Leggings toile

On Friday's lesson I made the toile for my leggings. The fabric I used to toile them with is slightly more stretchy than the fabric that I will be using for my actual leggings. Once I had sewn them together, I found that the waist was way too big, possibly because the fabric was really quite stretchy, however I amended this. To fix this problem, I pinned where the waist needed to be smaller, I then cut off the excess and used the over locker to sew the seams back together. I then took a piece of elastic and used that as the waistband, I sewn it into the waistband and used the cover stitch  machine to finish this.

Sports bra/ crop top toile

On Friday's lesson we carried on making our sportswear toiles. I made the sports bra/ crop top and found that there were some adjustments that I needed to make. I used a stretch jersey type fabric with similar properties as the fabric I am making the real one out of so this was helpful. However, I did notice that because the fabric was so stretchy, and it stretched quite a bit both ways, the top tended to stretch out of place often. I had to make a few adjustments to my construction piece and pattern pieces. In addition, it seemed that the front of the top was too low and would not be appropriate as a sports top, therefore I had to add an extra piece of fabric to make the front higher slightly.

Artist inspiration

Jake Garn

Jake Garn is a photographer from New York who uses different types and sizes of triangle that are placed on areas of the model that want to look sharp and complete, such as the legs, face or torso. I have chosen to research this photographer as he uses triangles in his work and I have also used triangles and sharp lines in work in my sketch book, whether that is by stitching over images in triangles, or drawing using fine liner pens to create interesting patterns. I have also made sure I have incorporated triangular shapes in my final designs; I have designed a jacket that has cut out triangle shapes on the back of the jacket, with one of my prints showing through the shape.

Gareth Pugh at London Fashion Week 2016

Gareth Pugh at London Fashion Week 2016

Article about Gareth Pugh 'modern female power dressing' collection

http://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/fashion-show-review/gareth-pughs-female-power-play

Line up of six final designs

This is the line up of my six final designs. I have created a 'head' to go on top of all six designs, and I also found some trainers with pom poms on however they weren't the colour I wanted so I altered the colour on Photoshop giving them a more purple hue. I believe these final creations reflect and emulate the work of designer Gareth Pugh and Sweaty Betty, and I look forward to making the images on page come to life during manufacture. I have also attached the logo that I created for the collaboration.

Running Shorts Toile

On Friday's pattern lesson we began making our first toile's. I decided to make my most simplest garment first which are the running shorts. I think they turned out well and as expected, they fitted correctly (size 12) and were fairly simple to make. However, I had made a couple small mistakes; I had sewn the binding on around the edges of the shorts, however I had sewn them the wrong way into the waist band, therefore this caused the binding to twist to the opposite side slightly, this is something I will have to be mindful of when making the actual shorts. In addition, I didn't sew the binding on one side of the shorts into the waist band which meant they frayed slightly, this is something else I will have to make sure I don't do when making the shorts. Here are some images of the final toile of the running shorts;

What I did today...

Today we did a workshop focusing on how to use different techniques when it came to fashion illustration. I experimented with techniques such as collage, paper manipulation, using the fine liner to create different shapes, using Brusho, and stitching on top of pictures of faces . I  thoroughly enjoyed doing this as it has taught me to be more creative and has introduced me to new materials and methods of how to create interesting illustrations. Here is what I did:

For this illustration I have used the technique of simply using a fine liner and ruler, to create triangular shapes onto the models' face. I chose to experiment with this style as I have incorporated a lot of triangle shapes in my sketch book and into my designs also. I will use this illustration combined with another one for the heads of the models of my line up.

I think this illustration is very interesting as I have gone with the triangle theme by cutting the image up into small triangles and then stuck them back down onto a plain piece of paper, leaving a small gap in between each shape to emphasis the shapes. However, I thought that I could make this illustration look more fascinating therefore I stitched over the models' eyes in pink and purple thread. These are the colours than run throughout my sketch book and designs. I will be using this in conjunction with the above illustration to use as a head for my final line up of designs.

Further continuing with the stitch theme, I found this image of a model wearing an over-sized sweater and I tried to outline this using the stitch method, I also stitched long lines above and below her eyes.

I don't think this piece is effective as you can't really see much of the models face. However I think that I have tried to encourage the triangle theme in this illustration, but I don't think I will be using this one.

This illustration is interesting with the clash of the colours from her eyelids to to purple and blue splatter across her lips, chin and cheek using Brusho. I like the colours but I don't think that they exactly relate to my project, therefore I won't be using this one as a head for the final line up.

Prints

These are some of the prints that I have created using my own drawings or painted prints and then uploaded into Photoshop and changed their hue/saturation, brightness/contrast and colour balance. I will be using some of these prints in my final designs, and I have also sent the majority of them off to Bags of Love to get them printed on a variety of fabrics to give me ideas for what I could develop them into for my final pieces. I have stuck with colours such as; black, grey, white, purple and pink, and shapes such as; triangles and squares, because these are elements that I want to feature in my final designs.

My visit to the National History Museum

I decided to visit the Space exhibition in the National History Museum in Liverpool, as I thought that the patterns stars create would create interesting prints to incorporate into my designs. To develop these ideas I used Brusho in different colours that created the same effect as the stars make. I will further develop these Brusho prints onto Photoshop and I will change the hue/saturation, and the colour balance on these prints.

Tate Liverpool

Tate Liverpool

I visited Tate Liverpool in the Albert Dock to gather some inspiration and primary pictures to put in the sketch book, here's what I found:

 This is a sculpture that was displayed in Tate, it is made from black painted wire. This will inspire me when designing my pieces as I think that it links well with my themes, 'caged construction' and 'contoured lines'.

 This is oil paint on canvas by Franz Kline (1960-1), I thought that this piece could inspire me if I wanted to create my own print, and I think that this pattern would look great on a pair of running leggings or a top.

 This is another sculpture and this time it was made out of black felt, which I think would be an interesting fabric to use that could feature in my collection. I was thinking that a felt jacket with origami-like patterns were embedded into the fabric to give it a futuristic and caged contoured look.

This is an image of a mirrored piece that looks 3D. It can be an optical illusion, because some people may see cubes and others may see diamond shapes. I think this is interesting, and would be good if I could develop it into some sort of print and have the print feature on a garment, for example a side panel on a pair of leggings, or a long sleeve running top.

These are the staircase in the Liverpool museum in the Albert Dock. I find the spirals of the stairs reflect the contoured lines theme and I would like to be able to use this as inspiration and develop it into something that would feature in my designs.