Evaluation

From the briefing of ‘Urban influences’ I refined my work to the concept of composition of crowds and people in built-up areas alongside abstract buildings, I have developed my colour pallet throughout this unit, inspired by materials used in buildings. This began from my initial research in the first week taking photographs where I saw a building in Salford that was copper. I then moved onto pale blues to represent glass of modern office buildings in the city centre and black inspired from the matte black panels on our art school. I incorporated other colours from this to build up my pallet.

I developed this into my knits through recreating the abstract building in my drawings through colour change and intarsia, I have used a wide range of techniques throughout my collection for example ribbing on the dubied machines, similar to the broad lines in my drawings and looking at contextual research such as Jeremy Scott. Throughout the development of my drawings in this unit I have become minimal in how I work in my sketchbook with lots of blank space and clear pages, I have shown this through my collection by having plain knits alongside detailed ones. I also work on different sized paper and stick it onto pages in my sketchbook, I have experimented this through sampling this unit by having a range of shapes for final pieces and including cords to manipulate the shape. This also works well with my context being sportswear as it shows movement.

Throughout the unit I have been using Pinterest for contextual research relating to my work, I struggle in this area because I often find that I like one piece from a collection rather than the whole collection. To improve on this I think I will do more contextual research earlier on in the project rather than when I begin knitting. I have decided my context for this brief is women’s wear due to the detailing I use like running cord through ladders and the colour pallet I’ve used has a feminine feel, I have somehow led myself into sportswear which I have never normally considered but I really wanted to experiment this unit with my context and I feel like I have achieved that through sportswear. I want my final collection to be fashion sportswear though because of my yarn choices aren’t always best for practical sportswear such as the mercerised cotton used and I felt it was more on trend for it to be fashion based sports look. I have been looking through high end high street to aim my work at but in the last week my sampling progressed into embellishing with cording and foil and included time consuming techniques such as lace holes so now I feel it is more suited to high end fashion. I am very interesting in the collaboration between the 2 though such as Alexander Wang’s sports fashion collection for H&M. I have looked into job applications that are for high end high street such as whistles which I aspire to work for.

I am really pleased with the risks I have taken and think they have benefited me well, I am glad I have taken the time to push myself to be creative with the dubied machines although it was time consuming and often unsuccessful. I think it will improve my work for the next unit and I feel like it has made my work really progress from last year. Also using these machines helped with portraying my context so it was sportier compared to knit looking. At the beginning of this unit I dyed yarns for the first time, I was nervous to do this but so happy I did. I really wish I had dyed more throughout and would love to experiment next time with more printing onto my knits, although I did dip dye them in areas this time. This is a part I have really enjoyed and I am very excited to push this further especially from seeing Tatinder’s work. I have worked hard on refining my ideas by using a repetitive approach, for example making a mesh look with lace holes on the domestic machines then improving this by repeating on the dubied. I also experimented through foiling my samples but noticed some of my peers using foils too, I wasn’t happy using it the same as others as I wanted my work to look individual to me. I tried different ways of using it such as on the ends of my cords and in between double bed with ladders to see it.  I have tried to use a range of yarns in my work such as temperamental ones like lycra and fine mercerised cottons on the domestic using intarsia. I do feel as though I often use a similar colour pallet that’s quite subtle so I would like to improve on this next time by trying a much more vibrant and bold pallet. I have found it useful working with a group of friends in the studio across disciplinarians because we often take inspiration from one another and help each other with small crit sessions.

When job searching for my contextual research file I found that they often wanted skills in illustrator and Photoshop which has shown me that I need to use this more in my work to improve as I have no back ground using this software and struggle with this. I am looking forward to the next unit looking more into placement and jobs and have got tickets to the Manchester fashion party next weekend to help with networking. 

http://www.pinterest.com/abipettit/intentions-knit/