Group repeat project

 For our first project in our second year we are asked to work as a group to create a repeat print for a length of fabric.

For our group repeat we have chosen to look at nature as our theme, we realise that this is a very wide subject to look at but we felt that this would give us all a chance to bring our own ideas to the print.

I chose to concentrate on bee's for my ideas, as this is what i looked into for the end of first year and i really enjoyed all the different ways this theme could take me, and i feel that i only touched the surface when i looked into it before so i wanted to carry this on and see how far it could take me.

The image below was all our first drawings and our first idea for our repeat, i felt like this was all to different, all our drawing styles were different so i thought it would be really easy to see where is would repeat, which isn't something you want when creating a pattern for repeat.

So moving on from this we kept a few of the drawings and we went home and did lots more drawings  that would work together.

This was our next idea for a repeat pattern, which i feel works a lot better as a pattern as we have less drawings but we have thought about the placement and thought about the drawings a lot more.

With this we all decided we liked it and thought it would work so next was filling in the white with some mark making which you can see below:

We decided to fill it in with the same mark just to make it flow better as a repeat. We chose this certain mark as we thought it looked like a trail that a bee leaves behind in cartoons, we used this as we have bee's in our repeat.

After we did the mark making came the part were we had to cut it in half and switch it round as to make it repeat.

Next up was it figure out our colour palette, we had a rough idea of the colours we wanted so we went into the print room with at least some idea of what we wanted, which was a big help.  

As you can see in the images we tested the colours several times to make sure we had the right shade for what we wanted. We then had to test the final colours together, so for this we had to layer them on top of each other to see how they would change.  

From doing this we found that the shade of yellow we had chosen when played over the grey it became opaque and they grey just came through with no sign of the yellow being there, so to solve this we added a small amount of antique gold dye to the yellow and this made it a slightly stronger colour. 

After we had done our colours then came the printing we first had to set up out screens to make sure that they repeated properly.

We then had to lay our fabric out and make sure that there were know creases or things under the fabric, this is because any imperfection would impact the print and we want the best quality print that we can get.  

Next is getting the first screen which was mainly our background which is in grey, we all had to work together to hold the screen in place to make sure the repeat went together correctly. 

This is our first layer, as you can see it is a very light grey which is what we wants as we had other brighter colours to make our print pop. 

 The next colour was our yellow/ antique gold, the screen went really well over the top, which shows us that we lined all the screens up correctly.

 

I really liked being able to see it all come together bit by bit. 

 

 With this orange/red layer we had a small bit of fabric that wasn't pulled tight enough which you can see it effected the flower above. 

 We then had to hand paint the flower which was hard but it was a good learning curve as to make sure that all the fabric is as tight to the table as it can be to avoid mistakes.

  

And then came the last layer which was our blue

 I really like how our print came out and i feel we all worked really well together as a group and i feel that this shows in our print. 

Liz Clarke - Knitting Workshop

I've just stared back at University and gone into my second year of study. We had our first Knitting workshop run by Liz Clarke.

I had a few sessions with her last year and i feel that these sessions really help me further my skills in machine knitting.

The image below is one of the swatches i made with her and in the session it was mainly just about getting used to the machines again after some others hadn't been on them for a while so i was just refreshing myself with just some simples steps shown below ( cast on, change colour, and hold position)

 

After i got used to the machines again i asked Liz if she could help me make a sock heel, as this is something i have been wanting to learn for a while as i would like to have a go at making some socks. 

Below is what i made in the session Liz showed me how to do a heel and this is what it looked like in the end. Its a rough sock shape just so i could see how it would be made. 

Proper woolly

So recently me and Jordan went on holiday for a long weekend down to Devon and while we were there i dragged him to a wool show called Proper Woolly which i happened to see on instagram the night before. 

It was such a good show to go and see as i got to see lots of different breeds of sheep and feel their different wool and all the different qualities that different breeds of sheep can give you for wool. 

From seeing all these different sheep i got to watch some of them being sheered and i also got one of the fleeces that i saw getting sheered which was amazing as i feel now when i make that fleece into yarn, i feel i know exactly where it has come from. 

Here is the sheep getting sheered 

It was really nice to be able to watch the process of sheering and then being able to get the fleece to bring home and make into yarn. 

As well as this the show was a great place to meet different people involved in lots of different crafts and also to get to see loads of different types of yarns and there different uses. 

Bee's

Through this project I've been looking into honeycomb so i was lucky that my dad keeps bees, as i was able to get a first hand look at the honey comb structures that them make themselves and also see how they work.  

 

From being able to see first hand i feel it really help me get into my drawing as before i only had research off the internet to get me started

 It was amazing to be able to see the deep structures that the bees had made to store their honey

 Below is a thing called propalis which is a type of glue that the bees make themselves to fill up any gaps in the hive where any threats could get in, as you can see it has a similar pattern as the honey comb itself 

 

Natural history museum

On a recent visit to London I went to the Natural History Museum, i wanted to visit here to further my research into bees. 

 I found this visit slightly helpful as i was able to look at a small selection of bees really up close

But i was also quite disappointed as there wasn't a lot of actual insects on show they were all locked away and you had to arrange to come and view them and someone would get them out for you. A lot of what was on show was simple photos or a computerised thing.

 I did find this visit helpful but if i was to go again i think i will contact them and arrange to have some of the collections and things i would like to look out for me to properly look at.

Halifax Wool mill

With my current project at university I've been looking into the production of wool and its sustainability. 

So from this i decided to visit a wool mill in Yorkshire to see how it is all made and what processes go into its production. 

There are only a few traditional wool mills left in the UK as people aren't  educated enough in the benefits of buying and using wool so therefore the use of wool has lowered considerably.  

People are not just looking for the cheapest thing on the shelf rather than the quality and sustainability. Most of the UK's fleece from farmers is put onto Wool board where companies can buy the raw fleece for production, sadly a lot of our British wool goes to other countries and comes back as clothing to the UK but then do we really know what has been added to the wool itself?? 

  

On my visit Paul the owner showed me through all of the processes of what happens when they get the raw wool into the mills. They get the raw fleece from designers/ makers who want yarn for their crafts so Paul only charges them for his services of processing the wool. 

 The above image in when the raw fleece first comes into the wool it has to be sorted and graded for quality so that when the wool goes through the carder it doesn't break and make poor quality yarn. 

After its all been sorted and graded it goes for the washing process. 

The next step is to take the fleece and put it into the blending/carding machine where the fleece can be blended with other types of wool and where the carding begins to aline all the fibres in the fleece.  

In the clip below you can see the fleece coming off the carding rollers and being put into the next part of the process, as you can see it comes out as tops, where all of the fibres have been aligned and blended. 

watch this link for a clip: 

http://youtu.be/JisFM8wuAkw

It then gets put into the next machine which alines the fibres even more to make a good quality yarn. 

Its then fed up several belts which then spins it slightly. This is shown in the clip below:

http://youtu.be/kR6xt6EYwjw

The next machine twists the wool and makes to the ply that you want anything from thin to chunky yarn

 

This machine below is where you can mix yarns and twist them together as shown here there is two creamy colour yarns being mixed with a brown yarn. Shown in the clip below: 

http://youtu.be/QfqeEkMsLTc

The next step in the hank or skein the wool if it needs to be dyed they do not do this at the mill but some designers send it off somewhere else for this to be done, it then comes back to the mill where they put it back onto cones or ball it up.  

  

That is all the processes that raw fleece goes through to become yarn and be used in knitting/ weaving etc 

 Below are some samples that Paul gave to me, these are all natural undyed wools, two of them are also from alpaca's.  

I also asked Paul about what he thinks about sustainability of wool and this is what he had to say: 

"From a sustainability point of view i think the problems are the education/teaching of the production methods with a combination of educating designers to use and source smaller batches of British fibre."

From visiting the wool mill its really helped me understand wool and different fibres a lot more and all the different uses that they have. 

Its was really good to see all this first hand and see how it all works,as before i saw it all being made i didn't really think about what fibres i should be using, and now i think that its one of the most important things to think about before making something as British wool is such a sustainable product and should be used more in the fashion and interior world.

Claire-Anne O'Brien

Claire-Anne O'Brien is a textile artist who lives and works in London producing textile furniture, space and product. She specialises in constructed textiles, she investigates construction, form and scale through textiles.  

Originally from co.cork in Ireland, Claire graduated from The Royal college of Art in 2010 with an MA in Constructed Textiles and set up her studio just after. 

 I really like the work of Claire as they are so different and unique. I like the fact that she thinks about the wool she uses to make these pieces, they are made from bespoke British wool, especially made by Laxtons Mill in Leeds, which is one of the oldest surviving spinners in the country. 

This is a project that Claire did called 'British Wool Chair' it was commissioned by Rowan Yarns for British Wool Week Oct. 2010 and it was exhibited in Liberties window.



http://www.claireanneobrien.com/home