I am unsure whether to pursue these designs as a repeat or a placement print... I could do both? Is this a professional way of creating a collection of prints though?

I am unsure about the background colours of my designs, I have experimented with changing the colours after seperating them in AVA which has helped me answer my questions. I think I am going to have a variety of dark and light backgrounds with dark and light shapes on top.

I am starting to think further about how the design will fit onto the body. I still like the idea of having splices of skin showing in the shape of the components in my designs as this links with the idea of negative space. I am unsure whether to have panels of my design on the garment rather than covering the whole of the body.
 I have been using photoshop to quickly see the design on the body by just creating a negative stencil, so that the design comes through from underneath- this helps me consider scale and how the design works as a garment.  I need to thin further about the context and whether it will go and who would where it... what is my audience or "muse" who would wear it? I have also been hand drawing outfits, using a layout pad and a body template to help create shapes that fit on to the body. Using my negative space drawings has helped me connect the shapes together to build up a garment to then apply my drawings into.

Today, I masked off areas of the large scale prints using masking tape and newsprint. This would mean that the background of the drawings would then gain colour, complimenting the bold design on top. I aimed to skew the screen slightly, so that the print was off centre and didn't line up so that this made an interesting design.

I found that this was fairly difficult due to the large screens I had to use,  it initially went wrong after using a squeegee that was not washed properly, meaning I had a pink line down my drawing. I tried again on another drawing, this still didn't go to plan as I found that the paper was to thin meaning that the water content made the paper curl and crease.

I used thicker paper and also use pigment, this seemed to work more successfully but I still found that this didn't work as I hoped.

Today I played with cad embroidery onto my fashion samples that have been sublimated with collaged papers (also using cut out resists). I layered some pieces of laser cut fabrics and knit on top of the printed fabrics and secured with vilene. I created some CAD designs using scans and drawings on photoshop but also found it useful to hand draw the design straight onto the Generations software. I found that this created cleaner lines and also shortened the clean up time of the design.

I designed  fairly simply shapes, just keeping the outline so that the the shape wasn't filled as I didn't want block colour or block stitch on my print as I thought this would take away the simplicity.

 I still feel that the CAD was unsuccessful in some ways, this may have been down to the choice of stick length and density but also the colour choice and positioning of the stitching. If I could do it again, I would use neutral colour thread and loosen the stitches by changing the density even more as well as working on less white fabrics (changing the ratio of colours).

layering the laser cut fabrics, that were sublimated

before the fabrics were stitched into

From yesterdays print session and tutorial with Nick, I realised I should change my colour palette by adding in some more neutral shades, exploring tone of colour more and using neutral browns/nudes/pinks as backgrounds. This means I must either create some more printed papers in the print room to further develop my colour palette. I need to do this by referring to further colours found on the street. I want to find some more grey tonal shades to suggest sophistication.

I also want to further refine the colours in my fashion projects, well aware that the design process should be starting very soon. I need to ensure that I include more neutrals in this project too. So that the colours that are present are pops of colour.

My tutorial with nick about all projects has made me realise that I am over complicating things and necessarily matter. I also have realised that the things that have taken the longest are not necessarily the most successful.

Also I need to change the colours with my interior designs, I knew they weren't working but couldn't understand why, nick suggested to change the colours to more neutrals and also play about with the idea of shadow (floor and wall context idea). He also made it clear to me that the idea of the magnetic wall panels was unnecessary, and did not fit with the the context. The panels would have had to be on such a large scale which would not have worked. I showed Nick the magnetic board with the panels or formica printed panels. Although time and money was spent on this, I feel as if this wasn't wasted. This has helped me understand the structure of the wooden panels.

I am pleased with how Nick responded to my fashion project and he is liking the colours of these and the designs. This is what made em realise that you don't have to sample to be so literal with ideas, not every idea has to be tried out but can just be suggested not necessarily demonstrated- abit like the magnetic formica for my Interior Project.

I have the CAD booked for tomorrow, so I now need to reflect on the ideas and thoughts from this tutorial and build on them, developing my designs and samples. I need to take time designing and planning the CAD because of the length of time it takes to complete in order to make the most of my time. I am going to use cad to stitch outlines of shapes from my drawings to attach other shapes which are the bi product of my laser cutting session yesterday.

Today I have been experimenting with A1 scale using cut outs and negative spaces from photographs of my found, organised objects. I struggled initially with the size difference and found it hard to use colour in this size- especially when most of the A1 papers were white- I had some pre coloured ones but now I am not to sure on the overly textured coloured big size papers. I tried to work with the white papers and I thought it worked quite well, the colours really popped against the pale background and the shapes looked cleaner and more refined than my previous drawings. Nick mentioned to work back into these drawings with screen printing, blocking and masking out the areas I had already applied college and colour, then slightly skewing the screen to create white areas and coloured areas around the design.

After spending the afternoon drawing large, we had an AVA session where I aimed to learn further colour separation techniques. I found this so helpful as my drawings are fairly easy to tonally separate  and is useful to do this to see the drawings/designs in different ways.

I also prepared for laser cutting on illustrator, creating shapes to be cut out to create cut out negative space pieces. I used the shapes from my drawings and prints to then duplicate the shapes in the print. I also prepared for CAD which I have booked for Friday.

Today I used sublimation papers to cut up, create resists and print onto fabric. I used polyester cotton for this as I felt that this was the most suitable, it was stiff enough but also draped ok and obviously contained polyester so that the sublimation process could work. I used freezer paper and other papers to resist areas, carrying on the idea of negative space.
I also printed on the polyester knits from the domestic, using plastics to fuse on top of this to then able me to cut out shapes from this using a craft knife. (shown in video below)

This makes me think that I could use the laser cut fabrics (that is booked for the near future) to resist and then apply the print on to the other fabric. I will fulfil this idea after the laster cutting session.

I am visiting York tomorrow for a family trip which means my whole weekend will be busy meaning that I will not get anything done, I was hoping to get further with my research report but I know that this is not realistic. I am going to have to make time of this in the week.

Having already researched Jane Bowler for my interior project after experimenting with materials in order for me to gain some interesting prints and drawings, I learnt more about her at todays lecture. I found her ideas and relaxed attidtue inspiring and learn that it's who you know and making contacts that is vital. I also recognised that she makes a lot of garments that are necessarily wearable  which has made me think further about my fashion project- maybe I could make a statement piece that isn't particularly practical? In relation to my Research Report, Jane mentioned that she has started making earrings out of the materials she is using by connecting them together and selling them in Topshop to connect to a different type of audience and demographic. This has made me think about how you don't have to focus on just one audience when creating products or garments.

After the lecture a couple of us from the Craft Co group, took the promo photograph using my camera and tripod. We took various photos using the tools each one of us will be using to suggest the outcomes we will exhibiting and to hopefully cause some questioning for what we are making.

I also had my research report draft feedback with Jill, which has reassured me that my writing isn't as bad as I thought and has made me realised that I just need to continue with it in order to gain further feedback from it from my Sam Epps tutorial.