunch of prints which had connections to different parts of me; genetics, family and background. I chose these three different sectors to keep the patterns totally different with unusual outcomes that relate to me but also with the mutual theme of grey-scale throughout which keeps a sense of cohesion within the prints as well as with my sketchbook.  

For the final print collection I presented it on a basic jumper design mixing and matching the prints to keep it interesting. Because I believe I'm more of a textiles/print person I usually tend to keep the shape of my garments simple but relevant to focus on what is most interesting to me; textile and print.  I honestly really enjoyed this week and can joyfully say that this has been my favourite week so far, but there's still knitting next week so we'll have to see how that goes first then I can honestly decide; although it'll probably be a very close shave.

Develop develop design develop.

Each time we rotated the design development week was the one I dreaded the most as all I saw and heard about was the task of having to create constant different unique designs of up to 20 details in about five minutes; 20 shirt collars in five minutes you have to be kidding me. Being set the stressful task to create multiple designs of trousers/skirts/shirts/collars/sleeves one after the other, keeping the creativity flowing was a struggle but one that really tested our abilities and was a definite training for the future. However producing constant designs wasn't as daunting as I thought, I wasn't good at it but as odd as it sounds I enjoyed being put under the pressure and getting the smallest experience of what the reality of the fashion industry is really like. 

Fig 1- 23/09/13 (Own work/photography)

Fig 2- 23/09/13 (Own work/photography)

Once that quick activity was over we were told to pick a symbol which represented ourselves, I chose to use the Turkish S from my name which is written slightly different to get the 'shh' sound which I thought was a good and simple symbol to choose. With our chosen symbol we had to draw and cut multiple sizes and layers to later drape onto mannequins. This was a really interesting task as we draped each others symbols onto mannequins rather than our own and funny enough when it came to pinning my own symbol onto my mannequin I found it difficult to come up with more creative ways but managed with what I had.

Fig 1- 23/09/13 (Own work/photography)

Fig 2- 23/09/13 (Own work/photography)

After experimenting with continuous design development and draping and gaining influences and inspirations from the past two days we were told to create a collection of six designs which would be our final collection whether it be with pencils, watercolours, Photoshop, so long as you created a successful collection.Because I feel I am more of a print/textile student over a fashion design student, more of my designs were kept to a minimal shape-wise but bold print-wise which is what I love to focus on mostly.  Of course naturally I turned to Photoshop to fill in create my collection however not all of my work was Photoshop based as I originally drew my designs and prints onto paper, scanned it into Photoshop then filled in the textures of knits and weaves to create the illusion of real technique kept in the my original colour palette of black/whites and greys which is repeated throughout my sketchbook.

My finished collection is based on my S symbol which explains the curved/rounded garments I created within my collection; as the heart prints represent my continuous use of genetics with this whole project as I have managed to include a snippet of a heart in nearly every week which I don't know whether is an ideal thing to do but I feel it keeps my sketchbook looking slightly cohesive. My final concept board for my collection seems successful to me because I like to think despite my bad efforts to design a unique shape for my collection, I still managed to pull it together with a print and with the layout of the board as I also created flats for each garment I drew which makes my whole board generally more professional and well kept. This week was a struggle for me but at the end of it I have learnt how to keep in tact under pressure and also learnt how to work towards a deadline and actually get everything done on time which I am extremely pleased about.