Question: Why Can't I Post These on Time...?

Answer: Because I keep putting off one thing to panic about another...

OK Since my last post I have had two meetings with my supervisor and all is well...

I am exploring knitting into (oh yes) wovens and will produce a garment during the next term to further develop the idea...there it is...written on the BLOG so it will happen!

The Shima development is taking a short holiday as the 4th year BA need to get their collections out and I know what that feels like so I am taking a step back while they panic.

Ditto Dubied for a few weeks too and concentrating on reading some texts on the current and historic state of the industry......and technology.

I also have my trip to John Smedley looming which I am looking forward to....technology in context. The questionnaires are now coming in so I will have a chance to start pulling that together and thinking about next year....and I now have some provisional dates for Montse Stanley ....end of May hopefully.

This is a boring page as the last few weeks have been about thinking as much as doing and it is hard to demonstrate how much this is affecting everything at the moment on the page....There are as many forks in the road at the moment as paths to take and it feels like I am hacking my way through inch by inch. Luckily the work is acting as it's own guide so forward we go...

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!