Research

I enjoyed our visit to the Whitworth and finding out more of what this brief is all about. I have chosen to do visual research based on the contrast of colour and tonal greys at the Whitworth. I have done this by picking out colours from pieces of work in the gallery, my favorite being "Plato's Disco". For my tonal greys, I have done drawings of the floor and from sections of paintings.

This is some of my visual research:

I intend to combine the colourful elements of my drawings with the tonal greys whilst sampling so I can get an idea of the best proportions for effective colour contrasts. I would like to experiment with a combination of kantha hand stitch, bead work and machine free motion machine embroidery. It will also be interesting to experiment with different weights and textures of fabrics too.
I am not yet sure which of the two shops I would like to create a product for, I feel like the children’s shop would be most suited to my intense colour use, but it might be nice to try and refine that and make something for the high end shop.


I think I would like to design either a scarf for the high end shop, fabric for a patchwork fat quarter pack for the high end shop or maybe a patchwork kit designed for the kids shop. If I choose to make a scarf I will need to make some decisions about whether it will be an evening dress scarf or a warm practical scarf. If I choose to make a pack of Whitworth fabric fat quarters for quilting, I will need to choose a lightweight but reasonably strong and durable fabric and will need to think about placement of stitching in terms of avoiding breakages in stitch work if the customer wanted to cut the fabric to size.  For the patchwork kit for kids I’d have to consider packaging and an instruction booklet for it to be successful.

I have enjoyed presenting myself to others with the intention of perhaps collaborating, which I don’t think I will end up doing, but it was a really good exercise and has made me more enthusiastic about the idea of collaborating in the future. I enjoyed the feedback back session and giving feedback to other students however didn’t feel the benefit due to the stark contrast in the way we are used to presenting our visual research and ideas on the textiles course opposed to those who do 3D or Graphics.