The New Designers Exhibition!

Me and 8 other students took part in the New Designers Exhibition in London last week. It was amazing!

This is our stand...

We were all very fortunate to get interest from several companies in different parts of the world. It was amazing and definitely beneficial experience and I would definitely recommend doing this if you are reaching the end of your creative degree.

I enjoyed every moment of this experience and it was great to meet new people and make new contacts. From doing this exhibition everybody now has decisions to make regarding their next steps in their careers.

Well done everyone and Good Luck for the future!!

The Degree Show!

This is what my final degree show at Bolton University looked like.

I had 3 canvases, two of them were embroidered by hand and by machine and are intended for soft furnishings or as they are. I also made a throw which was quilted and patchworked together.

Everyone has worked very hard and our effort has paid off with the amazing work we had on show. Did you come to see it?

Now I think a well deserved break is in order before New Designers and GRADUATION! :)

The Embroidery Stitching.

This is a shot of me on the sewing machine hard at work. The machine stitch wouldn't have taken that long if I didn't have to keep on moving the embroidery hoop around to keep it tight.

 

 

really enjoyed doing this part of my design because I can't get enough of the sewing machine. The only downside is it hurts my back after a while. I can't wait to have the chance to do it again.

The Printing.

Woohoo!

It was so exciting to see my final designs printing to their full size. It didn't take as long as I thought it would either because I managed to get my designs steamed as well in the same day and ready for washing so i could embroider them.

Have a look at how it happened...

 

 

 

Don't they look good. I am so proud of myself haha.



The Final Designs.

Number 1.

 

I am very happy with this as a final design. I think it is a suitable design for a throw and it will be of a higher market level once embroidered. I love the structure of this design and the combination of floral and geometric elements.

 



 

 

Number 2.

I love the stemmed flowers in this design and I like how I have combined them with the offset leaf idea. I like the way I have added the geometric background because I think that is what makes the composition work.

 

 

Number 3.

This design I love for the different geometric patterns on either side of the floral composition and the offset leaves I believe are what makes this design successful. Once i have added embroidery to this design I think it will rise higher in the market.

 

 

I am so pleased with all three of these designs and I love the colour palette I used. My inspiration for these designs came from websites like Designers Guild and magazines like Linum. 

The Next Inspiration.

http://www.next.co.uk/shop/category-bedsets-0 

 

I love these bed linen designs by designers of Next for the colour, simplicity and choice of flower. I think these are great and I would love to have a kind of structure to my designs in this way. 

 

 

 

 

These designs from Next are at the lower end of the market when compared to Selfridges because there is a great difference in price of product. I think my work has the potential to be at the higher end of the market but I would like to cater for all if possible.

The Design Ideas.

My plan when creating my design ideas is to create bespoke, one off pieces that are one large composition. I want to do this because I obviously prefer working this way and I don't like always working in repeats. I believe that working with one whole composition allows you to show off your embroidery skills in every way you choose and that isn't always as easy when dealing with repeat patterns.

At the start of this module I had three collections but now I am down to two collections instead. I am only designing for two collections now because I am looking to manage my time effectively and if i want to do embroidery in my work then I can't give myself too much work with not enough time.

I am designing my Beatriz Milhazes inspired collection to suit the outcome of a throw and my embroidered florals collection will be geared towards a bedding outcome.

So... Let's get designing!

The Missoni Inspiration.

Selfridges.

http://www.selfridges.com/en/Home-Tech/Categories/Shop-Home/Home-accessories/Cushions/?ic=19832&llc=sn&ppp=min&mrf=Category

Here is the link to selfridges home accessories section on cushions. I have found a few inspiring soft furnishings by looking on their website and also visiting their shop in Manchester. These are some examples of the ones I like best.

Missoni.

 

I really like these four cushion designs by Missoni for the mixture of geometrics and florals. I think my designs are similar to these because of the black and white flowers with line and the use of simple geometrics. I love the structure of these cushion designs and I aspire to produce work of this quality. 

The Composition Ideas.

 

These compositions contain my floral imagery in either realistic, stencil or outline form. I have tried to use a mixture of the kinds of flowers from my initial research stage and combine them to give myself an idea of the possible outcomes they can achieve. 

My fave!

 

 

 

 

 

Each of these composition ideas would be intended for interior products. I like all of these ideas even though a couple of them are quite basic. When creating these compositions I have tried to create a different structure of pattern on each idea, I think i have achieved this and there is plenty of room for potential embroidery techniques if these ideas were to be taken further. 



The Artist Linda Florence.

I came across the works of Linda Florence purely by accident but what I found was really interesting and impressive.

I love her combinations of geometrics and stylised florals and her compositions are amazing. I love her choice of structure and the simple selection of colours really works well. 

The Artist Stasia Burrington.

Here is an artist that was recommended to me by a friend. I love how she has combined florals and geometric patterns to create these interesting patterns. Obviously some of her subject matter doesn't apply to me but what I am focusing on is how she has managed to integrate all the elements to create such innovative work.

Her works are beautiful. I really like her use of colour with the black and white, I think it is very effective. 

The Leaf and Flower Structures.

These worksheets are a combination of leaves and flowers in the style previously stated but in a range of compositions. I have created these by using those cut out flowers that were photocopied earlier on in the module.

 

I love the structure of these two worksheets because of the limited palette and the simple arrangement of leaves behing some flowers. These two are possibly my favourite.

 



 

 

This sheet below is purely an experiment with my flowers and line. I wanted to see if the offset leaf idea worked just as well with the flowers and looking at this I just don't think it is to the same standard.

 

 

Unfortunately on these next few worksheets I had a problem scanning my images in. The scanner seemed to be dirty and it has left this horrible dark line down the sides of my worksheets.

 



 

 

These worksheet I like but are yet to be finished. After I scanned one of them in I had to make the colour bolder to show the emphasis on the stems leading to a point at the bottom of the page. I like this idea of using a bunch of stemmed flowers and I may research this further.

 



 

The Offset Leaf.

The offset leaf was yet another factor of my work discussed during my half way review and there was little or no evidence of my development of these at this time.

These are my offset leaves so far.

I am really happy with each of these leaf styles. I like the small groups that have one or two different colours and finished with a linear version of that particular leaf. I love this way of working with leaves and I think the results are very interesting and there is definitely more that can be done with them. 

The Neutral Collection.

My neutral collection, collection number 3 is the development of a collection from last semester. After the review of my work and time frame it was discussed the idea of discarding this collection and having only 2 to handle.

This collection may still be an option if enough time is available but at the moment the future is bleak for collection number 3.

The 7th Week Review.

My review for reaching the half way point of the module went well. Each of my collections were discussed and my plans for what I would like to make.

One issue that arisen was the foam jigsaw idea. It turns out that to produce four of these poufs of a decent size and weight would be quite costly and not appropriate at student level. Also, I was having trouble with creating compositions that I would be willing to cut up and that would still look as good as separate pieces so it was decided that the idea to create foam jigsaw poufs would be scrapped but I can still reference it in my sketchbook.

Now this idea was out of the question, other ideas came to mind... chair, fabric lengths, wallpaper, bedding box.

hmmmmmmm.

The Machine Embroidery.

I really like doing embroidery work by machine because I love the different effects and textures that can be created and it is much easier to use a selection of different weighted threads.

Shona Skinner.

This is an example of Shona Skinners work. She is a Machine embroidery artist and I love how she has used a sewing machine to create this realistic view of the water. This is definitely something I could have a go at.

Louise Gardiner.

This is a composition by Louise Gardiner and she is another machine embroidery artist. I like her work because in it she uses a variety of different weighted threads using different machine feet and the ideas are all very interesting and modern. 

The Anthropologie Website.

I love these bedding designs from Anthropologie. I love the composition and the colours and all the different pattern elements.

I like the mixture of black and white and colour in this design and I like how the floral composition stays only in the bottom of the design. The use of space is interesting and I would like to create some ideas using this design structure.

I love this design because of the use of line. I like how there are different qualities of line that make up the pattern and I love how the colour compliments the style or theme.

This design I like for the different geometric patterns arranged in a simple patchwork sort of way.