The final week of creative kitchen comforts

Hello everyone! Just a quick little post to show my development for the creative kitchen comforts stall. It is now two days until The big Christmas fair up in Edinburgh and I am just doing the finishing touches to my cushion and tea towel collection. Katie is baking away in the kitchen trying to create all her, I think I'm right in saying 600 cupcakes. With 4 different flavours in the making, the flat is filled with delicious and comforting smells. Very tempting not to try one!

Here are my 30 cushions completed as planned, with 30 tea towels to go with it. 

All I've got to do now is pack it all up and away we go. I will be back shortly to give you pictures of the stall. See you soon! 

Heritage Heirloom Project

Now that I am settling into third year I thought I'd give you a little insight into one of the projects I am doing at the moment. It is a very personal project and I am really enjoying it. This project is called 'HERITAGE heirloom'.

  A question we have been told to consider is:

How do you begin to develop a textile which will be an item treasured in years to come?

After researching and considering my options and the various things that personally inspire me, I have decided to base this project on my garden.  I am inspired by nature and textures and my garden holds a beautiful variation of these inspirations. Because I am so far from home up here in Edinburgh, I haven't been able to pop home to collect images and draw so I have had to make do with the images I have go on my laptop. Luckily I have a wide range of images that I have taken over the years. 

 These are two moodboards with collected images for inspiration from around the garden.

Inspired by the texture from one of our chickens.

I collected a piece of bark to see if I could create a texture inspired from it. 

What I have decided to create is a bed spread for my parents bedroom. There is more to it then just this though as I am going to have 3 sections each representing the three children. One for myself, one for my twin brother, Max and one for my younger sister, Daisy. I would love to create something that can be taken apart and rejoined, so that one day when we leave home and start up our own families we can take away our section and add to it. 

After giving out a questionnaire to both my siblings and parents, it gave me an idea as to what images I will place onto the large piece of fabric I intend to make. This piece of fabric will be 4 feet by 4 feet 6. 

A colour palette I found on pinterest that is similar to the colours I want to create and that will complement the colour theme of my parents room. I just had to add this image into the blog post as I think its absolutely beautiful. 

These are images of me experimenting with the composition for my quilt. Its completely different working at this scale but its a really good lesson and makes it come alive. I've really enjoyed doing this. 

Here is an insight into some of my sketchbook pages. 

The long process of dying begins! 

Initially I was trying to get a grey, but as I have discovered grey is not all that easy to get. Every recipe I created seemed to turn blue, although fortunately the blues that seemed to appear are in my colour palette anyway, so all is good. 

 I have used a cold water procion dye bath which takes up to at least 2 to 3 hours but if you are clever with your time then that isn't a problem. 

 After discovering how ambitious it was to get a grey with the dying, I decided to give desperse dying a go which is a dye you create with water and different coloured powders. This liquid can then be transferred onto paper, for example, with a brush and then it is put into the heat press for 40 seconds and there we go, that its. So a lot quicker than dying but for me, there is something special about dying up your own fabrics. So I will continue to use dye baths. 

Again, the grey I was intending to get kept going blue. So I have settled with a bluey grey. 

 Now I am starting to think about different techniques. My piece will have a combination of dying, printing, appliqué, cut work and embroidery. 

I will be back soon to show you my progress. The next post will be about my Creative Kitchen Comforts personal project. See you soon! 

Creative Kitchen Comforts continues..

My name tapes have finally arrived!

I've gone for a simple white label with an embroidered mid-grey font to compliment the simplicity of my designs. 

I visited this lovely fabric shop in Edinburgh called Mandors where I bought 64 buttons. I wasn't surprised to hear that they didn't have that many in stock so the 50 remaining buttons will be posted to me shortly. It was a pleasure looking around the shop and the staff were very friendly and a great help. 

Because I've started my 3rd year of my textiles degree I now don't have the luxury of time like I had in the summer holiday so I'm just having to fit this personal project in when I get a spare moment during the weekends. 

My idea of a pretty perfect afternoon. A cup of tea, looking at a view like this and working on my cushions. And apologies for the creased fabric, it doesn't agree with all this moving around. 

Better get sewing! 

http://www.mandors.co.uk/

Creative Kitchen Comforts

Just a little picture to show the influence I've used for my thyme designs.

I've now made 20 cushions and have learned how to make button holes so its now just down to completing the finishing touches to these already made 20. I hope to make at least 30 all together, however, if I can make more, I will. I am also going to make tea towels as well and I plan to make about 40 of these. I shall do 20 Thyme and 20 Lavender. 

 I bought a 4 metre strip of fabric and cutting it out neatly requires a fair bit of patience, but it still love it despite this! Also, you may have noticed that I'm working with a 30cm ruler here. Not ideal at all. I really need to buy myself a bigger ruler at some point. I've been using a picture frame to enable longer lines for the time being which actually has been rather effective. 

Just a little photo to show you all the lovely threads I've collected over the years. Even just looking at this makes me happy. 

I will be back soon to show the progress of the tea towels and finished cushions. 

Creative Kitchen Comforts

In December two of my lovely friends and I are having a stall at a christmas fair up in Edinburgh. I was asked a few months ago if I was interested in having a table so I thought, hey! Why not! It could be fun and also its a great way of 'making a name known'. Katie and Katrina were the first people to pop into my head. We've all got very similar tastes and I think we'll all work well as a team. Katrina is a great friend from my textile class and Katie is a very good friend of mine from halls.  

A quick background behind how this name 'Creative Kitchen Comforts' came about. Katie is the chef of the group, so we wanted to capture her skills and base our stall around the kitchen; which is no hardship on my behalf. I think there's going to have to be a fair bit of food tasting going on. What a shame. To compliment this, we have decided to create little kitchen comforts, for example, dish cloths, hand towels etc. So, not only are we creative, but its for the kitchen and they're little comforts for the kitchen. Simple really!

On the side to this joint idea, I have decided to do my own personal project. I am going to create cushions and possibly some tea towels that have been inspired by herbs from the kitchen garden. I know we're only just into August but I have decided to get a head start on this as I know that when I get back up to Edinburgh to start my 3rd year, it's going to be pretty full on. Getting a bulk of it done now seems like the sensible thing to be doing. 

So far I have made 2 cushion designs but I intend on designing a third one as well. Here's a little insight on how I've got on so far. 

Inspired by Thyme. 

Each cushion is slightly different. The way I work best is to just put the needle to the fabric and do it all by sight rather than have a fixed design. I like how they are all individual. It makes them more special.

So far I've made 8 of the thyme cushions. So much more to do.

Inspired by Lavender. 

Playing around with the layout by using real lavender picked fresh from the garden.

Snapshot of the making in progress. 

The first lavender inspired cushion. This design takes a little longer than the thyme cushion as it is a lot more detailed. 

I will be back soon to show my progress!! 

Alternative Material Progression

Alternative Material Progression

So having explored alternative materials for interiors, the next project we have been set is a progression project from the previous 'Alternative Interior Surfaces'. We have been asked to take what we have learned and to now further develop our own interests in materials and techniques. Along with this we have each been given a selected source to further our development in exploration for content and technique. We have been given a sample specifically chosen for us in order to help challenge our perceptions and push us off hopefully in new directions without letting go of what we have learned over the past weeks. 

The piece's that have been individually selected for 

us are very precious and valuable. Because they are so delicate, we have been asked to examine and study them in a clean space well away from any paint, ink or messy materials.

These beautifully embroidered piece's are so delicate and wonderfully considered. These will have taken a skilled practitioner many hours to produce which is often forgotten. I am interested in the techniques of stitches used and this is the area in which I will push forwards when starting my sampling for this project. It is a two week project giving us sometime to explore different possibilities. 

 What I particularly love in this detailed close up is the delicate cut out areas. This will also be considered within my samples as I find this technique very interesting and effective. 

We have to consider which materials we can further explore from the previous project whilst thinking about how our new textile will influence our materials choice. Studying the selected influence is essential as we have been asked to show a relation/influence from this piece which should be incorporated somehow into our samples. How can this be integrated into my previous explorations? Where can I place this body of exploration of new experimentation? 

I still want to use the same materials that I used in the previous project, however I am wanting to move away from the interior concept and focus my attention on jewellery as this is something I have always wanted to have a go at and I now feel like this is the perfect opportunity to do so. I feel that the wire mesh in particular is very beautiful when it has been manipulated and it will compliment the simple and considered ideas I have in my head for my sampling stage. 

These necklace's will be my influence. They are from the Anthropologie website. 

http://www.anthropologie.eu/en/uk/necklaces/ton-sur-ton-beaded-bib-yellow/invt/7412437535901b/&bklist=icat,5,shop,jwlacc,shopbyjwlacc,necklaces

I particularly love the pink necklace. Not only do I love the punch of colour but also I think its really interesting when looking at how the piece has been constructed. The way the yellow thread roughly and loosely loops together to  connect the pink repeated leaf forms together. The regularity of shape is one to note. The use of repeated forms although yes, it is simple, is a very effective way of working. The changes in scale is also interesting. The contrast of the organic pink leaves against the straight repeated beads gives a playful yet sophisticated appearance. The highlight of bright orange brings another dimension into the piece, giving it a sense of depth. 

The sample stage

As this is a two week project I have also decided to stick with my original colour palette as I am happy with the colours. I will however minimise the range of colour, keeping it simple with just three tones. If you followed my previous posts recording the 'Alternative Interior Surface's project' you will remember that at the end of week 4 I concluded that I needed to consider the nail and mesh situation. They're not exactly soft on the skin hence the sore fingers I had gained by the end of week four. Ouch! One thing I did want to try in particular was experimenting with flock and aqua suede. If you are unsure what flock is here is a link to a website explaining - 

http://www.swissflock.com/english/dokumente/Textilbeflockung_e.pdf 

Having tried out both the flock and the aqua suede I felt that the best of these two processes was the aqua suede. Transferring the aqua suede onto the flat wire mesh, I then manipulated the wire organically into the form I wanted. As for the nails, in the former project I only continued the wrapping of the thread down to the middle where as here I felt that by slightly changing this idea and covering the whole nail not only makes the nail look less severe, but it also gives a nicer and more considered finish.

Just a little insight into my own little sweatshop. Although the end product is lovely, the process behind it is rather long. I do like this stage of a project though as by this time you've done all the experimenting and now its just a matter of plugging in your iPod and getting on and doing it. 

Whilst in my experimentation stage I also wanted to try working with the mat. Using the aqua suede I then used the coated nails to manipulate the material into a particular shape. Keeping the comment I mentioned earlier about repeating a form, this is what I tried here. I particularly love the pink nails against the pretty stone colour. I think these two colours look rather beautiful together. 

Now I've got the samples done its time to think about the structure of my final piece. I quickly pinched the lovely Emma as a mannequin to play around with the placement. Sorry about the colour of top!

End of week 1! Next week I will think about how to cover the sharp tips of the nail as well as start on my final piece.