Creative block...I wish it would block off!!!

First day back blues...*sob sob! It's only because I miss this gorgeous face so much!
 Time with my little boy seems so much more precious to me than ever before..He's growing and changing so much, so quickly 😔

MOMMMMM!! Stop taking
photos of me!

Today was my first day back at college and well....It was a day of
UN-productiveness for me! I had a complete block, creatively. Nothing would flow, no inspiration for my work, blank pages I just couldn't put pen to paper, scribble or anything! My last brief (Opposition) inspiration came immediately and I flew with it. This time around I've been staring at the same blank pages for a couple of weeks now, letting it manifest into a bigger problem, completely overthinking it and blocking any creativeness. I'm sat at home writing this feeling rather deflated......BUT I'm still smiling. I'm going to be working on myself a little, stop overthinking and just let inspiration come and go to town with it, need to stop being so regimented in my working and loosen myself up a bit. On a different note..I have lost 6 inches of my hair!!!! Check it out...Whit-woo

  

Last week we all went to a trade show called MODA at the NEC. A fashion wholesale show of some description. It was great to see some catwalks in action and get inspiration for when we organise our own fashion show....So exciting! Here are a few piccies.

As always I like to also let you know what I've been up to in my photography work.....Here is a quick, short timelapse of my recent self portrait..

And not forgetting....myself, Ed and Steve (@IGblackcountry) launched our first Instameet. Here is the sign up link is anyone is interested in attending. Sign up here

Thanks for reading guys and gals. Much love. Abi xxx

A moment of reflection.

The start of a new brief always fills me with great enthusiasm  and Inspiration but I'll be honest and say..It's hard to keep the motivation going. Life appears to get in the way, I caught the dreaded lurgy and had a week off college, I lost academic hours due to helping out other students on photo shoots, leaving college early due to inspection and taking part in a fashion event but really what it's highlighted to me is that I just need to be a bit more organised in my college work and in my home life. I really didn't think I was going to make the deadline submission for tomorrow but I could have cried tears  of pure joy, handing in my coursework today, one day early! Large G&T for me tonight.

My print inspiration came from a photograph I had taken of the Milky Way over our New Year break. I crystallized the image in Photoshop and placed it inside the Astronomical symbol for Oppostion...One big problem though, I hadn't made the line that is joining the 2 circles together thick and dark enough. Unfortunately they just look like circles and when I printed onto my final garment, the joining lines were not visible at all. *Note to self-Do a test print of the final print!

After I did my final print, I joined right sides together to start to pin so I could join the seams. I couldn't get my head around why one was larger than the other as I had cut the 2 pieces together in one go! There was a 4 cm difference off the bottom and a 1cm difference around the sides. Literally wracked my brains for 10mins as It was really bugging me and It dawned on me..It was the front  that had shrank and it was caused by the heatpress when I applied the sublimation print. The heat had really affected my 80% poly 20% cotton blend. Polyester being a synthetic fibre had reacted to the heat. I worked out that this equaled a 3.5% amount of shrinkage for that panel. Luckily enough my garment is very oversized and could handle the shrinkage. I had a little bit more of a disaster when It came to hemming the bottom curves..I had not put in enough notches and lacked the technical abilities to hem this correctly. Another lesson learnt..*Don't be afraid to ask for help!

On a positive note though..I am so bloody pleased with my range plan. My fashion illustration skills are really coming on. I'm being consistent throughout and using my fashion model template I made. I feel super confident illustrating this way. I'd like to make some outfits from this range and It's something I'm thinking of doing at home. 

  

I've got to say...All in all I'm super pleased with myself. or this brief our tutors wanted us to work independently as possible and to be self directed. A concept I wasn't thrilled with to start but something I've really embraced towards the end. I've proved to myself that I can actually do this..No matter how tough life gets! On reflection..I'm happy with my final garment and It's not to dis-similar to my original vision. I should have intensified the colours for my final print as they  came out rather faded and not as punchy as I would have hoped (despite doing a test sample..It just didn't work out!) and I could have done with adding some kind of interfacing support to my seams to help support the structure of the curves. I'm ok with it though..It's the reason I've come into higher education again..To Learn. Anyway...Cheers. G&T waiting for me. Abi x

I grew crystals on a glove (random) and I've been inspired by John Lennon!

I didn't blog last week and for a very good reason. I was laid up in bed with a mild strain of the flu (Flu B) and I'm not 100% still to be honest but can't afford to be poorly when I have deadlines to meet and garments to make...EEEEEKK!

Our brief this term is called Opposition (I may have mentioned this in my last blog post) and It's very much self directed. A teaching/working concept I have struggled with due to my own lack of skills and knowledge in fashion, design and textiles. My tutors are always on hand and they are still teaching us and supporting us but we are being set free to explore our own creativity and see where it takes us. It's something I'm embracing and I'm excited to see where my creativity takes me!

Researching about Opposition I was quickly taken with two subjects-War/Politics and Astronomical Opposition. From my research I learnt that Astronomy is quite on trend at present and It's also something that interests me a lot. I've been enjoying astrophotography and I thought I could incorporate some of my own photographs. I found an awesome astrological manipulated image on Pinterest and my design development kicked off from there. I also found an actual astronomical symbol for Opposition..Everything really started to fall into place and I've been really focused on building this idea concept....Winner, Winner, Chicken dinner.

On a few occasions now, I have chatted with Rachel about the idea of growing crystals on fabric. Again this is something that really appeals to me and I could imagine creating a gown of grown crystals for a fashion shoot or something. I set myself a little challenge at home to grow some on a glove (I had lost its pair!) It seemed a shame to throw it away so I put it to good use...Check out the photo! After making up a heavily concentrated saline solution..I soaked the glove in it  for 2 days and then let it dry out for 5 days. I was so pleased with the result. Its got my mind whizzing!

Photos are coming soon..I promise! I'm going to start blogging a couple of times a week. Break up the blogs into easy, readable and digested write ups, rather than one long post about the whole week. Anyway...Some piccies below.

Salt crystal Glove!!!! Amazing!

Astro John...Outta Space. Peace

Concept Board including my own
 image of The Milky Way

Design for Oversized, conceptual Sweater
with my image, printed on in the pposition
symbol

My Milky way photograph, manipulated, crystallized
and put into Opposition symbol

As I was quite poorly last week I didn't shoot my week 27 self portrait but I did manage to edit a couple of pictures from a workshop I attended some weeks back! You can check  them out here on my Facebook page and I'm super excited to announce, We (@igblackcountry) will be announcing our first Instameet very soon...If you are interested then head on over to our Facebook page here or follow us on Instagram @igblackcountry to keep up to date.

Night Night folks xx