Todo List

Today has been somewhat productive. Although I haven't been called in to fit my dress to the model. I have been doing some more sketch book work. I have gone through my book and made myself a little todo list so I know what needs to be done. I work well with this technique as sometimes I get side tracked so this list will keep me focused and not confused with what needs to be done.
I have also breifly looked at what a spec drawing is. A spec drawing is a 2D drawing of your garment. This is important as the manufacturer needs to know what the garment looks like. Tomorrow I plan to create my Spec drawing and finish off my sketch book work as I will not be in on the Friday as i'm going away until the folowing Monday; Hope it's sunny!

Today I haven't been called in to fit my garment.

So instead I have been doing some sketch book work which needs to be continued. I have been amending my patterns; making sure they all have the right markings on, such as my name and grain lines.

I have also been on the machine and sewed together my remaining side seam but only up until the zip would begin.

Hopefully tomorrow I get to fit my dress.

Fingers crossed (Y)

FITTINGS WEEK!

Today is Monday and that means it's the beginning of fittings week!

I wasn't expecting to be able to fit my dress today but when I was called in, I was very excited and nervous. Unfortunately my dress did not fit the model but I did have a slight taste of how to fit a dress.

The model I had met today was a lovely girl. She had a figure to die for!

Yet she thought she was fat because she couldn't fit into my garment!

This gave me an insight into how each model must feel as there is a lot of pressure on a model; to be able to fit into a garment.

Even though I was not able to fit my garment today, hopefully I can fit it some day soon as I am going away for a long weekend. Through my own doing I have put the pressure on.

Today I have been doing bits and bobs in my book and finishing off some pages. I will be doing this for the rest of the week until I can fit my dress and make amendments.

Todays progress

Today i feel like I have achieved a lot as I have completed sewing on my 2nd and top layer to my shell. I have found no problems with this except my second layer needed to be sewn abit more as I had over locked the whole side which wasn't needed as the audience at the fashion show would see it. I feel that I can complete my dress by the end of the day; well, fingers crossed. I know I need to wait for fittings week before I can add in my zip and sew on my facing. All I need todo now is sew my front and back together.. wish me luck!

Lay Plan

Today we have learnt about the aspects of a lay planl; which is basically a way of working out how much wasteage you would have with laying your patterns out on fasbric. A lay plan is created by lying your patterns onto fabric and calculating how much fabric you need and how much it would cost and avoiding wastage. A lay plan is important to the industry as 'it's all about the pennies' This is my example of a lay plan.

Garment making

Today I have started to manufacture my dress for the fashion show after completeing my toile. Today I came in with a positive attitude and although I am waiting for one last piece of fabric I feel that I could have done more if it wasn't for my stressed out attitude towards the machines as they kept on comming lose and gathering at the bottom. (but a good worker never blames his tools!)
Although today I have sewed together my front and back pannels for the shell of my dress and then I tried to sew my top layer but because I have had issues with the machine I will have to carry on later.
Tomorrow is another day..

Todays progress

Today I carried on with making my garment for the fashion show. I started the day a little late as I had to travel to Chester to pick up some more interfacing. When I arrived at college I set off pinning my 2nd layer back piece onto my copper fabric and interfacing. After proceeding to do that there was then no stopping me. I knew what I had to do today and no sewing machine was going to get in my way! Today I have sewn my 2nd layer front and back panels together and bagged then out, the same as also doing my top layer panels and bagging them out. I feel like I have done alot of work today and I van't wait to see what the end result will look like!

Lace making workshop

I have learnt how to lace make. This is my example:

To lace make you simply use a sewing machine to sew on some wash away, making sure that you overlap as once you put the wash away in warm water it disolves leaving you with your nely made lace.

I decided to incorporate some fabric to add to my overall design and to experiment on how my lace would look for the final outcome.

I find that lace making is a very useful technique to learn and that I will consider incorporating this technique in my accessory.

Batik Workshop

Out of all the workshops I attended; Batick has to be my favourite. I think that Batik has many similarities to Tie dye as both techniques are a process of resist dying of textiles.
Although I feel that Batik is more effective as the process is more creative as you can choose your design and simply.. Go Wild

This is my first attempt:

In my experience I found that Batik-ing was slightly difficult as you have to own a steady hand and patience is a virtue, The main aim of Batik is to use your utensil to guide the hot wax onto your chosen fabric.

Sounds simple? Think again.

Occasionally the wax would become abit 'excited' and jump out of the utensil and onto the fabric which me and my peers found abit frustrating. After situating wax onto your fabric you must then wait for the wax to dry therefore you can either paint, ink or do what you want to the fabric to add colour.

But one problem.. how do you get te wax off?

Well, you simply place your wax riddled fabric between two pieces of newspaper and simply iron. Now, the heat from the iron extracts the wax away from your fabric which leaves you with your Batik styled design.

I found Batik very interesting and enjoed trying this technique out. I found that this technique was very effective so I decided to use it in my accessory.

Reverse applique Workshop

This new technique I learnt in just under an hour: This was created by selecting an object from my observational studies. I sketched out the iron and then cut away sections to reveal the colour from the other page (which I painted blue as the iron was blue).

Knitting Workshop

The next workshop I atteneded was a knitting workshop. I already knew what knitting was but I had never attempted to knit myself so I was intreauged to learn the technique.
After finally starting off I found knitting difficult but then as time went by I seamed to get the hang of it so much that I was able to change wool colours.
I found that knitting takes alot of patience (patience that I don't have!) and I also found that useing smaller needles made it look neater as my first attempt was scraggily. I feel that if I were to have more time and practise I could consider useing this technique but for now it's not on the cards.

Applique Workshop

Today I took part in a workshop called Applique. I have never heard of Applique before never mind had experience in makeing it. Although once Applique was explained to me it wasn't that hard to manufacture.
Applique is a technique used in many aspects of design, textiles, fashion ect..
It consists of cutting out a design in different types or colours of material and then place a piece of material that somewhat acts like double sided sticky tape (Can't remember the name of it) And then iron on the patterns in the right sequence and you have your pattern.
I found ironing on the sticky material to have a slight problem as I had ironed the wrong side but I quickly ammended this problem by taking off the sticky side before it had set.
After sticking down all the fabric we used a sewing machine to go around each side of the material.
This gave off a really good effect. I found this technique simple to achieve and learn. I feel that this technique is very effective and I will consider using it on my final accessory. This is my applique sample. I took the design from an observational drawing I had done.