......whatever......ARGHHHHHH....

This week has passed in a blur and as for the week before that.....worst week ever since I started the M.A.

The problem was for the first time I had to do something I knew I was weak at, design a surface print. And I had to use bloody photo shop to do it. And to be clear about this, I am fucking useless with photo shop. I can do something, walk away from the machine for 5 minutes and when I return I can not remember how I did what I did.....how this can be is absolutely beyond me but it is the case.

However... I have done it and after an anxious week waiting to see it on fabric I have a metre sixty of digitally printed silk crepe. And it is OK....it actually worked and it is intriguing to see something as crude as felt used as a surface print for something as sophisticated as silk.

Now what to do with it, I have a line up and it is one dress a top and a pair of narrow trousers and one other garment/outfit yet to be determined...

The whole process has made me consider the relationship between those parts of the process that have underpinned my garments, the elements which were about construction and using my instincts to shape the fabric physically. These are the things that ultimately make me a knitwear designer, I build the fabric. And the parts that could be used to create something other than the constructed fabrics, the images that I took to inform my fabric development.

These images have become a body of work in themselves,  and in existing beyond their purpose they speak to the fact that I am able to use my strengths as a conduit to a more inclusive way of working in an inter disciplinary way. I would normally just put them to one side at this stage as they have served their purpose. However to use them in this way has without doubt brought something else to this whole process. They have allowed me to consider my personal weaknesses and try and challenge them, they have given me a link between the practice of knitwear and fashion design and they have helped me understand why I am a knitwear designer.

All in all as nightmares go.....it could have been a lot worse.