Month: December 2019

During the course of this term at Uni, my health was not great and I ended up not attending uni very much, apart from the odd hour or two when I was up to it. Throughout this time I tried to keep up with my work as much as I could on my good days at home, and it was only really when the deadlines started coming that I realised I was behind and needed extra time to account for this and catch up properly, but also give myself the time to get better.

As term is ending, I was given an extra month to ensure that I was up to date with my work over the Christmas period. I know in the upcoming weeks I am due a few appointments too and I am confident I will start to feel better given the time over Christmas.

I wanted to make a brief plan of action over the holidays to try and finish what I need to, which is as follows.

Saturday 14th December 2019 – Moving out weekend, return to Carmarthenshire, unpack, sort Christmas presents out

Monday 16th December 2019 – Finish as many gaps in sketchbook as possible during the week, drawing, painting, textures

Thursday 19th December 2019 – Annotation of sketchbook and research file

Friday 20th December 2019 – sort out fabrics in preparation for stitch samples

Saturday 21st December 2019 – Stitch out samples – Free machining, applique, quilting

Monday 23th December 2019 – Check research file, look for more artists research

Friday 27th December 2019 – Look over feedback for patterns and redefine them

Thursday 2nd January 2020 – Watch some Mat Rhys tutorials to further redefine quality of patterns

Friday 3rd January 2020 – blog catch up day

Monday 6th January 2020 – Continue annotation of sketchbook and research file, check patterns and order fabric samples

Tuesday 7th January 2020 – Explore choices for fabric collection, what is my target market? Look through fabric samples and choose some that would be suitable

Wednesday 8th January 2020 – Sort out emails, finish stitching pieces, take photographs for blog and blog about recent events

Thursday 9th January 2020 – Check everything is done and packed, pack up everything ready to move back

Friday 10th January 2020 – Continue blogging

Saturday 11th January 2020 – Move back to Cardiff, research into paper printing shops nearby and get paper products printed

Sunday 12th January 2020 – Finish any gaps left in sketchbook and research folder

Monday 13th January 2020 – DEADLINE

I finished a rough idea for my patterns, they were I felt at a good place, I think they did need more work but as the paper was cheap to print at uni I wanted to have a good at a small giftbag and card and envelope to see how they will look. I printed my patterns and had a go at folding the bag up, it did not go exactly as planned however it did take shape enough to see how it will look in terms of colour and pattern.

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The bag as shown here is good, I like the pattern on the gusset I think that works particularly well, however I do wonder about whether it would look better with the pattern all over it and a block of colour on the side or something, this could also be something to explore in the coming weeks. The card I quite like, I think maybe lightening the font a little and maybe changing around some of the other elements of it would be quite interesting to try. I like the inside of the card, maybe playing with a slightly smaller scale on this as well as the envelope could be something that would work a little better here, just it seems very obvious that the motifs are cut in half at this size, but I think it would look silly if the cut in half ones were just removed, leaving odd gaps. The gift sheets of the dragonflies and the beetles I enjoyed making, but I think theese can be redefined to make a little more interesting to look at, with some varying scales maybe.

I ordered and chose a range of paper samples from various companies to find a good quality of paper that I wanted to print on. I ordered sample packs that came back, including some that contained business cards and press pack things that could be useful later on as well.

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I liked the range of different papers and packs that I received, some clearly for printing paper and others more aimed at products like the business cards. I also found a foiling pack which I thought would look really good on my products, especially as I was aiming them as more upscale NEXT market rather than a cheaper brand.

Working more into my patterns was an important part of the process to make sure the collection was as best as it could be, I wanted to work more on most parts of it as I think they could all be improved.

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I worked on redefining the positions of the motifs first on the tiles which I think makes them look better already, I think the texture in the background really works too as I particularly like the one with the white background, with the blue texture giving the little pop of colour to contrast the red bugs in this one. Im not sure about the spot texture in the beetle one, I may revisit this one again to try something different as I just do not think it is catching.

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I have shown two colourways of the dragonflies here, I like both and I was unsure about using the patterns backgrounds all in white. I think another colourway of the beetle too would be good to see which looks better for this.

Right now the collection looks like this, with possible colourways for the dragonfly and beetle, and a thought about changing the bag completely too by getting rid of the front and back design and replacing it with the gusset pattern, this is something I want to think about further.