Success at last!

I had a really successful day and managed to get loads done in class. I’m quite pleased as I stuck to my word and spoke less and worked more, the results were brilliant. I got most of my research stuck down so my thought process is clearer to me, I find it easy to see what I’ve done once I compile it into a sketchbook of some sort.
I felt my tutorial went well too and it was good to see how everyone else had worked, I was quite surprised though because I thought everyone would have done a lot more work than they had.
On the whole its been a good week so far….

Less Talk, More Work!

On Friday we had to make a pattern up for a bodice block I found this quite challenging at first but once I got the hang of it it wasn’t too bad, it took me a long time though. I think one thing I’ve come to realize already from this course is that I’m a really slow worker and that’s one thing I need to change. I need to spend less time chatting and more time working so I think in future I’m really going to try and focus more on my work than the people around me, that might even mean moving to another table to work totally alone, but if I don’t sort this out now I think its really going to affect me in the future.
I’m looking forward to Tuesday session as we have tutorials and I can’t wait to get feed back on the work I’ve done so far and how I can improve on it.
I’ve started to focus more on my crit work at the moment as the deadline is getting nearer and nearer, I’m a little bit confused about what our presentation is meant to actually show. I’ve read through the brief many times but I think I need to go through it with our crit teacher just so I have everything clear in my mind.

Stay Positive - Be Happy

I really feel like I’m starting to get to grips with the course now, and I know I have days where I feel like I can’t do a thing right but so far this week things have been looking up! I finally feel positive about the future and I feel like everything’s going really well at the moment.
My crit lesson on Monday ran smoothly and I really enjoy learning about the more academic side of the Fashion world. I like to know as much as possible about my discipline and I’d like to find out a little about others as well, such as Photography and Art. I already know a bit about these subjects as I’ve studied them in the past but I think it’s a good idea to have a general knowledge of things outside your discipline too.
Our Creative approaches to Fashion design lesson was really interesting, we used fabric manipulation in order to create links to our phrase and chosen artist and then photographed our results. We also got feedback from our classmates about our final garment ideas, observational drawings and photographs. This was very helpful as we were able to see how others work and also to get peoples opinion on how to better our own work.

Above: fabric manipulation (layers and tears)

Hopefully this positive thinking will continue through the week and stay for a lot longer!

Not worth the stress

This week has been a pretty hectic one with a lot to take in. I’ve felt the strain of the course and its only just began, which is a little bit worrying. I think I just gets moments where I feel like I can’t achieve what I want to, but I think everyone gets those moments…I’ve just had a whole week of it! Don’t get me wrong I’m really enjoying the course and I love learning new things but I just know its going to get harder and I need to learn to deal with it-somehow.
I absolutely loved our Creative approaches to Fashion Design lesson on Tuesday. We had to use imagery from our project to design garments, and I found that it was quite similar to how we used to work on my previous course, but actually if I’m honest it did get a little tedious near the end but that’s probably because I’d exhausted all the design ideas for my image and should of really changed it.
The dreaded drawing lesson went better than I could have ever expected. I started out badly but by the end I was quite pleased with what I had produced. Oh and I found the media I work best with and what definitely not to use again! A success I’d say.
Well the week would have been a success if I hadn’t struggled so much with dart manipulation! I felt like the thickest person ever, for some reason it just wouldn’t go in and it wasn’t until after lunch I even realised what was going on! Lucky I caught up and managed to kind of understand what was happening! What a relief!
So for what remains of this week I’m going to try not to stress out and just get on with it!

Miss Productive

I feel like the past couple of days have been pretty productive and I’ve learnt a lot from them.
On Fridays we have our “Creative Design Realisation” class, which is a more technical lesson and it enables us to learn about pattern cutting and other skills needed for the industry. I felt surprising comfortable in this lesson and enjoyed learning about all the different seams on various garments and how to sew a zip into a garment, things that might seem easy to other but which I have never done before. I found that in this session I became more used to an industrial sewing machine and got to know the staff a lot better.
Over the weekend I decided to take a trip to the library and look for inspiration for my “Creative Approaches to Fashion Design” project. I managed to find some books on architecture and even the Earth that I could experiment with and use in my research. I finally feel like I’m starting to understand what I need to do now for this brief. My productiveness didn’t end there, oh no, I confronted that fear of mine and did some drawings using the new techniques I had learnt in my drawing lessons and I have to say I was quite pleased with them. So things aren’t looking so bad after all!
In critical studies we were given our brief which is an oral presentation on a piece of text chosen by our tutor, which is “Blue is in Fashion This Year” by Roland Barthes. At first I found the text quite confusing and didn’t have a clue what it was all about but after I re-read it it all started to become a lot clearer, it’s all about the meaning behind the language of Fashion and what the words actually stand for. We’ve been going through it a lot in our lessons so I think I’ll be fine when it comes to the presentation, just keep working hard and keep up with all the work I’ve been set. There is so much going on at once though, what with critical studies, design realisation, approaches to fashion design and PPD! Welcome to the real world Dawn!!

Confronting my fears

So we received our brief for “Creative approaches to Fashion Design”, this project sounds really exciting and I can’t wait to get stuck in. It’s a lot to take in but once I get rolling I’m sure I’ll be fine.
We also got split into different groups, which I felt was really good as no one seemed to be integrating and so this gave everyone a chance to get to know each other and actually find out who else was in the class! In these groups we presented our summer projects and we were able to give feedback and get other peoples thoughts and feelings on the projects. It was really interesting to see how differently everyone worked and how people interpreted the different phrases in such diverse ways.
For this project we have to continue researching into our chosen phrase and designer and just collect as much research as possible that relates to this.
We had our first drawing class yesterday and I have to say, drawing and I have always had a bad relationship. I got a good grade at G.C.S.E for Art and Design but after that I hardly ever drew and I think this is why I am so poor at drawing. I really struggled in the drawing class and felt like I did really badly, and when I looked at other peoples’ brilliant work and how good they are, it just made me feel worse. I know I’m going to have to get past this “phobia” of mine and it will take time for me to become confident with drawing but I feel like it will always been one of my weak points.
I’ve decided to try and do a little bit of drawing each day to work on this and build up my confidence. So hopefully this will help me in the future.