So I've been thinking about creating a blog for a long time,
but I didn't really know where to start or what my first entry should be? With
my ever growing thoughts of wanting to do textile design and creating my own
scarf line, I took myself off to London College of Fashion to take a course in
textile design....with this in mind I thought an account of my time with some pictures
of my work, what better way to getting my blog kicked off!
Day
One
I travelled to London to take part in the course and as
I'm not a local travelling to Limegrove was a bit of a novelty, I managed to
arrive on my first day at 9.25 for a 10.00am course! Oh well it's good to be
early and have a sometime to prepare myself. At 10.00am we met our tutor
Dominique L'Olive, who would fast become our oracle of all things textile (even
referring to Dominique as Mr Miyagi).
Our first task was using the heat transfer
press, we sketched some ideas as well as using various items from a magic box
of tricks that was full of different items such as cotton reels, lace and
different trim. I found an amazing piece of lace that I kept the whole week to
use in my designs.The idea is the heat from the press will transfer the ink designs to the fabric pressed underneath. I tried and tested lots of different ideas, getting lots of funky results. I also Found out that should I want to do this from home all I would need is a dry iron.
Day
Two
Day two was all about the stencilling and
open screen printing, we started by designing basic stencils that would need to
be cut out with a scalpel and cutting board. I'll be honest at first I found it
really difficult cutting out the shapes, I kept tearing the paper, as it was
so thin! Using the scalpel just didn't come naturally to me; I guess it is
probably something to do with fact I hold my fork and knife the wrong way
around!! This was the day, I decided I wanted to stencil a candy skull, with
all the day of the dead trimmings. My only problem with this design was I just
couldn't get the idea in my head and how I was going to stencil the layers! I gave
up on this idea for the day, deciding on something a bit easier.
Day
Three
We did more stenciling and printing using
the screens, this time I started printing on my t-shirt. I obviously needed the
night to think over my day of the dead skull because I came into college as
fresh as a daisy knowing exactly what I needed to do. I also used this time to
finish some of my designs and added more layers. As well as printing we had a
go at wax painting and dying the fabric. I didn't find this as interesting as the other methods we
tried.
Day
four
After my test candy skull it was time to
have a go printing my t-shirt, On day three I also took the opportunity to
visit poundland where I found all sorts of goodies that could be used to print
onto the material and create really cool effects. My classmates had also
brought in lots of fun bits and pieces that would be interesting on the heat press.
Today as well as finishing some pieces we learnt about shibori, the art of
sewing shapes into the fabric to create resist prints. We also learnt about
pleating fabric as well as painting a block of colour on paper and using lacy
fabric and other items to create resists. I managed to create a
skull shaped stencil on previous days and kept to this theme throughout my
designs. The lovely Melissa one of my classmates brought in this super cool
spider lace, which worked amazingly on my skull design. I also found a really
cool method of peeling the Velcro from rollers and using the inside to make a
cool print pattern. As you can see I also got a bit too obsessed with the violet
ink.
The last day at the London College of
Fashion! It had gone by so fast I had lots of ideas and Dominique had given me
lots to think about in terms of starting up my label. I had promised
myself that once the course was over I would really get things in order and
start being serious about doing my textile design. Today we were introduced to
a really quirky method called foiling, which for someone like me with a penchant
for bright colours it really appealed to! We also had the chance to use
some templates with our material, which really gave us the chance to put our
designs in context.
I
had a great time studying textile design and trying different methods and as I
said before I came away with lots to think about and hopefully I can make
success at this. I met lots of lovely people who I hope to stay in
contact with and exchange tips and advice with in the future.
Thanks
for reading, how was that for a first post? I would be interested to hear from
anyone that happens to stumble upon this blog and gives it a whirl.
