review

Reviewing my whole project I am happy with the samples I produced. I feel in this project I have learnt that not everything goes as planned when designing and its important to take a step back every now and again and explore your options. I found the best way of doing this was to review my drawings and analyse which areas I liked and where working for me. My drawing and development still need to grow but I feel this is a long natural process that will happen over time. I do however need to make sure I keep up to designing alongside my weaving in order to optimise all time we have given. I feel the dash & miller project has also helped me within this project as my samples have been more focused for a specific outcome and direction. Overall I found Unit X very challenging but feel I have gained to some important lessons due to this.

attached is a link to my website and online portfolio
http://bethanyjaynesmith1.wix.com/bethanysmith

jaquard

Although it wasn't essential to my project I wanted to do a jacquard piece to gain further experience on the loom. To push myself and reflect my project I added an extra weft colour meaning I could have a strong black back ground contrasting with lime green detailing. Although I was happy with my over all sample I feel it could have been stronger with a higher contrast. I used purely the lime green/ acid yellow lurex for the detailing but felt once woven it lost some intensity. The black back ground also should have consisted of two heavy weft faced design as large sections where not dark enough. I also had some problems when weaving the piece, due to the green been over small sections far apart from each other I had a lot of broken ends through the process. As an extra development I also explored turning my jacquard piece into a digital print. This came out with the black extremely dark and over powering the lime green.

Woolen warp

once weaving again on my woollen warp with my fresh new colour pallet I became more comfortable and began to regain my confidence. It took me a few attempts to select the right colour and texture yarns especially when selected the green. The first lime green I used was to dark when woven and the second was to light a pastel I decided t use the first lime green but blend it with a lime green/ acid yellow lurex yarn to give it the lift it needed.

colour development

In order to make this new colour scheme work for me with the lime green and darks I began producing more colour development

 

 

 

colour research

Elle Decoration

 

new direction

From the images I found in the Sibella Court book one in particular stood out for me and I felt I could make it work with my project.

I was drawn to the lime acid green contrasting with the dark. Once looking at my original images I discovered evidence of this colour being present. I then pixilated my images in order to try and extract it even more

 

Next step

I now had to work out what the next/ best step was for me and my project at this circuital stage . I was becoming agitated and distressed by the lack of progress in my work and felt that although the silk organza was strong and fine, my threading plan was not working for me and intern neither where my patterns. In order to try gain some clarity I took a breather from my warp in hope to come back to it with a fresh mind. I decided that although I wanted to re thread the warp on a full 1-24 pointed, the reality of a tight time period and the uncertainty that this would solve my problem, this would infact not be the best idea. I made the brave decision to chain this warp back off and make a new warp that I knew I could make work for me and my visions. I used a fine 2/60s worsted wool I had previously used before that I knew could achieve the outcome I was after. I stuck with a simple 1-22 straight draft and re introduced my selvage.