Weaving

During my time in weave, I've learned that choosing my yarns carefully is an essential part of creating a successful weave.
I have an interest in colour anyway so experimenting with colour through yarns was a new challenge and a new way of working that I'm still getting used to. I've tried many combinations ranging from mainly neutral colours in a selection of creams and beiges with flashes of a bright colour such as lime green and hot orange and then the other way round, using brighly coloured yarns and cooling the pallette down with softer biscuity tones.
I devised my warp by creating a series of yarn wrappings around card and seeing how the colours interact with each other. I opted for a cooler pallette, using creams, beiges, biscuits and other neutral tones with  flashes of yellow, lime green and blue with the occasional end of orange in the weft.


  Threading up in weave was the most challenging process of creating woven fabric. Using the mill was quite a confusing part of the job. Counting the ends whilst spinning the mill in a particular way was a challenge in itself. I then though that it may have been over for the time consuming jobs. I was wrong. I then was shown how to raddle on and then thread up which took hours and hours and then each and every single individual yarn had to be passed through a very narrow metal framework.

Then the weaving began, learning how to convert a grid into knowing which shafts needed to be lifted and in what order was also difficult and could be compared to learning a new language. However, with practice, weaving did become easier and I did begin to get into the rhythm of it and did start to enjoy the process on the whole.

 

Whilst acutally weaving, I decided to use structures that reflected my work within my sketchbook. My work is generally quite structured and well considered so I wanted to choose structures that showed some sort of pattern and order such as "Tile" (below



 

 

 "Stripe" (below)



 

 

"Crater" (below)

 

 

 

 

and finally "Diamond" (below)

 

 

How did I make the new prints?

Within my sketchbook, I decided to take the shapes that I preferred the most and arrange them in different ways and displayed these through drawing. Instead of collaging, I thought that photoshop would be an easier way to create the prints but I decided to decide on the shapes I would create on photoshop through drawing within my sketchbook.

I decided to make it easier for myself by showing the amount of the shapes I needed and the lines of symmetry were added to show how I would reflect the shapes and in what axis etc.

New prints

I decided it was the right decision to make some more prints, using the pieces that I have cut out from the other prints that were made earlier in the Journeys unit. I kept the pieces safe, knowing that I'd find some use for them and scanned them into the computer. I then decided to use Photoshop to rearrange them and create new and interesting patterns, working from my range of pantone colour charts that I have collected earlier. There's something about the shapes that is quite intriguing, I think I like the irregularity of them all.

Pantone App for iPhone

This app is amazing. I decided to download this on my iPhone as I thought it would be useful to have this colour identification tool at my finger tips at all times. It's very simple to use, you take a photograph and use your cursor to pick up all of the colours within that small section.

It has been useful within my current project as I have taken photographs of my work and identified my colour pallette.

Elle Magazine, November issue 2012

Whilst reading the November issue of Elle Magazine this week, I came across an article that featured a range of up and coming designers in the field of knitwear.

These designers are reinventing innovators of the traditionally twee and kitch proecess of knitting and are developing high end pieces for a fashion conscious customer who is looking for something new.

Mei Lim Cooper (see work, right) uses knit in an unexpected way and was my favourite designer to appear in the article which identifies a wave of new knitwear specialist fashion designers.

The designs are a result of projects based on contemporary arts and quite amusingly, on football socks. The ways in which the ribbing on the garments looks like football socks is also quite humorous but helps you to see the innovative use of stitch.

I also like the way that it is quite unclear as to where you would place your arms, legs and head when putting the piece on and the design of the jumpers are quite complex- nothing like the knitted jumpers that you'd expect to typically associate with knitting.

I have also attached a copy of the first page of the article that people might find useful, but you could read it fully in the magazine which I'm sure the library will keep a copy of, page 86-87.

Prints with cut out sections

Printed digital images with cut out. Additional prints were then placed behind the original patterns.

Journeys drawings statement

I've started to explore looking at the routes I take on journeys everyday, by plotting these on the online service, Google Maps. Then, after establishing which routes I had taken, I have taken the most interesting pieces of that map and created repeating patterns from those pieces digitally on photoshop.

I have then decided not to leave the pieces as they were but develop them further. I took print outs of the new prints that I had created and then decided to draw on top of them, in a non traditonal sense. I drew a design taken from the maps I had previously found and then decided to cut away the pattern using a scalpel.

Journeys drawings

MA Show, Holden Gallery, Manchester School of Art

Thursday, 25th October.

I attended the opening of the MA Show which took place at the Holden Gallery which is situated in Manchester School of Art. I was immediately surrounded by visual inspiration that took the form of installations, photography, illustration, textile work (both for fashion and for a gallery setting) and many others.

I have already seen a few exhibitions featuring Rachel Goodyear, including an exhibition at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park last year. In this particular show, I really liked her clever use of laser-cut paper in conjunction with her beautifully illustrated, macabre drawings. In addition to this, I also found her porcelain models of birds, encased in glass to be very delicate and intriguing.

Her choice of media shows a delicate side to her work, showcasing it's beauty and quality in crafting, however this is juxtaposed against the eerie and quite disturbing images, often portraying animals as humans and growths pertruding from the bodies of animals and humans.

Debbie Sharp's installation of windows was another piece that stood out for me. The thing that I found interesting was the fact that Debbie is studying photography and this installation piece featuring sound work, animation and drawing seemed quite far removed from typical photography work. There was a clear attention to detail, a small inscription in dust on a hanging window, fingerprints could also be found in the dust. Also, the eerie sounds played into the dark installation were also interesting and often startled the viewers that were looking at the piece.