Quick one now....long one next time!

Right ....this should have been done three weeks ago but preparing for New York seemed to take up most of my spare time!

What have I been doing since my meeting with Julie?

Mostly I have been looking at the way I want my work to progress and working out the best time for a visit to Southampton ( it would be better this term but will have to be next).

I have a date pinned down to visit John Smedley and watch production and after a very good N.Y. trip feel confident in the research I am doing. The F.I.T. exhibition was especially pertinent as it seemed to have every garment I have referenced as being important in viewing knitwear differently......although few of them were knitted!!

I've also begun my interviews and got a humdinger with frank views on how untechnical many knitwear designers are these days due to the fact sampling is done elsewhere, a direct result of the decline of manufacturing in the west. All good stuff.

Next weekI am returning to the stand to look at refining shape futher and after my meeting next week I should have more to say and a focus for next term.

Just a thought....

I have just spent two days trying not to be precious about how I explore my ideas......just can't do it!

Tardy blogger finds focus...

What a difference a month makes. After doing what I know and producing what I expected I finally totally relinquished control and went with instinct.

The photos are of Toiles (of a sort) produced with the intent of seeing what happens when I twist and fold. I wasn't thinking about how I could knit it just how it behaved.

Alongside I also looked at shapes that were not obvious choices for producing knitted fabrics, so we have triangles within circles. Again the potential for shape suggests how they can be used as garment components.

Next on the agenda is exploring in a non precious way on paper how I can develop these ideas.....most of my documentation is thorough but possibly too finished. The problem with this is it doesn't really enable the person looking at it to work out how I arrived at the finished idea. Too many years spent in industry ...........

Next blog should be around 8th February........lets see where I am by then!!

Monthly post's.....where does the time go!

Busy, busy month........

Moving forward in a sideways kind of way. I have started programming on the whole garment machine, complicated but I am hopeful that perseverance will get me there!

Next challenge is short projects to develop texture, soft, hard....that sort of thing.

Last meeting with Julie generally very positive and helpful so we continue in good spirits.

I feel like I have had a headache for the last week but I think that may be Xmas.

Need to focus and sleep and knit. Will start with knitting!

Free at Last...

Well not quite!

The good news is my proposal has been registered , no amendments or rewrites, huge relief. This means I have to do this thing and I feel like I am looking down a long, long tunnel desperately trying to see the end. At this point that's not what I should be thinking about but some thoughts just won't be banished!

The Friday before submission the RPT's had an informal presentation to each other as a good practice exercise. In the course of the presentations it became very clear that the more mature amongst the group had a similar driver, even though I don't think we had actually recognised it.

The need we all expressed, interestingly I thought, was creativity.

We had had career's in areas we had trained for........making us the lucky ones when you think of how few jobs there ever are, we weren't unhappy or necessarily unfulfilled yet this "itch" had imposed itself on us and brought us back to University.

It was Yvonne who pointed it out, (thanks Yvonne sometimes you just don't see what is in front of your nose!) and the more it goes around in my head the more true it becomes! That just leaves one, question why do I think there is some untapped well of creativity as yet unnoticed by anyone (myself included!!)?

Honestly............I don't! I don't know if it is there, or even what it really is. I do know I am sick and tired of wondering whether I just didn't have the talent to be able to really push myself, or just couldn't decide to take the risks. I am a good knitter, I understand knitted fabrics I can develop work intuitively and responsively so now I need to look at how to pull that into something I can build on.

The plan of action is to work on silhouette on the stand....play with shape and continue developing fabrics along side. I have not worked like this before, I am used to either being given a shape and designing a fabric to fit or having a fabric and cutting it into a shape ,and it intrigues me. I am starting to think about yarns, but not colour. And finally I am getting my hands on the power machines!!

Oh and it looks like I am going New York in February.......looks like I am finally breaking bad!!

Reflecting...

Well here we are, two days to submission and I can't say I am fine about it but I am more fine than I thought I would be! Yesterday all of the RPT's who could attend had an informal presentation with Carey and Yvonne to talk about what we were going to spend the next two (!) years doing. It was good to have Yvonne there as she had no prior knowledge of them so coming to it cold her reactions were possibly indicative of the board.....

They all have an element of improving our own practice and the more mature of us had a need to be more creative.........that's a working life for you it makes you skilled, efficient and very good but it doesn't let you take risks!!

Listening to the proposals I was struck just how much talent was there and the breadth of both practice and perspective was really impressive!

Personally I am really excited to see where they all go....but especially Martha's' her applications for knitted fabrics are stunning.....I am quite awed by the way she works.

Well I'm off to kick the printer....what's the betting I buy a new one this weekend.......mmm!

Feeling back in control...

Another meeting with Julie yesterday and (finally) I am doing this, it's not doing me!

I have a handle on the theory of research and more importantly how I can use it as a tool rather than be held hostage by it!

My proposal needs a couple of tweaks and it will be done and this whole thing now has a shape I can begin to identify with.

If anyone ever reads this and finds themselves in a position where they are struggling this is what helped me:

• Read outside your area, sometimes theory is easier to understand when it is written for other disciplines as it is described in different language, just because a book has been written for you doesn't mean you will feel any empathy with it. In fact it can make you more insecure because you feel you should understand it better and you just don't!
• Talk to everyone, I am part time so don't have a 'class' I belong to so felt I was the only one struggling. I wasn't, everyone was in the same boat. You have a mouth use it to communicate!
• Don't retreat into your shell, you will go mad. Say things you may feel are to stupid to say out loud it's not stupid not to know stuff it's stupid not to ask! You are doing this to learn and sometimes you have to take a risk and feel a bit silly. These conversations are part of the process and they may lead somewhere constructive.

Hope this helps!