degree over!

This post has been a long time coming but I have made sure that I took pictures on my journey to here. I have finally finished my degree officially after four years of sheer hard work and dedication. I just hope it all pays off when I find out my degree grade!

Since my last post I have been working at all hours trying to bead my fabrics and embroider my designs. For now I am posting up some images of what I have with me right now.

The above image is just a small snippet of my Final Graduate Show 2011 at the Baltic in Newcastle Upon Tyne.

 This image was taken as part of the Graduate look book to help promote us to industry.

 The images of this green silk dress was just to see how the dress fitted on the mannequin.

 The Baltic show area. Such a stunning place!

 The Great Fire of Byker! A scrap yard caught fire and apparently followed by a series of explosions. I took this image whilst walking across the Millennium Bridge to the Baltic.

Just a double spread from my portfolio displaying my work for this collection.

digitally printed fabrics

I am so happy right now! I finally got my digitally printed fabrics, well some of them but the rest are on their way! I did however spend three hours of my life hair drying 10 metres of fabric! I am lucky I haven't caused myself to have repetitive strain injury. I still have another 15 metres to dry. For all of you that are wondering why I didn't just throw them into the tumble dryer, digitally printed fabric once printed is steamed to fix the colour and then you have to wash the excess colour out on a cold wash in the washing machine. However due to shrinkage (sometimes up to 10% of original fabric size) you should avoid the tumble dryer at all costs as it may shrink it further. Here are some photos I took whilst in the middle of drying them.

There are still another 15 metres to go! watch this space.

arts thread

I have recently handed to a tutor some work with what she is going to help us publicise ourselves in the fashion job community. As hopeful recent graduates (to be!) I hope that this increase my potential of getting an awesome  job. Below are the pages that I have submitted from some recent projects.

portfolio is killing meeeeee!

So it is coming close to the deadline for portfolio hand in's but I am trying to juggle them all at the same time so I do not leave any of them behind or forget about them, that would be utterly disastrous. Graduate Fashion Week 2011 is sponsored by George - Asda this year and they have sent a national competition for students to take part in and the best ten will be displayed on their stands.

My theme is Mini Varsity. So cute little kids, boyswear to be specific. Here are just two of the pages I have done so far. My look sheets are in progress as we speak.

Watch this space I will be uploading my design looks as I get them finished. :)

abercrombie & fitch

After about five tries I have managed to "perfect" my Abercrombie & Fitch project to the best of my abilities. I just hope it will be good enough for my interview with Sports Direct on Friday. I have managed to work my style around A&F and believe that I do bring my own design handwriting through my designs and illustrations.

prints

I have been uber busy this week designing my prints for digital printing. It is so stressful trying to manipulate designs so that they look fresh and original. I have also been very busy last week arranging pattern pieces to send for laser cutting. All in all I spent £400 just last week buying fabrics for printing, leather for laser cutting and the postage. It is absolutely insane where my money is going nowadays. Should hopefully be worth every penny come show day.

Here are my patterns to be digitally printed so far. I will be putting up screen shots as it is easier than saving jpeg files right now!

The above blank spaces will be filled with traditional shisha (mirror) embroidery but instead of mirrors I will be using flexible flat back sequins to avoid adding extra weight to the fabric as this will be printed at a length of 2 meters to cover the front and the back of my t-shirt.

I love this think. The bright lime colour of the faces and the yellow give this print a very summery feel.

I am definitely having second thoughts about the above chilli print I do not feel that it is a as strong as the first chilli print. Any suggestions?

laser cutting express

I am so happy to have finally got my pattern for my laser cutting pieces going. As simple as the shapes are I will be introducing a separate pattern piece under my laser cut sleeve to have another sleeve underneath. The underneath will be hand printed using procion printing onto satin silk and will show my colour off very vibrantly which is the effect I am going for.

These images are of me working on Illustrator to achieve my pattern. The blue lines going through the images are the ruler guides for all you who do not use illustrator very often or at all!