Still can't take a rest after the interview, Going Chelsea for another textile interview tomorrow. Therefore, for today's plan is mainly making more samples of my Corduroy and colour project. Luckily, I went to get materials yesterday,  so it is much easier for me to create. I focused more on textile making of Corduroy project, because I felt the mushroom texture and colour parts are a lot more interesting than colour project. I used yarn as my main material, yet different year would create distinct texture and feelings. In addition, I know it would be very boring if I only use one technique of doing it, so I tried croche, hands knitting, as well as waving. The results turned out pretty well, even though I didn't do a lot of them, but quality over quantity. Wish me luck for tomorrow. 

This whole week I was stuck with my colour project's A2 sheets, and of course, today I am still working on it.Yesterday I deconstructed the clothes I bought from the thrift store, and looked at some of my research collages from my sketchbook to find shapes. And then I used those shapes as my inspirations to drip the fabrics. I didn't like the shapes at first, but after a few drippings, I started to find the right way of doing it, which is that stop caring too much about the construction of the clothing itself, but just focusing on the shape, it would become much interesting by just manipulating the fabric. With different positions, I usually take many photos as references for my later use. 

In the afternoon, I went CSM library for printing those pictures, and then cut them apart, recollage them into other new shapes, I found this way of working for my design development is much faster and interesting compare to before. Later of the day, I will draw more illustration of those collage drippings. Hopefully, there will be some exciting designs turns out. 

Tutorial of portfolio

Spend the whole night last night in the library, finished my first layout of Corduroy project, but when I went through the sketchbook of my colour project, I found that the connection of project is quite weak, and I know this would definitely cause problems when I do my editing on the A2 sheets.  In this cause, I really want to discuss it with Chris to see  if he could give me any advise with the editing on both projects. 

After the talk with him, it did helped me of clarify the thread of my colour project, and of course I still need to do more design developments on it.Since I am not going to make this project for many pages(5 or 6). Chris pointed out the elements that I could use for the inspirational page and research page. As for the further design development pages, I do not have many, so I have to try to finish them by Monday, and let Chris take a look one more time.  

In addition, for my Corduroy project, I did 10 pages of it, and we deleted two of them , so for now I am quite satisfy with them.

I have been working on my final clothing making for several days, and today I finally finished my top hoodie part, this is taking me so long to sew, and no sleep for three days already. After making the biggest part of the garment, it is time for hand knit the "working" straps. Spend the whole day sitting on the catch and knit six balls of yarn, it's hard to achieve, but I am still keep knitting, hopefully I could finish it tomorrow. 

Today is Sunday, got up very late, but still have so much work to do.  I think I did enough for my research part for this project. Therefore, I give myself a deadline of finishing the first dripping by today, and continued on the the design development, I didn't choose to use fabric as my dripping materials, I chose to use paper, since this project I'm going to create a structure look, so using paper is going to be much easier for me to achieve. Relate back to military wear, I've been noticed that most of them would have a safety straps, I really like this elements, so I used knitting machine to knit a small piece of sample to achieve a strap look, and then put it together with the paper dripping. They actually look quite interesting with one and another. 

Since I've failed with machine knitting skills, I started to think what else can I do that I could recreate a linear texture feeling, then I saw how people are making corset fabric-- sew the cords or strings inside two pieces of fabrics, this could easily create a 3D texture look compare to the knit ones. Therefore, I did a small sample of it, personally, I really like it, and I think it also relate to my starting point which is corduroy. Speak back to the concept of combining both mushroom and workwear, I found actually military wear has more connection with mushroom, because during war time, soldiers are always carrying many bigs for different needs. I found those soldiers looks are a lot like the shape of mushroom. Therefore, I tried to collage them together, and surprisingly, they worked very well together.    

Today I'm still doing research, I went to CSM library for more reference for different types of fungus, it went pretty well, I found many interest mushrooms that have distinct colors and textures. I especially found lamella of mushroom could relate to the original concept of corduroy. However, I know if I only look for mushroom is not strong enough, and it is also very plain for a big project. Therefore, I went back to the history of corduroy, I found that around 1910s, starting from 1910s, both women and men started to wear over all as their workwear, and those fabric are mainly made from corduroy. And then there's a thought coming to my head, what if I combine both workwear and mushroom together, is that going to create an interesting effect. I think I will try this idea tomorrow. 

First day of starting "Corduroy Project", Got very sick by this bad weather, but I still went to get some fabric and yarns for me to test out for the research parts. To start with the project, firstly, I did some researches about the fabric history, and also some other information about the elements within the corduroy. However, I still could find a right direction from this thread. Therefore, I decided to go wider about the research. For example, when I'm think about the corduroy; first thing come in to my mind is linear textures, so I went to Pinterest for distinct texture of linear materials. And I found a types of fungus looks quite interesting for me, it's called Trametes Versicolor, I'm really in love with the shapes and colours they have, so I will continue look for more types of mushrooms.

Today is our first day of school. First thing in the morning was critiquing our Christmas Project (Colour Project),  I've been always enjoying this part of class-- learning the ways of how our classmates works, and gain distinct skills of doing project. I really like one of a mates' work, surprisingly, her concept for the project may not as deep as what other people were producing, yet I can see a strong connection from the beginning till the end, I think this is mainly because of the colour blue she was using is very consistent all along the development. Also, the way she used different medias, by creating distinct surface textures is one of the most light spot for her work. I learned so much from it, and what I just said  are the things I need to be improved.  

Another busy day. We did so many small samples in a very short period of time. The practice we did today was mainly focusing on the colour using, and how do we combine them with distinct medium. I found myself was quite weak on the part, and I wasn't very satisfy about the work I did today. I felt I am restricted or limited by those techniques I normally used, so when I kept doing them I just felt very boring and lose the interest of making work. This is not a good sign, so I got to refresh myself, and try different ways of working with my materials.   

I'm so struck today about the how to continue with my project, because I found that there is not a strong connections in between 

Today I did progress tutorial with Chris, it went better than I thought, because I don't have much work for him to see, so I was worried that I might not get much advice from him. However, when I talked to him about my concerns and strugglings with my "Fruit Machine" project, he really helped a lot, and also my mind is sort of having a clearer sense of how should I do a better research and design development. He found my weakness was that I am too staying in the box, I should be more open-minded that it is ok to have many jumpy ideas in my head. For example, when I brought my textile samples to him, he asked me when I see my sample, what can I imagine if I forget all of my concept behind the project. And I said it looks like a puffy dog, he than immediately helped to searched the connection between a puffy dog and space. I was quite shocked with the way he showed me, but at the mean time, everything seems make a strong sense. I would definitely use this method of thinking in my further developments.