Week one: September 9, 2022-
Yesterday we set up our Edublogs and I started to brainstorm some ideas for my inquiry project.
Week two: September 12, 2022-
Last week, we set up our Edublogs and I started planning and brainstorming an idea for my inquiry project. For my inquiry project, I am thinking of having a line of my own designs and then creating one of the designs, therefore last week, I sketched some ideas, shapes, and patterns and brainstormed what I have in mind. For some reason, I’m not very satisfied with the topic/theme for my designs, so I hope I can think of something else that’ll satisfy me. My goal for this week is to start and finish my design sketches by the end of this week and finish the stitch test that we’re doing today.
week three: September 20, 2022-
Last week, I worked in my sketchbook and I made a small mood board to get a general idea of what I’m going for. I also re-did my idea page in my sketchbook as I didn’t like how it looked. I thought that it didn’t portray what I wanted for my designs. I also sewed a sample of what I was thinking for one of my designs and I think that it’s pretty neat. Furthermore, I’m not entirely done with my designs. I have around 3, but I’m aiming to have around 10 designs in total and chose one of the 10 to make. For this week, since we have a short week (3 days), I hope that I can finish my designs or have most of my designs done, and maybe I’ll work on it during the long weekend if I don’t get as much done. I also have to colour them in, but I don’t think that I’ll have time this week, but maybe next week. I also finished my sitch test last week.
Week Four: September 26, 2022
Last week, I finished my designs but I shorten the amount to 8 instead of 10 designs, as there were no more topics left. I haven’t added colour to all of the designs, but I planned out the colours for 2 of the 8 designs. I’m planning to do the colouring on my own time at home, so I can hopefully start planning and maybe even start to make the garment. For next week, I hope I have my designs colours, and a detailed plan of how I’m going to make my garment.
Week five: October 3, 2022
Last week, I decided which design I want to make, which is the one of love and roses. That one seemed to have a deeper meaning to it, and it seemed to be the most eye catching. I thought about whether I should make a full sized version, or a version that can fit my 10 year old cousin, and to this day I’m still thinking about it. I’ll reach out to my cousin and see if shes interested, but if it’s out of her comfort zone, then I’ll have to come up with another plan. In addition to the making of this dress, I started to make some templates and sample pieces for the dress, and all I have to do now is finish up all of the possible tempates I need for this project, and then I’ll go out to buy some fabric. This week, I am planning to continue working on the patterns/templates, and maybe I’ll even go see what fabric I’m willing to use for this project over the weekend. My goal is to hopefully actually start making the dress next week or maybe even this week if I move quickly. Also, earlier today, I went down to the musical theatre class to see all of the possible worn-costumes that could be used in the making of some of the costumes for ‘Little Women”. Although we found some great pieces, a lot of the dresses and skirts were short compared to what we needed (floor length), therefore we’re going to have to figure something out for that.
Week six: October 11, 2022
Last week, I started making the dress. I cut out the “base” of the bottom of the dress, and I also cut out and sewed together the petals. Once I pinned the petals, I realized that there wasn’t a fabric of a certain shade of green I wanted for one of the petals, so I think that I’ll go out to buy fabric to solve this minor problem. All in all, the whole week, I mainly worked on the petals and pinning them to the base of the dress. This week, I want to try to finish with all of the petals and have them all ironed. Next week, I hope to start the “hand” part of the dress.
Week seven: October 17, 2022
Last week, I finished most of the petals, having them all ironed and pinned onto the base of the dress to estimate how many more I need to make. I went out to buy fabric in the shade I wanted, and I also got some glass beads to sew onto some of the petals, so maybe I’ll start that this week or do it over the long weekend. I also finished making the “hand” part of the dress, and I have it pinned in place, so I want to try getting that sewn onto the “base” this week. In addition, I want to try to sew on all of the petals and start working on the top part of the dress. A problem that I currently have right now is that I don’t know what to do for the back of the dress, so I’ll try to think of that while I work on the dress and eventually sketch it out. All in all, I hope to finish the petal, “hand”, and some beading work by next week, and next week, hopefully I can start start the top half of the dress.
Week eight: October 24, 2022
Last week, I finished planning and sewing the petals to the dress. Although I still need to sew the glass beads onto one of the petals, I’ll try to do it over the weekend. Also, last week, I started working on the top part of the dress. This week, I hope to get most of the top part done, so I can move on to making the arms.
Week nine: October 31, 2022
Last week, I attached the top to the dress to the bottom part of the dress. I also decided to add a zipper to the side so it is easier to put on if someone were to put it on. I also started to pin the bottom part of the black fabric, so I’ll have it sewn into place this week. For this week, I’ll go out to buy some fabric for the top part of the dress, as there is no fabric that I’m looking for in the textiles room. Since I cut out a pattern last week, I’ll be able to cut out the top once I get the fabric. This week, I want to brainstorm a bit more about the sleeves of the dress as they seem to be a bit more challenging to make.
Week nine: November 3, 2022
Something that I didn’t mention in my other entries is the baby clothing that I am making to donate to SHARE. It’s a hooded vest with a zipper, and I’ll be finishing it this week (by tomorrow). Overall, making the vest wasn’t very difficult, but I did end up doing things my way instead of following the steps that came with the pattern, but I think that everything is working out well. One conflict that I have is that I used a long, inseparable zipper, instead of a separable zipper that was the right length for the vest, therefore I will have to do some additional sewing/adjusting to the zippers in order for it to work.
Another thing that I have not mentioned is the costumes for musical theatre that I am adjusting. So far, I have worked on a repair for a pair of shorts, a dress, and shortened a jacket. There haven’t been any difficulties yet, therefore everything has been going well so far.
Week ten: November 7, 2022
Last week, I pinned some of the parts of the dress, but I mainly worked on my baby clothes. I finished most of the work, I just need to change the zipper, as I used an inseparable zipper instead of a separable one. Other than those, I want to start working on my ocean animal project, so hopefully, I’ll have the planning done by the end of this week. I also want to start working on the dress as I need it done fairly soon.
Week eleven: November 14, 2022
Last week, I changed the zipper from an inseparable to a separable zipper on the baby vest I was working on, and finally finished it. It overall looks pretty good and the zipper works well, but I feel like the bottom hem of the vest was done too thinly and it gives off the “lettuce” effect.
For my dress, I finished sewing the bottom part of the “hand” part, and in order to continue with my dress, I need to buy the right fabric for the top part of the dress, and I need to finish sewing the glass beads onto that one red petal.
Week Twelve: November 21, 2022
Last week, I finished the research section of the underwater animal stuffy and I came to a final decision to make a Northern Fur Seal stuffy. I also found a pattern online for seal stuffies, so I’ll try printing and cutting out the parts of it this week.
For my inquiry project, I cut out the fabric for the top part of the dress, and now I am figuring out how I want to attach the other parts of the front to the existing parts. So far, I would say that everything is going well, it’s just that the waist doesn’t seem to be a perfect fit on the mannequin and I am slightly concerned about the sleeves of the dress since they are a bit complicated.
Week Thirteen: November 28, 2022
For my dress last week, I finished the top part of the dress and I finally started sewing glass beads onto the “petal”. I still have a lot to do for it, but hopefully, I get it done this week so I can work on the sleeves since I feel like that part would be the most difficult.
A part from sewing, I organized the clothes that were given to us last school year for the Thrift pop-up we had, and I threw out unnecessary clothing and bagged the clothes that can be donated to a local thrift store. Something else that I worked on was the “Textiles Squad” logo. I’m almost done, I just have to do a few more things and I’ll be done.
This week, I hope to finish the petal and the logo, and finally start on my sea creature plush.
Week fourteen/fifteen: December 12, 2022
the last two weeks, I have worked on sewing glass beads onto one of the flower petals of the dress, I finished my under water sea creature stuffy, and I finished my part of the logo. For the glass beads, I still have a long way to go, so while I do that, I think I’m going to work on other parts of the dress so I get some more things done. For my stuffy, it was relatively easy to make, which really shows that I am starting to get used to using patterns, except I did face a few difficulties with the face of the seal stuffy since I was working with small pieces of fabric. It was especially difficult, as I folded the edges because I didn’t want any raw edges, but doing that, it made it difficult for me to have everything perfectly rounded and clean. Towards the end, I decided to just go with the rough look and sewed on some patches, etc. to make it look more rough and “hand made”. Another reason why I did that is because it had symbolism of how much the seal has gone through and how endangered they are. Furthermore, regarding the textiles squad logo, I finished the logo, but the river/wave at the bottom looked odd so my teacher worked on that part of the logo and finalized it.
This week, I hope to finish some of the musical theatre costumes done, as I have a few to work on, and I hope to get a lot of the dress done because I want to get it done for my art portfolio, but I’ll probably end up taking the dress home to finish it over the winter break.
Week Sixteen/seventeen: January 9, 2023
For the past week, I have mainly focused on finishing my dress and the bloomers for musical theatre. Everything with the dress turned out pretty good and it looked very similar to my sketch which I was very happy with. One thing that I could’ve done better were the glass beads. Originally I planned to hand sew them all into place, but since I was very limited on time, so I decided to glue it into place. I tried not to make the glue too visible, but it turned out pretty clean. Last week, I took final photos of the dress in the studio, and I tried to keep it as simple as possible so that the dress can be the centre of attention. I still need to clean up the photo using photoshop, but even without it, it’s looking pretty good.
For musical theatre costumes, I have adjusted and fixed some costumes, such as cropping a jacket, replacing the elastic band, etc. For one of the costumes, I made bloomer shorts for one of the characters as pajamas, and they turned out pretty well.
Additional things that I have done outside of class for my fashion portfolio have been sketchbook work, 2D drawings of clothing and accessories, and started an Instagram account to show my artwork.
Last 2 weeks in semester 2: 2023-01-20
During the last two weeks of Textiles 12, I worked a lot on my portfolio for fashion school, as well as costumes for “Little Women”.
For my art portfolio, I organized all of my artwork into clean formats, and I wrote descriptions for all of them. For the fashion pieces, I organized them into pdfs with the process, mood boards, and sketchbook pages. They turned out a lot better than I thought and I’m very satisfied with them. Though I am still working on the portfolio for schools that require certain tasks to be fulfilled, most of the work has been done, and I plan to have everything done during the semester break.
For the costumes for “Little Women,” I had a lot of alterations to make to a few costumes, which I have finished. I had to sinch waists of some costumes, fix rips, shorten, and widen. I did some research on sweat pads as well, coming to the conclusion that disposable sweat pads would be the best option. I also was asked to make bloomers for one of the characters, so I made bloomers over winter break, which turned out pretty well. Last year, I upcycled a dress for one of the characters, but this year, I made more alterations to existing costumes, which I believe was a very good experience for me. I’m usually making clothes, but to make alterations according to the person who will be wearing the garment, I see that it is further strengthening practical textiles skills.
(There are three PDFs attached below)
Minimal-Maximal–Maximal of Love
