Final degree show up and ready

All the hard work has finally paid off and the Degree show is up and ready for the private viewing on the 23rd May. Below are the final images of the show and also some close ups of my blankets and cushions.

Re-upholstery finished

Below are some photos of my final re-upholstery. I believe that they work well as a collection and that the comparison in old and new doesn't stand out too much but works well.

Degree show building progress

The start of the degree show built and everything seems on track, with a few hours of team work, lots of white paint and muscles put to use the boards are up and everyone is starting to put up their own show designs.

A few final designs for the project in hand

Business cards arrived

So after lots of deliberation I finalised  my business cards and ordered them from moo.com, they got delivered and I am really happy with them, finally things are starting to feel real and the end of University is coming together.

Wide warp beginning

Finally the weaving on my wide warp has begun, lots of patience was needed for threading this up. A double cloth 90cm wide warp with one wool warp and one cotton. But finally the weaving has begun and I am very pleased with the outcome. So much so I wove my first blanket in under 2 hours as pictured here below. Before the degree show starts to go up next week I plan to finished weaving this warp and use the blankets in the show and one piece of hand woven fabric to create a new upholstery for a foot stool.

                 

Cushions coming along

For my final degree show I will be displaying a selection on hand woven and made cushions, these it have began to make after finishing my hand woven samples to choose cushion covers from. Although none of the designs are the same pattern, the colours I have used, I feel, make the cushions work well together as a collection. This is still a working progress as I have two smaller scatter cushions to make yet but below is a photo of the four finished ones so far. 

                  

Woven fabrics

Below are some designs that I have woven on the jacquard today, I will be using some as small samples, one as a blanket, and one will be the new upholstery of my chair that I have prepared ready for its new fabric.

                             

                                  

                              

Final colour palette

I have finalised my colour palette eventually for this final project, It will use similar colours to those shown below. Grey and cream shades with various blue tones and hints of dusky and bright pink to add highlights to the interior collection of woven materials that I will design and create. 

Easter

As time is now running so quickly, it's nearly time for that last ever Easter break of uni. A lot of last times have been happening recently, the last time I will thread a new warp at uni, the last time I will create and present a design seminar showing the ideas behind my work. 

It makes me sad and happy to come to the end of uni; Sad that its all over and I won't be doing what I do best day in day out for a while and seeing my close uni girls. But also happy because I am proud that I have finally made it to the end and accomplished and learnt what I have on the way and met the people that have given me hope and inspiration to continue with my designing lifestyle.

After Easter will be the final push to make sure I create the design work that I aimed to and to display it in a way that best shows its uses and craftsmanship. I know it will be a very busy few last weeks but it will totally be worth it to see my work finally hung and displayed how it should be in the Degree show on May 23rd. Derby Uni has brought me a long way from that shy little college girl I used to be, with not enough confidence to show my imagination and express it within my work. I will be very happy to hopefully (fingers crossed) be a graduate of this university and begin my life as a textile designer. 

Market research

Texel Loom

On my Texel loom I have been creating many different designs, some which are more textual and some that are more graphic. I have been using similar yarn colours to those I have used on the jacquard as then I feel that my designs will match more. The idea behind my hand loom designs is that they will be washed, pressed and ready to be made into cushion fronts; this is coming along nicely and I have about 15 designs ready to choose from to make some final pieces for the degree show at the end of this academic year. 

Soon the warp that I am using at the minute, which is a double cloth to make thicker materials, will run out and I will have to create a new one, I have decided to use the same yarns and same threading structure but to make the warp wider so that I can weave bigger pieces out of it and create hand woven blankets for the final degree show.

Below are some of my hand woven designs in progress on the loom.

Ottoman

I am currently working on transforming a few pieces of furniture as you can see from previous posts. One the the pieces that I am re-upholstering is an old ottoman that has been passed down through the female generations of my family. I have woven this design below to go onto the ottoman.

The colours that I have woven it in are slightly different to those shown here on the screen, they are a copenhagen style blue ( to match the chair paint ) a dusky pink and a navy. They all contain wool, the navy being 100% woolen and the other two are wool/cotton blends. I really liked the design once it was woven and can't wait to wash and cut it ready to re-upholster this classic style piece.

Visualisations

I have drawn and digitally edited some designs of my chair and Ottoman to create visualisations of what they may look like when they are complete. I intend to keep the designs quite simple with the use of two of three yarn colours.

Below are the chair designs. I have actually painted the chair the Copenhagen blue heritage colour which is the colour the design on the right hand side is. I have further to explore with my design and material ideas so the fabric for this is yet to be chosen. 

Below now are the designs for my ottoman, I think that the variations show that It may look different depending on how much pattern I want within the final fabric used. I think that I need to incorporate the Copenhagen blue colour into the yarn choice for my ottoman so that the furniture pieces match.

Starting transformation

Slowly I am beginning the transformation of my Lloyd loom style chair, I decided that I wanted to keep the heritage look of the chair and so I have chosen a blue paint from Dulux heritage collection called Copenhagen blue. There were many colours to choose from but I wanted to lighten and brighten the chair up so I chose a classic colour but not too dark. 

My reasoning for painting the chair before deciding what woven material I want to use for the upholstery is that I wanted to know what colour exactly the chair turned out to be. This is so I can then try out dark and light fabrics to see which works the best. I might also decide to alter the chair colour around the plaited trims to adapt the finished design of the piece as a whole.

Below is the chair painted in Heritage - Copenhagen blue.

Upholstery idea

For my final degree show I want to display the idea that my weaving designs are for interior fabrics and furnishings. I have come up with the idea or upholstering a few objects to display alongside blankets and cushions. 

The items that I will be upholstering will be pieces that would mainly be used in a bedroom collection and they will have character. The furniture won't be new modern designs. This Lloyd loom style chair is one of the items I hope to alter and create new from old.

I want my collection to work in my degree show as a whole collection and look like it belongs together, to do this I will have to collaborate simple and technical designs onto different designs so that they look good together as one. 

Lace repeat designs

As a part of my project I will be including repeat patterns into my designs, I love working on Photoshop to edit and create these designs from something so simple to something beautiful and unique. Some of my designs are going to be felted and made into blankets which I will then laser cut. I want to introduce different ideas into this by using simple and also details designs As a Variation.

Below is me designing on Photoshop, the imagery for this design came from a drawing from a photo of a railing in Paris.

This design below is a finished repeat design that I will weave on the jacquard loom. The inspiration came from spirals and swirls of architecture mixed with the idea of lace holes.