degree reflection
Today I’ve continued the hand embroidery on the panels for the skirt of my no waste outfit. Unfortunately, having used all my green embroidery floss I’ve settled for autumnal colours for the leaves. I still need to repeat the process on the back of the skirt and attach the rest of the gathers before taking photos.
Besides working on my report for contextual studies I constructed the bodice for my main module, and if I have time I’ll embroider and appliqué similar details on the back after constructing the skirt and attaching all the gathers.
I downloaded the Piece of Cloth word document with instructions on constructing the bodice and skirt shape. Having washed the discharge print I cut the garment shapes from it and also made more gathers from the vintage print to attach when it’s constructed.
As part of working from home, the task set was to make a 7 slide PowerPoint about my development of this project. I included the relevant information about the materials I started with, the large scale drawings developed for screen printing, my most relevant research and my sketches for garment design ideas.
I wasn’t in college myself today, taking health precautions, but my screen was printed today. Meanwhile I’ve been drawing from last weeks modelling on the mannequin photos.
Using scaled down basic shirt blocks we traced and altered them by cutting the patterns to flare out and thus create more volume in the garment it would produce. I did this with asymmetry, a diagonal seam to create exaggerated flare from the waist, and a sample with gathers.
In the afternoon workshop, I used my unpicked garment and placed it on the mannequin. I experimented with layering over the black fabric with the tunic and some gathered samples I made last week. Later I will take my images and develop these ideas with sketches.
In today’s workshop, exploring garment fastenings, I made a sample concealed zip, an off centre zip in an open seam and an inserted zip, requiring interfacing and more prep but was the easiest to sew, it not requiring such a tiny seam allowance.
In the studio I worked from my small paisley drawings and white on black grid images and developed A2 ideas for screens. I’ve chosen to expose the houses print, with the rigid florals and the large cut out house and some smaller intricate details about the border. Working on the sewing machines I practiced gathering, seeing the relevance to my 1970s research. I applied the gathering to calico to form a shape I can manipulate around a mannequins shoulders and hips.
Working with wax crayon, charcoal, fine liners, black paper and tipp-ex I studied the detail and pattern in my pre worn garment, my vintage fabric and details on the vintage garments around the studio. I interpreted the embellished paisley pattern on the gold tunic top, and developed a border pattern idea from the Indian dress. Using the house cross-stitch pieces I drew houses which developed into a rough grid or brick like pattern.
