Something I’ve learnt over my time studying textiles is that
mistakes aren’t always bad. The solution to a mistake you make
can actually make you see your design in a completely new light and often can
give it that little extra bit of originality which it would not have had otherwise.
This is what the main inspiration for one
of my current projects was. I wanted to make something that made room for me to
make plenty of mistakes. This way, the creation process of the item becomes more
of a journey than a ‘process’ and the end result is unknown even to me.
As part of my course syllabus I have to
make a skirt, so the decision of what to make obviously was fairly simple. So I began with my usual scribbling some badly drawn designs onto a piece of paper and after a few sketches I settled on a final design which you can see below.
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These are some of my initial ideas. I just did a few quick sketches and quickly found they
were all pretty similar and that I already had an idea of what I wanted fixed in my head.
(I got a little carried away and designed some tops too, maybe I'll make them later if I
have time)
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| Here is my final design of my skirt. (The pencil is definitely not strategically placed to cover a badly drawn arm... nooo I'd never do such a thing, ahem) |
The fabric I chose is a soft basic cotton
with a criss-cross pattern in a gorgeous light blue colour. The fabric is beautifully light
and summery, which is perfect for a half circle skirt as it will sit perfectly over the hips and still keep a little bit of volume as it hangs.
The pieces of the skirt will also be cut on the bias (diagonally to the direction of
the grain in the fabric), which will give it the circle skirts characteriscal
shape.
Now, the section I want to focus on most is
the embroidered lace. I am using a special type of base for the embroidery
called Avalon film. To put it simply
it is a type of plastic that desolves when you put it in warm water. Once washed
away the resedue of the Avalon Film left on the thread dries and hardens,
thusly helping hold the shape of the threads. This allows me to create the
shape of the lace by intertwining all the threads and string onto the Avalon
film. I need to make sure all the threads are attached otherwise when I wash
away the Avalon film the threads will simply fall apart and that is not what I want, as you can see. I have decided to
include beading to the lace to add to the ‘mess’ aspect of it, but also to give
the skirt that little extra sparkle (love a bit of sparkle).
I’ve never worked with Avalon film before,
which is one of the reasons I decided to use it; more room for mistakes.
It’s actually incredibly refreshing
allowing myself to make misktaes (I realise there is a typo but I decided to leave it because I thought it was quite a good pun.... yeah? No, okay moving on) because I have so much more freedom than if I
was working towards a specific design. I find myself working for hours without
realising it.
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| The making! I'm slowly getting there... very slowly. |
So far, as you can see from my pictures I
have made the top section of the skirt and I’ve almost gotten to half way with
the embroiered lace, which is taking a fair amount of time.
For now I guess all we have left to do now
is wait until it is finished. I’m rather excited to see the finished result. I
do hope it works…
TO BE CONTINUED… (always wanted to put this on the end of
something hehe)
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