Hogwarts...Nope! It's Hereford College of Arts

Hogwarts? No its Hereford College of Arts.

Since my last blog post, wheels have been turning and I've been full steam ahead and feeling super productive and organised. It's amazing how things can really turn around on it's head once you click with something! 

I had the pleasure of visiting Hereford College of Arts and WOW, what a wonderful place. It felt like home just pulling up and parking my car and it's like stepping into a miniature version of Hogwarts. My first impressions were very good, inviting, warming and inspiring. I didn't want to leave BUT I have to consider the long journey (around an hours drive) and the impact it could potentially have on my family life..I struggle on a daily basis as it stands. Visiting Hereford really did reaffirm my growing love for textiles and how much I enjoy incorporating my photography work and skill into my designs and it's something I'm embracing and experimenting with in my latest brief...........

I'd touched on last week that we have a live brief in collaboration with the Birmingham Botanical Gardens and I've spent the last week and a half designing my print from a photograph I had taken whilst visiting there. The greenhouses are filled with tonnes of tropical and semi-tropical plants and inspiration is a plenty but for me I was really looking for something outside the box and it just so happened what I was looking for was underneath my feet the whole time. 

 A small water feature was throwing out excess splashes of water out onto the floor and in turn was creating this beautiful reflection...There it was, I was taken by this immediately and knew exactly where I wanted to go with this. In . my fairytale portrait work, I use a lot of split-toning to change the colour of the highlights and shadows and this was my train of thought for this image using the colour palette from a flower in the greenhouse. 
Using the gradient map tool in Photoshop and the eye dropper tool, selected two colours from my colour palette source image (not pictured)  and added them to the gradient map. One colour for the highlights (green) and one colour for the shadows (pink). My first response was very exciting and I love this change alone, never mind developing on it!

I'm  pleased with my first response to this print and over the last week I've really developed it......Worked on it some more in photoshop with leaf stamps, reversed the gradient map, sublimation printed and then printed again over the top of it. It's coming to life and I'm really connecting with it, It feels good and I'm passionate about using my photography as part of it. 

Something else exciting happened...My husband came home with this for me...A gin advent calendar! It's nearly Friday and I can't wait to open the first box..*hic-hic

Overall I'm pleased with how this brief is going, I've planned my work load very well and I've connected well to it and I'm feeling positive. 

Year 2...Feeling blue!

Well Hello Year 2 and welcome back to my blog (or weekly whinge....)  

  

Crikey...I don't even know where to start as since breaking up from year 1 so much has happened but what I will tell you is this, I had built up a lot of anxiety about returning back to Year 2. This anxiety has had a huge impact on my first brief (which I've just handed in....Hence the happy poo face. PHEWWWW) and my outlook in general, something I'm hope will start to resolve over the next few weeks. It's really not been easy and I'll be honest, I struggle, I struggle on a daily basis but 6/7 weeks in and so far so good. I've only cried driving home about 50  times! :-D

It's not helped either that our family lost our dear 'brother' Brendan, unexpectedly at the start of October and without getting the chance to say goodbye, I've been faced with feelings and emotions very alien to me and have put me at times into quite a "dark" place. Luckily I was able to channel some of what I was feeling into my work, quite literally!  

Going to miss you so much Bren.

Looking back on my work that I have produced for my first brief back...Although I'm pretty pleased with my final outcome and what I had achieved in constructed textiles, I'm not happy with the paperwork side of things and I know for certain this is going to let me down and affect my grade.....Grrrrr! Got to be top form for the rest of the year if I want to hit distinction targets...Not putting myself under any pressure at all *winkwink. Here's a couple of pictures of what I've been upto....I've been working hard, Promise. 

Add caption

Last week I've been given my new brief which is going to take me up to Christmas and this one is pretty exciting. We are collaborating with the Birmingham Botanical Gardens and being commissioned to design a capsule collection which conveys the attraction and to develop a tropical inspired print...EEEEEKKKKK....So exciting. A day out last Thursday to the botanical gardens with my trusty camera has filled me full of inspiration and I'm raring to go. I've got print ideas flowing and a range plan ready to put down on paper (which I'll show you next week). 

Thanks for reading you lovely folks. Until next time. XXXX 

Aaand That's a wrap. Year 1 completed! x

Whoah! What a mental, mental year!! I really didn't think I would get this far...Several times I've been ready to chuck the towel in and say Fuck it, I can't do this but I'm so glad I've stuck it out. 

Reflecting on the last few months, it’s been a time of some great highs and momentary lows as I've seen sides of myself that I really don't like and completely lost my rag when shit hit the fan (so to speak) but at the same time I think I have to forgive myself a little bit as It's easy to forget (when I am prancing around the studio being a complete goof-ball, giving my inner 19yr old a blast) I am a mother and a wife with a huge amount of responsibilities outside of college. I don't get a lie in bed, somebody to do my laundry or cook my tea every night (I'm soooooo jealous of my younger peers who still live at home!)  Going into the future and Year 2 I am going to put my inner child to bed (somewhat) and really knuckle down. Work harder than ever. Of course, I'll still be 'Fun time Abi' but regarding inside influences, I'm going to be trying and be aware of how far is too far and reign in that inner child. I tend to forget I'm nearly 34 and Peter Pan has got to grow up! BOO-HISS!! 

Last week saw our Fashion Show night and I was completely pooping my pants. The week building up to this was rather intense and emotions were flying everywhere and If I'm going to criticise myself then I do tend to get caught up in the drama. I’m too nosey and too involved for mine own good and then it all goes 'Pete Tong' and not in my favour. I would have thought I would have learnt my lesson by now at 33, It's certainly something to be aware and mindful of thinking forward for next year. I hadn't given much thought to the choreography of my catwalk, in fact I'd kind of forgotten about it. In my sketchbook, I had considered how I wanted it to look, if I was having projection, a video and the sound but no choreography. I kept it as close to my initial concept idea as possible. I like the sketchbook for this. I wasn't keen on the sketchbook when it was first introduced, which on reflection surprised me as I've always been into keeping a journal and scrapbooking but I just couldn't engage with my sketchbook. I'm kicking myself really because I wish I had started at the beginning of the hnd...It's a fantastic tool and If I had an extra couple of weeks or a month to explore more in my research, I'm certain my sketchbook would have become my best friend. I felt I was too late down the line regarding design development and research to really utilise my sketchbook but hey! there is always year 2 and I am going to use it to the maximum. 

I think overall my catwalk show went very well and I was happy in what I achieved regarding the lighting, sounds, alarms etc....There was one slip up on the night and it didn't run exactly smooth. There was a 3 second delay from the video to the warning siren but I'm not going to split hairs about it. I'm super thrilled with how my collection looked on the runway too...Coupling it with the lighting, warning sirens etc, It had a great effect and after the show I had some great feedback from audience members. They were keen to tell me that they felt awkward and on edge but completely engaged at the same time. Mission accomplished!! Look at the images below. 

    

The concept behind my collection was a slow burner and 3/4 weeks into the brief I was still nowhere near a solid idea. I had my initial response.... science, baggy, utility but that was about it and my sketchbook was empty. Holy shit! I think looking back I was exhausted, my friend had not long passed away and we also received some upsetting family news and it gets to you, it affects you and on reflection I think it affected more than I realised and in turn It had affected my work and creative mind. I'll be honest when my friend passed away, a part of me went away too. Life happens...We are here one minute and then gone the next and over the last few months I've come to learn that we must go with grief, let it take us, ride with it but always, always get off at the next stop. Perhaps in my case anyway, I'm a melancholy soul and I need to give myself some self-care in times like this. College is my chance to get away from the daily grind and leave any problems at the front door, it's something I'm going to take great care in doing next year. 

The weeks went by and my ideas eventually started to flow, much Thanks to a group critique and picking apart my ideas. I'd shied away from textiles for most of the year but I took this brief as an opportunity to really explore and embrace textiles. I got excited about textiles!!! I was keen to use my photography skills in a sort of print and thus the first textile sample was created and progressed from there. I've been quite forward thinking throughout and always conscious where can I take it to the next level. A clear progression of this can be seen in my samples folder. On reflection, I'm extremely happy with the textiles I produced and felt I pushed it as far as I could go given the time scale. If I had an extra 6months to work on the textiles alone then growing live bacteria on garments would have been the route I would have gone done as this is something of real interest to me. Maybe this is the secret to textiles...You've got to love it, got to love developing it and nurturing it. I've really enjoyed developing my textiles...I was excited! 

Please take a minute or three if you've got time and check out the video of my catwalk performance for my collection called Colonies. I've not yet watched t myself as I'm just too scared...Eeeek. Let me know what you think.  Watch video...Click on this link

Well I think that's a wrap....Time to hand in all my work and say Hello to the summer. Abi xx

Distinction Student? Me? Really?

So the last 16weeks all come down to this final moment and I'm panicking I just haven't done enough! I've been into college today to hand in my constructed work......8 garments in total. One of them is slightly unfinished as I had taken it home to finish hemming and well, my sewing machine just didn't like the heavy, thick corduroy and the bias binding. I've tried over the last 2 days every tension combination, changed the needle and bought all kinds of thread and quiet frankly I was ready to throw the ultimate bitch-fit. I guess on reflection I could have made up an extra hour at college this week (somewhere), maybe had a shorter lunch break and I would have got it all done at college but I'm not going to beat myself up about not getting 2 cuffs and trouser legs hemmed because due to my personal planning I've actually handed in a week a head of the construction deadline!!!.......A WEEK!!!   Anyway...Here's a couple of photos of me hard at work!

 

Lay-planning

Busy bee on the industrial overlocker

 

My actual final deadline is 21st June after our fashion show and during this time that I need to polish up my written coursework, evaluate and critically reflect on myself. Something I do in small doses here on my blog but I'm going to go back though all my written work and add into it in more depth. I know at this stage I'm at a merit with some distinction qualities but If I'm going to achieve a solid distinction then I've got some work to do. My tutors has been simply amazing and so so supportive and hear those words...."Abi you are a distinction student", to be honest I can't quite believe it. I'm going to aim for distinction, do the very best I can as I don't want to let them or myself down. If I only pass this first year on a merit, I know I would have given it my very best shot. Whilst I'm writing this in fact, I can't quite believe I've even achieved merits! Somebody pinch me! 

Here's a little sneak peak of my textiles work coming up for the fashion show.......My collection is called Colonies.

  

Last week I spent sometime in Romania with the IPS (Infection prevention society) and It was fantastic to get a break away from studying and feel some sunshine on my bones. My trips away (I'm in New Orleans next week...whoop whoop) are the reason I've had to be very tight and as precise as can be in my personal planning (and hand in a week ahead on schedule) but In the grand scheme of things it's something I will have to re-consider for next year...Hmmmmm food for thought.  Well...This is my last blog for a couple of weeks as I go away to New Orleans and then its the fashion show. Wish me luck guys...this momma is gonna need it! Abi xx

How beautiful is Romania?????? 

Down to the last three weeks!!! Have I planned my time correctly??

Crikey I don't really know where to begin but it seems rather apt to want to shout a bunch of profanities *BLEEPBLEEPBLEEP. I am down to the last 3 weeks (including this week) of construction and guess what....I'm away for a week of that. Good job I've been keeping myself on track in my diary and planning my days. My diary looks something like this!

  

The last 12 weeks look something like these pages...Epic planning even documenting why I couldn't complete a task or when Ryan was poorly and I couldn't get into college. Despite being a 'grown up' and a mommy, planning my time has never been my strong point. I'm usually happy to do a lot of procrastinating and then panic at the last minute. At the start of the HND I very much had this outlook but I soon realised I wasn't going to pass my first year by procrastinating and expecting my tutors manage my time. Daphne's Diary you have saved my life!

Check me out working....I actually feel like a real fashion designer  or a contestant on the Great British Sewing Bee haha!! I wish..It's nothing like it and far too much paperwork involved. The middle photograph (Thanks Jo for snapping me) is me on the industrial overlocker...The machine of nightmares. Its super fast, super super fast and as it binds your raw edge it slices it at the same time to neaten it off. It's a scary machine to operate but I really wanted to embrace it and grow my confidence using it. So far so good...Few slip ups when I pressed the pedal down too quickly as the the motor quickened and it ate my fabric. Ooooops!

 

I must say I'm beginning to really feel the pressure of the impending deadline and how much work I've got to do in such little time and I could easily chuck the towel in and give up, perhaps not even return to Yr 2 in September but then I come home to this face and remember part of why I am doing this...For my little boy. I want him to look at his mummy and at least say...She tried her best. Abi xx

Trying to remember how to blog!!

Crikey it's been awhile since I blogged last and I think I've forgotten what to do! I've had nearly 3weeks off for Easter and the time off with my family is just what the doctor ordered but I did have to put some work days in, Starting with getting my sewing studio up and running.

All up and running...Finally had carpet put in!

Sewing station area

                                                  

 Really wish I had taken some before photos but to be honest this garden room was a complete embarrassment and a hoarders paradise! Any of my friends that read this will vouch for me when I say it was full from floor to ceiling and side to side with stuff! Stuff I just couldn't bear to part with but as the demands of my HND were becoming greater, I've had to get this room sorted and serviceable. First port of call was to get it emptied and get the carpet down on the floor, then re-assemble (and throw away) everything. I'm super pleased with what I achieved in the first week of Easter and I've used it so much already! In fact, getting this room sorted has give me the tools to crack on with toile production in my own time and get myself ahead of my own schedule.

Coming back to college last week, I felt in a great position. I had completed my toiles at home over Easter (my new sewing studio) and this had given me a bit of a head start back. My first port of call was to tackle my oversized kimono block. I've been adamant that I don't want any arm seams in my top as I wanted it to be one complete piece. I'm feeling quite confident In pattern drafting and so set to work by myself using the Aldrich book for reference (make sure im on the right track) and came up with my own pattern for a batwing oversized kimono top. I enjoyed the mental task of problem solving this pattern, then technically drawing it. I'm really proud of my achievement here.

My self made and drafted pattern

The Aldrich Bible

Arse-end from Elbow...I dunno!! O.o

I'll be honest and say, at present I couldn't tell you my arse end from my elbow as I suffocate in a sea of dot and cross paper and right-angle rulers as I start creating my paper patterns (from scratch!) Well actually from my basic blocks and adapting them to fit. Up until Christmas this was completely alien to me and rather daunting but It's become my favorite thing to do and I love pattern making and draughting and I feel it's something that comes quite natural to me. I've not needed much tutor input and have worked very independently. I like to keep my silhouettes simple and perhaps this lends itself  to my confidence in pattern making.

My range plan pictured here below is made up of simplistic designs, minimal fuss and includes textile elements that are the feature of the garment. I'm keeping my base colour simple-Khaki/Olive green and will bring it to life through my textiles. Watch this space!

FMP Range Plan-Colonies 

FMP Range plan-Colour

I've been having some more fun down in Ceramics this last week.I needed to plan in time to make my final eva foam textured elements and I thought no time like the present really as once I started pattern making and constructing, I was going to be hard pressed to find the time to make the final piece. I've made my final one on a much larger scale and its roughly the size of a side plate (for comparison).

Clay ''petri-dish'' inspired mould

After being used with the heat vacuum and foam

In other news, Our HND group had a small exhibition on at our local shopping mall for Spring fashion week. I'm flipping proud as punch for all of us. We've all worked so so hard and to see our work being displayed and our names in 'lights', it really justifies to me that its all worth it. 

On reflection from this last week I'm feeling in a pretty good place and going at a steady pace. I've created 2 toiles and have draughted 4 out of 5 patterns and I've still got 9/10 weeks to go. I'm feeling a lot more chilled out in general to my work load and panning my days in my diary has really helped. I'm also remembering what was said to me in my 1-2-1 feedback and that is to have more confidence in myself and just chill out! So I enjoyed a chilled out day at Croome court over the weekend with my family. Thanks for reading and as always...I really appreciate the endless support. I really couldn't do it without you! Abi xx