Evaluation

                Trying to achieve an outcome that doesn’t come naturally to me has been a struggle. I purposefully chose a lack of colour with a strong drive on texture to try and challenge myself to broaden my understanding of weave. In my opinion I have not managed to create the standard of work that was possible, but have achieved what I set out to at the beginning of the unit.

                Working with white has been more challenging than I initially anticipated. I expected to not have to think about colour very much, but found myself spending lots of time looking into different tones/shades and how that may impact the aesthetic of a sample. Although it may seem limited, the colour white is much broader than I thought. Working with white alone was difficult and slightly restricting so I expanded into more of a monochrome palette to achieve contrast. This allowed for more development in my samples and crisp shapes.

                Mohair was a big aspect in my work. Initially through first and second hand research, I found myself drawn to softer things and wanted to therefore expand on that more. A combination of mohair and wool allowed me to create a soft texture and surface; recreating the sensory aspect that I developed with some of my 3D drawings. If I had more time I would have liked to experiment with flocking onto my samples to reimagine the idea of 3D drawing.

                Working on two projects at once has, so far, been the most challenging thing I’ve done. I found myself really struggling with juggling the two, mostly in terms of time management.  The issues I’ve had have been due to my own organisation problems and partly to do with perhaps trying to take on too much at once i.e. working with a concept unfamiliar to me. Although I have been able to distinguish where the issues lay, it will take time for me to correct the mistakes in the future.  With this in mind, having the John Lewis brief alongside my self-initiated was almost a blessing. My design plans for the live brief were much more to my taste and what I naturally gravitate towards. Having both project on the go allowed me to almost merge them together, to create designs similar to what I know best but also have the ability to develop certain areas in terms of texture.

                I have learnt a lot from this unit about how I work, what I like and don’t like, and how I can improve as a designer. I most definitely lean towards squares and blocks which I will work with more and try to develop in the future in an exciting and innovative way. I would also like to revisit colour in a new project. Although I have enjoyed working with white I have missed playing with different colour combinations and think this is one of my strengths. 

Mon 12^th – Fri 16^th Feb, 2018

     This week was a struggle. I panicked that I didn’t have enough work for my self-initiated brief. Not only that but I didn’t know where to even begin. I found it really hard to pull myself out of this rut but eventually managed it by talking to various people who helped me see what I had to work with. After testing, sampling and doing lots of primary and secondary research, by Wednesday I had created lots more samples that I was quite proud of. I feel as though they reflect my research well. Although I veered off slightly from my initial intentions, I believe that I have met my brief and made samples that show motif design, texture and a well-developed understanding of the colour white. On reflection, the reason I had these issues was due to my own time management problems which came with having two projects at once. Now I have learnt from this I will apply the changes in the next unit. 

Mon 5^th – Fri 9^th Feb, 2018

     I cut off the loom early this week so that I could have a proper look at everything I had attempted so far. I knew that I had tried lots of different things and that none of it would really be cohesive, so by looking at everything together I could use what I’ve already made to try and create a collection. This worked really well for me as I was able to Photoshop elements of my samples together to create ideas for new ones. It also allowed me to see what I liked and worked and what didn’t. To my surprise I much prefer the samples with squares as opposed to motifs. This is something I want to carry forward  with the rest of my designs as I think it works the best, but it also links well to my research from Florence; which has heavily influenced my work since.

Mon 29^th Jan – Fri 2^nd Feb, 2018

                My main task this week was to make a good start with my weaving. The first half of the week was taken up with threading up my loom. After that I focused most of my time on creating peg plans from my drawings. I found this a very confusing task at first. Learning how double cloth works is a more difficult task than I had imagined. However, I am having a lot of fun experimenting on the loom and wrapping my head around the technical side of things. I have been able to recreate a lot of the shapes from my drawings on my loom and am pleased with the outcomes I am getting.

                When initially making my warps I had to swap my white yarn for a cream one which I was very unsure of. However having begun weaving I am finding that the cream is giving me a much more regal look than I had expected to get.