End of the first week.

Friday just wasn't my day. I went into Uni in the morning to work on my Battle for the winds costume, i needed to screen print the rest of my shirt and create similar patches of those on the trousers for the hat. When i got there my screen had been used for someone else's, so i couldn't finish that off and i plan to re-do the screen and finish the shirt for Tuesday.

As i couldn't do this it meant i could work on my shirt as i worried i wouldn't have time to touch it. I carried on with the pleats, making sure every stitch line was straight and even, then pressing them flat. There was only one problem, we didn't starch the fabric before we started them. We were told to starch them but when we came to doing the pleats we wasn't sure when we needed to starch them. So as Mary came to finish her pleats she showed them to Dexter, who then explained to both of us why its best to starch them before. So we then had to restart them, but as soon as we starched them we saw why it was best to starch before, it felt more like paper and was easy to work with, and as soon as i did a couple of pleats they already looked better. This showed me that its better to restart something and do it again for it not to only look better but to make me as a practitioner feel better and be proud of what i have created.

Breathe all together!

Thursday was our first day of the breathe project. We will be working on breathe every Thursday and Wednesday evenings after the Easter holiday. To start the day off we were shown a power point presentation by three third year students who are in charge of the breath project  and have been working on it since the start of this year. They explained to us in more detail about what the breathe project is all about as well as what we will be doing.
The breathers are part of the performance for the opening celebrations in Weymouth and is made up of a group who are called Diverse City. The breathers are a collective group that only work when they are all together, they live on the beach and blend into their habitat, often wearing things found on the beach. The breathers are also split in different groups, all the breathers need to look like they are all together but different, so each group has a certain thing that makes them that group, which is what the design manager has come up with, these are:

• Gestures - Cable tie, Bells, headdresses.
• Collectors - Rucksack type thing on their backs.
• The Elders - Beards and cloaks.
• Regals - Corset and panniers type clothing for the women, doublets and sash for the men.
• Teenagers - Mohawk headdresses.
•  Navigators -  

All together there will be about 70 Costumes to create, this sounds really scary with the time we have but they all have a base costume we will work on top of, so we will mainly be creating accessories and shapes to go on these. these are photographs of the base costume.

After we had this meeting, we then split into groups to either create our T shirts for the Wednesday evening sessions, dyed some of the base costumes or we worked into the base costume with paint to create the effect in these photographs. 

First big problem!

On Wednesday me and Mary decided to come in and work on our shirts. As we met up in the studio we had a message from Beth saying that most of our patterns needed to be altered! Beth and Dexter did the alterations when she found them the night before, but we had already cut all the patterns out so it wasn't a good start to the day. Any way we pushed on and re cut the ones that needed re cutting, as well as trimming down the others. this took us most of the day so we felt like we were really behind, as other students had already started sewing their shirts together. So even though we had learnt to check our patterns and is something we did it wasn't until actually putting it together that it was found the patterns were wrong. So the fact we had cut out as a team and cut down on the waste we had enough fabric to re cut the pieces we needed, i also learnt to check if the pieces we then didn't need was big enough for any of the pieces we did need to re cut instead of just throwing it away.

We then managed to make a start on the shirt which was a relief. The first thing that had to be done was the pleats. The pleats as Dexter stressed to us need to be neat with a straight stitch line as well as them being even all the way down. I had never done a pleat before so it was quite nerve wracking when it came to sewing in the first one.

First day!

Our first day of SDP we started with a re-focus year group meeting, which was mainly a presentation of learning agreements and work plans. This is the first time we have to create our own learning agreement. but in saying this we have a template we can work from. These are both due in for the 22nd  of March, I hope to get them done at least the day before so i don't end up rushing them.

The costume store project consists of me, 11 other students as well as our supervisor, with our tutor Dexter running it. Within this project we have to make 3 different garments as well as working on costumes for the breathe project.  Before we started any work we had a quick meeting to talk about what we will be doing. our project will be as follows:
                                       An Edwardian shirt in the first two weeks before Easter. Either an 18th century waistcoat or breeches in the 3 weeks after Easter. In the last 3 weeks a Victorian blouse.

As he was talking about these i got really excited as its quite a variety of things we will be making, but also a little scared because of the time we have to make these in, especially as in the last project we took our time to make a costume so this is going to be more intense. Also Dexter emphasized that our days will be run as a professional environment workroom.

So the next two weeks are going to be non stop as i still have my Battle for the winds costume to finish, although its mainly just finishes so i should be alright.

After this meeting Dexter assigned us all a shirt. There are three shirts all together with three students making one. So this is the shirt i am working on with two other students.

        To start with we studied the shirt, looking to see what processors were used and how it was put together and finishes, which i learnt is a useful thing to do before you cut out your fabric. i learnt as well not to rush into cutting the fabric out straight away as you should check that the pattern pieces are correct, which is what we did as we found a few problems with the patterns of the pleats and button hole placement line. With Dexter we figured this problem out. So as a team we needed to work together to cut out the fabric to ensure little wastage as we could.

Another thing i have learnt as a practitioner is to always think three to five stages ahead of yourself to ensure what your doing is the correct way and will work. we found this out at the end of the session when Dexter talked us through how to put the shirt together. He stopped about half way through the shirt, which is an aim to get to a the beginning of the second week.                              

starting a blog!

                                         
Welcome to my first ever blog! Basically i am a second year student studying BA (Hons) costume with performance design at AUCB. I have just had my hand in for my last project Concepts in Context, for this i made a costume for battle for the winds, which is going to be a event in Weymouth as part of the opening celebrations of the Olympics. which is very exciting and was an incredible project to be apart of!

Now we have started a new project called Self directed project (SDP) for this there were many different projects to choose from. i wanted to develop my sewing skills even more so i decided on the costume store project. Also within this we are working on the breathe project. This is also part of the Olympics, as a team we will be creating a series of costumes for a company who will be performing in the event at Weymouth called Diverse City. I did want to do tailoring, but after a tutorial with my tutor in the end it was decided that the costume store project would benefit me more as i will develop my sewing skills as well as being creative while working on the breathe project, and would give me more options for my future career, which i agree with as i don't really know for definite what i want to do after i graduate.

Shirt research.

Before diving into making the shirt i did a little research, looking at pleats, the style of shirt. Here are a few links to what i found.

 http://www.pocketmouse.co.uk/cgs3pg.php

http://www.elizabethancostume.net/pleats/