Group Tutorial with Robin and Eleanor

Today we had a group tutorial with Robin and Eleanor to discuss final plans for our film and any possible location ideas we had.

We all took along our larger knitting samples along with our film narrative and some drawings of the mound on a model for the film.

Robin and Eleanor really liked our idea for the film having a powerful narrative behind it and thought the arm knitting combined with the finger knitting would work really well. they also suggested sourcing some old knitted garments from charity shops to add more volume to the piece without it taking up hours of our time knitting. They also thought we could use wadding underneath the mound, as long as it wasn't too visible when we began to unravel it.

We then discussed our possible location ideas for the film. The window display in Fred Aldous was suggested, however we want people to be able to touch and feel some of the knit samples that will be on display, so we decided against that space. We all wanted a clean white space that we would be able to project the film into, along with installing the remains of the unravelled mound in the space. We decided to carry on researching through the provided list of venues as well as going to the northern quarter and looking around to see if we could find anything suitable.

Collage

These are some collages I did of how our mound could look on a person, from a more fashion design perspective...

As we have been discussing different textures and materials for the mound I tried to incorporate this idea into my collages with images of my own knitting samples all combined together. 

Mound Research

In preparation for our tutorial with Robin and Eleanor on tuesday, I did some more development of what our mound idea could look like, along with possible inspiration for music/lighting/mood of our film etc.

I started to look at knitwear designer Johan Ku who's gold label produced some 'wearable sculptures' in chunky, natural shades of knit. I like the work of Sandra Backlund, however Johan Ku's work is more raw and organic looking which I thought fitted in really well with our project.

For the music, we talked about something that started off slow and calm, then built up into more of a beat, to match the growing panic in the model as she realises she is loosing her youth.
This is a list of the songs I have found to maybe accompany our film...

Gabriella Aplin- Panic Chord (Hucci Remix)
Imagine Dragons- Radioactive
Lana Del Ray- Summer Time Sadness
Lana Del Ray- This is what makes us girls

We are going to have more of a group discussion about music just before the filming, as we dont really know the exact mood the film will have until it is made.

Group Meeting

Today we met up in the art cafe again to discuss the outcome of our tutorial with Sarah last friday. We all agreed that the knitted outcome needed to be a lot bigger than we had first imagined to make more of an impact in the film. We also discussed different methods of making a mound of knitting this big. I took along some of my samples of arm knitting just using woolen yarn and the rest of the group really liked the 'net' effect that it created. Shannon and Laura had also done finger knitting which created long chunky tubes of knitting that we thought would look really good draped over and woven into the arm knitting. Laura had also experimented with knitting strips of bin bags and then ironing them to fuse the knitted structure into a sculptural sheet. We all thought this was really effective, and it is a quick way of getting a lot of volume and contrasting textures into our knitted piece. We are going to carry on developing these techniques using different materials such as duck tape, bin bags and jersey.

The other point we discussed in the meeting was the narrative to go behind the story. We all liked the idea of the knit representing a persons youth, and then as this is unravelled and taken away from them they start to loose control and try desperately to hold on. Today however we introduced the idea of the model who is wearing the knitting trying to patch up and repair the decaying knit with brightly coloured contrasting pieces, much like women use plastic surgery to mask their ageing bodies. However in the end even this cannot stop the inevitable process of ageing and everything will return back to its original state one day.

This is the narrative that will now accompany our film written up by Shannon...

Ageing is inevitable in life but it has become a fear for many woman in the 21st Century. Adverts for creams, hair dyes and treatments are constantly on television and plastic surgery has become a multi million pound industry. This piece represents a woman unable to deal with her youth disappearing from her and is trying to ‘patch up’ what she has left. In the end we are all going to age whether we choose to do it gracefully or not is our decision

Arm Knitting

I started to develop my knitting based on the tutorial we had with Sarah on Friday. The main point that was made about the knit was that the scale was too small and didn't have a strong enough impact, so I started to think about ways I could make huge pieces of knitting quickly.

I did some research into arm knitting which creates a net-like structure of large loops, almost like blown up knitting. i thought it looked really effective and would be a contrast to the more dense machine and hand knitting that we had already made.

I developed these pieces just using the yarn I had from my initial samples, then with multiple strands of yarn and finally curled strips of jersey...

Tutorial with Sarah Easom

Today we had a tutorial with Sarah to discuss our research so far and how we can develop this into a final outcome. I took along the research and drawings that I had done in my sketchbook over easter along with all of my knit samples. We met up as a group before the tutorial just to quickly discuss our collective ideas so that we had a solid decision as a group when we were talking to Sarah. We would still like to make a stop motion film focusing on age and decaying identities portrayed through the knitting as a huge 'mound' on a person.

In the tutorial Sarah suggested that we were being too safe with the concept and scale of our final outcome. She liked the idea of a stop motion film as our final outcome but thought that we could go a lot deeper with our research into identity and ways to convey a strong statement with the imagery that we use. She also suggested having a narrative to drive our film forward and give it more of a purpose.

I agreed with what she said, as it made me think much more experimentally about the scale of our knitting piece and also the message we want to give through the film. We have agreed to meet up again on tuesday to talk about what we discussed in the tutorial and bring any new ideas with us.

More knitting!

Ive been developing my knitting on from the original samples I created based on the colours of rusting and decaying buildings. This time we have chosen to focus more on skin and the textures and colours that come with the ageing process.

I experimented with a combination of thicknesses and finishes of yarn such as metallic lustrous yarns and fluffy, thick woolen yarns. I also started to weave different types of yarn in with one another to create a variation on stripes.

Here are some of my new samples...

I also started to experiment more with natural fibres such as raffia and chord to create different textures.

Hand Processes

Later on that day we also had a workshop with one of the textiles tutors teaching us some different hand and machine embellishment techniques.

We were introduced to couching and a decorative machine technique on the Bernina domestic machines. I am used to these machines from using them at A-Level so I really enjoyed learning how to do this new sample.

Here are some of my samples from this workshop...

Zero Waste Pattern Cutting

Today we had a lecture from Fiona Mills about zero waste pattern cutting methods. I was shocked to learn that 15-20% of fabrics used in the fashion industry are thrown away as wastage at the pattern cutting, however with this method every piece of the fabric is used in the final product. Zero waste pattern cutting plays a big part in eco friendly fashion but it is not a very well known or widely used method so I found this lecture very interesting.

Fiona started off the lecture with a brief history of where zero waste pattern cutting first came from. The idea of using every piece of the fabric dates back to some of the earliest garments in existence, that were made by draping and wrapping a large piece of fabric around the body without cutting or sewing to make a shape.

Modern zero waste methods however involve creating a pattern or several patterns using the entire length and width of a piece of fabric. Consequently the choice of fabric size is key to the shape it will create.

Fiona then introduced us to some modern designers who work in this way...

Timo Rissanen- 

minimal seams pattern cutting

Mark Liu- 

integrates his trims and decoration 

into the patterns

Holly McQuillan-

tessellation pattern cutting

Lastly she discussed the use of excess fabrics being utilised throughout a collection as trims, accessories etc, which is a really easy way of quickly reducing the unused fabric left over. This lecture has really made me think about my own pattern cutting practice and has definitely encouraged me to reduce my own fabric wastage by applying some of these methods. 

After Easter Meeting

Today we had our first group meeting since the easter holidays. We all brought along the bits of research and sampling we had collected individually so that we could have a group discussion about the direction of our project.

It was really interesting to see the different paths everyone had taken with their individual research, from a fashion outcome and drawings to textiles samples and photography.  As we all talked through our ideas, we had many links and similar ideas which, as a group, we then discussed how we could develop each one. We all found that we had researched into three main areas...

 -decay

 -ageing

 -knitting

We then discussed ways to link these three main themes together with a possible final idea/concept. We decided to push through the knitting idea as it is something that we can all contribute to and the textures fit in really well with our decaying/ageing imagery.

We then had a meeting with Eleanor to explain how we have moved along as a group from before easter. We explained our ideas and the ideas we had had together, and she gave us the idea of including the concept of entropy and how we could link in our fashion research to the idea of identity and how this changes over time. 

These are the notes from this discussion... 

                                                

                                               

We talked about the outcome of our project being a stop motion film as that would directly involve the film and media students who don't want to do any of the knitting/sampling. We also decided that to give our film more depth and make it more conceptual we are going to come up with a narrative to direct the film based around the idea of ageing and how this affects identity. 

Easter Research

Over easter I sat down and realised that I had bits and bobs of research and notes and blog posts and didn't feel like I had any sort of visible train of thought or process through my work so I decided to consolidate all my research into a sketchbook to keep it all together and allow me to see how I can move on my various ideas.

I started off my sketchbook with some studies of elderly peoples faces and features, in particular the eyes and skin.

I then started to tie in these drawings with images of Iris Apfel and the elderly style icons from the Advanced Style blog along with some decay images of buildings and architecture around Manchester from 175 years ago. 

From these images I then began to experiment with different ways of showing these textures and surface qualities. I started off with creating some knitting samples based on the colours and densities found in my images. 

I think my ideas translate really well through knitting as it shows the uneven surfaces of the buildings and the ageing skin, my plan now is to develop some machine knitting samples focusing on these textures.