Just add some lace.

So I’ve now neatened up the neckline by adding some binding underneath and lace over the top. I was able to apply the binding the pale blue is quick a thick fabric, there’s more than one weaved layers to it so I was able to hand stitch it down without the thread showing on the other side.

After ironing along the seam (which makes fabric easier to then press out) I then tuned out the lace still wouldn’t lay flat after steaming it down I then tacked it down just so it lays flat on the collar. I’ve also done the same to the ends of the sleeves along with gathering them up a tad, as much as I could with the fabric. I’m also going to add some lace to the hem but I’m thinking perhaps a different shade of cream or maybe add some more blue.

So that’s it for the main body of the dress, with the off cuts that I’ve kept (can’t seem to throw anything away) I’m going to practise some embroidery techniques to then see how they work with the colour and texture of the fabric and how easy it is to sew on.

Ellie Goulding, Your Song.

So the aim for the end of my Alice project is to have a finished dress with embroidery detail then to have a photo shoot of most likely me wearing the dress in Alice situations, in the woods, mazes, tea parties and such.

After seeing Ellie Goulding’s music video for your song it gave me an idea, what if I were to make a short video of perhaps the photo shoot. But just short little clips in the style of Goulding’s video which could then be projected onto a wall during the American Museum exhibition in May. I think that it could be a nice addition to the dress on the mannequin and photos from the photo shoot on the walls behind it.

So this is just an idea for now that I wanted to jot down before I forgot it!

The start of the Alice dress!

So this is the start of my 'Alice' dress.
Basically for my textiles project this year I'm going with the theme of fairytales and landed on Alice in Wonderland. I'm now going through a children's book of the tale and using the images on the book for inspiration for my own take on an Alice dress.
Now luckily enough when working on the Ben Hur project I made the dresses for the love interest Zena and these just happen to be the perfect shade of blue for an Alice dress! So there were two dresses for the production so I'm keeping one of them as a reference for the Zena character and then the second had to be distressed as part of the story and so I'm going to take this dress and customise it so that there's hopefully no more spray painted parts or any visible parts where it was attacked with a cheese grater as seen here! And then I'm going to use it as a canvas to show some of the embroidery techniques I've been and going to learn throughout the year. I may end up making another dress if I finish it quickly enough but this is enough to be getting on with for now!

So to start with I've chopped off some of the length from the sleeves and the skirt of the dress, I think it may get shorter but just slowly for now, I'd like for it to be around the knee in length with perhaps a petticoat underneath for some more volume. Next I'm going to do something about the neckline as there's been some distressing to it so I would like to cut it away but then I don't want to lose too much, for it to be to low cut as I want it to have the initial Alice feel and then when you look closer you will see more detailed embroidery.

So that's going to be my next step, I do need to remind myself to stop making so much Christmas joy and do some uni work but it's difficult at this time of year! So as long as I keep going with it I shall hopefully have the main body of the dress finished and ready for some more detail in the New Year!

Some more artwork embroidery

So I’ve now done a couple of pieces of just the outline, no extra fabric, just experimenting again with realistic colours then some brighter unusual colour combinations.

I think I actually prefer the brighter piece. When doing a few of these pieces I keep turning them over and actually thinking I quite like the effect of the sewing on the back, if the knots weren’t on the back. So I thought why not make a piece where the back is actually the front? This was confusing to do, even though I could draw a thick pen line on the fabric to then embroidery onto (Which I couldn’t in the others as the pen line would still be seen) which did make it easier however I kept having to turn over the piece to see if you could tell what I was meant to be. I don’t like messy work, sometimes on the back of some embroidery there’s thread chris-crossing everywhere and that’s not what I wanted, I was turning the back of a piece into the front yes, however this was intentional, it’s not I don’t like the back let’s just turn it over.

It still had to like similar to the original building in the end so I just made sure when doing corners of the small details like on the balcony, there was still a corner to go be, and then perhaps something cutting across the corner aswell so that it didn’t end up being to ‘precise’.

So I think that I do like the more abstractly feel to the un realistic colours so I’ve already done some smaller embroidery of things like letter boxes and the red telephone box but I think it would be interesting to do them again only in this style, using none life like colours and the back being the front.

Embroidery Bulidings

So for my artwork I’ve been wandering around the city of Bath taking a look at all the different types of buildings there are here. Taking photos, trying out different drawing and painting techniques but I’ve still always had embroidery in the back of my mind. I feel that using fabrics to construct an image is a technique that I’m much stronger at, compared to detailed drawings or paintings. So I've decided to try out more textile techniques in my art work.
So this was originally a picturesque house on the outskirts of Bath and I thought I’d play around with the colours for one thing since most Bath buildings are made out of the Cotswold stone I thought I’d like to inject some colour and I find the piece more interesting than if I’d tried to use specific colours and tried to make this patchwork like piece exact to the house.
After spending the time hand stitching this (because I prefer the effect of the thicker embroidery thread to create a bold line) I then flip it over and find that I like the back of the piece almost as much as the front. It’s almost like a cityscape and so I think that I’m going to experiment some more with just sewing an outline of a building, using contrasting fabrics and thread.
So that should keep me going for the next week or so, I would also like to start looking into fashion illustration because fashion drawings are what I’ve been doing in textiles and I would like to overlap my work in that way. So I plan on finding a way to link the buildings I’ve been looking at and my embroidery to hopefully have a fashion outcome. But I realise that a final outcome is still way off yet I’d rather do some more samples for now and just experiment some more. So that’s my plan for now!

Article in the Bath Chronicle of me sewing away!

So basically I've started this blog for my professional practise module at uni and just to start this off thought I’d post a scan of me in the newspaper!

Those in Bath may have noticed or even seen that there was a local production of Ben Hur on at the Theatre Royal. There were a few professionals like the costume and set designer, obviously all the staff at the theatre to help out but making the costumes, props and all the actors were all local people volunteering their time for a chance to be part of a professional production so it was a great experience for everyone involved and for me to see the inner working of the theatre and being backstage really excited me.

I've been backstage at theatres before but only small ones back home taking part with dancing shows either being in them or for the past couple of years helping out back stage. But this was something else. Seeing how long it can take to rehearse, 3hours for only one scene at one point!!! 13hrs days and being there for 90hrs in just one week did made me appreciate my 4hour days at uni but it still hasn't put me off a life in theatre because tech week is only one week per production and it nice to see the long hours of work pay off, seeing the actors on stage wearing costumes that I’ve either just assisted with or some of them I made completely and so it was a very satisfying experience.

So I seem to ramble and hopefully that's enough for now but if I can work out how gonna try and put up some photos of some of the costumes I made for the show. So as gossip girl says, xoxo.