Co-oproduct Project

I'm now into my second half of my first year at Nottingham Trent University.
We're currently working on a collaborative project with Co-oproduct. An amazing company that champions the creative reuse of household packaging and everyday waste materials.
They work on the idea of providing an international platform for people to share ideas and projects with the motto of 'Rethink, Reimagine, Respect and Revive'.

Our project began with a sack full of abandoned festival tents and camping equipment. The 'waste' tents would have worked their way to landfill like their ancestors, but with this project we will 'Reimagine' and 'Revive' these wonderful tents to create something beautiful!

This is what we got in our bag...

As we opened up the bag we found some amazing pieces to work with! An extremely large piece of groundsheet, tent bags, guide ropes and a tent inner (not pictured above).
We soon began playing with the materials on the stand to see what our initial ideas came through as...

We had a play about on the stand with the tent inner pinning bits up and creating interesting shapes and silhouettes that might help to influence us as the project goes on.

A few more images using the rest of the materials we were provided with in the bag.
Using the straps and rope as detailing and the colours on the different sections as interesting patches.
Once again the silhouette is incredibly interesting and could prove to be important through-out the project. 

Our two final outcomes after half an hour of playing about on the stand with our materials!

Will continue to keep the blog updated with bits and pieces through-out our collaborative project!

Watch this space! Keeping reading, keep liking..

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Big loves,

Samantha
xo

The White Project and Unbridled Update

Hello lovelies! It's been a while and I do feel awful for it however, I have finally completed my first year project - 'The White Project' and have been catching up on some much needed sleep. 35 hours awake isn't any fun.

Here are a few photos from a quick shoot to show off my garment. My gorgeous cousin kindly agreed to model.

 

I'm pretty happy with how these photos have turned out.
Along with a series of images we were asked to submit a short portfolio of some of our best sketchbook pieces:

The first three pages consist of research and design development images. The fourth shows the development of the toile over a few weeks and the fifth features one of the shoot images and a specification drawing - front and back views.
Also featured in the portfolio was a title page, more images from the shoot and a final illustration.

Through-out the project I have learned quite a lot about myself in terms of the way I work - and the fact that I need to learn to spread my work out and not stress!!

I've had to put any Unbridled work to one side for the final push on my project, however tonight I plan on getting back into gear with a little moodboarding and having a look at the first Unbridled pattern!
I hope you're all as excited as I am!!
Watch this space! Keeping reading, keep liking..

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Big loves,

Samantha
xo

It's been a while...

Hello folks! It's been a while since my last post, mainly due to making myself quite ill and run down through my uni project - fun times!

I am just about to start making up my garment in the final fabrics and fully intend on starting toiling for Unbridled.
Thought I'd show you guys the pattern I'm going to be using..
 

 This is a gorgeous Jean Hardy Misses Hunt Coat pattern that I can't wait to start on. 
Along with this jacket pattern I also have a whole host of vintage patterns back at the homestead - dresses, skirts, trousers etc.

 In terms of fabrics I have my eye on a few different styles and will be ordering some samples pretty soon, here's a sneak peek...

A series of different tartans and other classic patterns aiming to bring the highest quality at an affordable price! I hope for the jackets to feature a complimenting colour on the collar and pockets along with a beautiful lining.

I'm hoping to have a small range out by the end of this summer and possibly even be printing my own fabrics up using lino cutting and printing techniques.


Watch this space! Keeping reading, keep liking..

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Big loves,

Samantha
xo

The White Project

My first University project is entitled 'The White Project' due to only being able to use white fabrics when creating our final garment.
I just wanted to share with you all a few snap-shots from my sketchbook and my first pattern draft for my garment.
It's a work in progress..

The project began with a trip to Creswell Crags, a beautiful limestone gorge filled with caves. Stone tools and remains of animals have been found within the caves which archaeologists have dated back to the last Ice Age between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago.
This sparked off thoughts of future Ice Ages and how we would have to adapt to survive.

I started looking into futurism and the futurist movement - I got to watch a heck of a lot of films, primarily Blade Runner and Metropolis for their take on the shiny, modern future we may find ourselves in one day.

The still seen within my sketchbook was taken from Blade Runner. For those of you who haven't seen it - it's a wonderful 80's film, directed by Ridley Scott starring Harrison Ford set in the future. Man has developed the technology to create replicant human clones used to serve in colonies outside Earth. Each replicant has a fixed lifespan. Set in LA in 2019 Deckard (Ford) is a 'Blade Runner' a specialist cop who is tasked to terminate replicants who have left the other-worldly colonies and have found their way back to Earth.

The still above features character 'Rachael' in her trade-mark 40's style shoulder padded, tailored jacket. This then developed into looking at creating an over-sized sleeve changing the regular silhouette into something more strong and dominating.

There was a lot of umm-ing and ahh-ing in regards to fabric choice.
After much thought, I decided to have a go at working with Leatherette. Leather has been used for centuries as a form of protective fabric which whilst on the topic of creating a strong shoulder for dominance fits perfectly with the need for survival - would keep the wearer warm, dry and due to it being a thick fabric would hold it's shape nicely.

I also wanted to add extra structure to the shoulder. Shoulder pads are brilliant, but I wanted something that would stand it's own - I went for plastic coated steel corset boning (7mm thickness).

There are/were a lot more processes, developments and experimentation's that got me to my final, but here it is!
I intend on making a jacket/coat. I've been working on drafting a pattern for the front right side of the garment for the past couple of days and I've finally got the in's and out's sorted.

There is a lot of masking tape and bits pinned together until I get the pattern pieces drawn out this evening. The front right consists of two panels
1st - Centre front panel that cuts down into the bust and rounds at the bottom to create the scooping as seen on the drawing above. There is a small bust dart to give shape and fit to the garment.
2nd - This panel counts as a side-seam too. It rounds out to the side encompassing a previous sketch based on changing the silhouette and also being functional (all will be reveled in another post at a later date!)

It's a long way off being finished yet, but I am aiming to have it toiled by the end of next week - the problem solving bit is my favourite ;) and completed with lining and details in my chosen fabric in three weeks time!

Please keep popping back to track my progress for this project!!

I also have a Facebook page that runs along side this blog with regular updates and info please like and share with your friends!!

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Big loves,
Samantha
xo