Hearts

I've recently had a small commission to produce some

wedding invitations, above is a selection of the designs.

Below is a montage of the card motifs -made into a small

picture, that the bridegroom asked me to produce as a gift

for his bride, because she liked the invitations so much!

How sweet is that? (for both her and me)

At New Designers

This is a picture of my part of the Bradford College stand at New Designers.

(I won't put up the pictures of my cohorts work, as it is their decision whether to publicise their work and not mine, and copyright and all that...)

When setting up we paid great attention not to over clutter our stand, we did not want to over burden the viewer with too much visual information, we wanted space to let the work breathe, as we are all have very different approaches and work in different styles and media.

So we (our stand) did stand out as being rather sparse, but also had a refreshing look, plus there was the lack of digital prints and lazer cutting, all rather new to Bradford College -hey where once Bradford was at the cutting edge of textile manufacturing, the last 40 years has been very hard on the city- but the college is trying very hard to revamp its' image, though I'm afraid it may always loose out to the bright, shiny, glam lights of Leeds. But I think the support and openness it gives to such a broad spectrum of students is worthy of celebrating.

My Degree Show

Here is a snap of my degree show at Bradford College from June 2009.

I think it shows that there is a breadth to my work, though I need to

catch myself now before I start to get too negative, but unfortunately I

don't think it is very "mersh", but then that was never my intention.

I was just trying to make a collection that explored some of my thoughts

about mans' interaction with flora and landscape, the paths trodden,

the routes explored, the transformation that can take place. I was in a

very abstract state of mind! In the real world now!....

...Completion

`

The completed garment. 

Back view, I have put a couple more buttonholes

onto the back straps, and another button on the

waistband for added adjustability.

The purse pocket, I'm very pleased with how well it has

turned out, my only quibble is that because the clasp is

only 10cm wide it is quite awkward to get your hand in!

I should have sewn the lining much smaller so that one

doesn't have to delve too deeply into the pocket.

The buttonhole pocket with the lining fabric as a

contrast for the placket. There is a bit of bunching

of the lining fabric, I did sew the lining pocket so that it

was a bit smaller that the outer pocket, but obviously

not enough.

Nearing...

The moment of truth - glueing the purse frame onto the

pocket tab, note the masking off of the surrounding area.

The glue is quite strong and whilst it peels off metal,

it does what it is supposed to and sticks very well to fabric.

The magnets have been sewn on with a buttonhole

stitch that just catches the main fabric, hopefully the

stitches won't show too much on the right side.

The sew on magnets, that will be used to support the

weight of the purse clasp, so that it can lay flat against

the body of the garment.

The pocket tab turned to the right side - looking good!

Here the woven hair canvas has been sewn with the main

fabric and lining to create the purse tab.

The final piece was made up in the same way as the toile, except that

the linen fabric has a much softer handle than the calico used for the

toile, so I used the same medium weight iron on interfacing that I used

for the pocket fronts, to stiffen the back straps.

I also used a sew in woven hair canvas - not bought specifically, but a

remnant left over from my youthful home dressmaking days,

I thought it would be ideal to stiffen the purse pocket tab, to give more

support to the shape, yet not be too stiff.

I spent quite a while positioning the paper pattern pieces onto the

fabric, as the printed pattern is quite large there were gaps where

little occurred, but I also wanted to try and retain a sizeable piece

of fabric for a sample.

Lining Fabric

The lining fabric has been simply printed onto a white cotton

base with the same blue/grey ink that was used for the main fabric.

I thought the linear pin pattern could be used for the waistband and

straps, the wire hand for the pocket linings, and the large thread

flower for the bodice...we shall see...

Printing Fabric

A detail of the print, I rather like it. Pity it has to be cut up!

The final large screen has been printed.

Two screens have been printed.

Oops! I didn't remove the masking tape from that registration

point before a print was taken.

Printing in process, variegated stripes of red ink.

Network of masking tape corners, that plot the movement

of the screen and the subsequent print.

I put the relevant screen over the acetate, so that they

matched, then marked the corners of the screen with

masking tape, so that the print would register in the

correct place.

I marked where the first screen would go, by placing

the acetate where I wanted it to fit with the other pattern.

I marked the fabric where the repeat would go, using the

tracing that the screen was made from.

I decided to go for a fairly subtle effect with the blue grey ink

for the main pattern, with a mix of the reds and

the green grey as other detail.

Deep red, bright red, pink red ink.

Light green, dark green ink.

Blue grey, green grey ink.

Above are some tests to see the colours that I am using for studio

work on the fabric. They are translucent pigment inks.

I decided to use a linen that has a faded denim look - with a white

warp and navy weft.

Initially I was going to use a denim fabric (it was much darker than

the photo depicts) for the garment, I did a test to see if the fabric

would discharge, as you can see from above it didn't work,  I didn't

want to use an opaque pigment ink as it may have blocked up the fine

screen, and I am not especially enamoured at the ink sitting on the surface.

So I had to look for a different fabric?