Trying out needlepoint!

After going around the sewing and crafts section of John Lewis, I came across some kits for needlepoint. I had never done this before so decided to pick up one of their cheaper kits, which although was aimed at kids with their design, I thought would still be good to try out. Although it is quite time consuming, I really enjoyed doing it and would definitely do it again.

Here are some photos from it:

Before starting

Tree and owl done

Finished

Personal Project - based on skull prints

Although skull prints have been around for quite some time now, I wanted to put my own stamp on them. I didn't want to go down the gothic route nor did I want to go down a route too similar to McQueen (even though I have used him as inspiration in my project). 

Here are some of my photos throughout the project:

Photos from the Catacombs in Paris

A drawing I did from one of my photos

More drawings

Using watercolour to fill in the skull

Adding colour to my work

Different ways of adding colour to my work

Looking at 'Day of the Dead' for colour and pattern inspiration

As well as looking at the skull shape, I thought it would be good to experiment with the shapes of other bones as well

Research of Alexander McQueen. Looking at the types of things he used to create patterns or add detail to using the skull shape

Using the bones and making them into a pattern within the skull. Also using the liquify took to make them less 2D

Using the image before and then creating a repeat with the skull I played around with different colour ways and scales

Same as above but using colours that seemed to reoccur throughout my sketchbook

Experimenting with the bone repeats and layering them on top of each other

Making a mood board for both fashion and interiors and looking at the types of things I could make my prints into

My 4 final skull designs (not sure why the blue one has a white circle on its head - something to do with the printer I think!)

After creating the final 4 skulls, I needed to make these into proper designs. So here are my 3 final designs:

Making Skills Technical Folder

Last technical folder for the year! This time it was for 'making skills'. In this project we learnt 22 techniques including various different types of seams, piping, making your own bias binding, darts, different types of tucks and pleats, gathering, different ways of putting a zip in and making pockets. Although I have done a few of these techniques before, it was good to go back over them and learn new ones. It is also very handy having them in a folder like this so you can refer back to any one of them at a later date if I needed to remind myself how to do something. 

Along side this project we also got taught a few of the other machines, which I have also included in this folder. The machines we got taught how to use were the embellisher, the princess pleater, the overlocker, the tufter, the Brother and Bernina industrial sewing machines, the Irish machine and the leather machine. 

Here are some of the techniques from this folder:

Back of the double topstitched seam

Back of the welt seam

Piped seam

Bias binding

Pin tucks

Inverted pleats

Gathering

Centered zips

Exposed zip

Concealed zip

Here are some photos from the other machines we learnt to use:

The embellisher

The princess pleater

The tufter

The Irish machine