2.1.9. Concluding & Evaluating Unit.

Throughout this unit I wanted to take what I had learnt from the first year and combine techniques, bringing knit and embroidery together to fit as one, experimenting with bringing the 2 together, also experimenting with what yarns and threads I brought to my samples.  Using knit as a base to my fabrics and working with embroidery to bring detail and depth. Using Punch cards and pushing the abilities of it through my sampling, I felt that I was playing it quite safe in that I could use different techniques to create the marks and pattern I wanted, through the knitting machine and with hand and machine embroidery. 

With this I found that there was embroidery techniques that didnt give quite the effect I was looking for and with that I learnt to step away from it and move on to something else. With this came different ways of pushing techniques and taking risks, moulding them to create a look I wanted. Using gapped weaving in and knitting it manually to create 2 layers and hooking it up to resemble one of my images. Experimenting with manipulation to my knits once cast off the knitting machine I  washed, embroidered, embellished and beaded them, seeing the effects of what each one would do to different wools, cottons and monofilaments I used. 

 For Intentions my visual research, I found that detail and pattern played a big role in how I was to take it forward into knit however I feel my sketchbook was quite messy and not very selective, That what ever I had done through editing my photos was put in, instead of being thought about and selective of why they should be in there. Its something that I know I need to work on. I do feel that to me my sketchbook makes sense because it tells my thought process however if it was someone else to look through it without explanation, it would be confusing. From this I have learnt that not everything has to be shown, maybe kept on record for myself but not everything in my sketchbook. 

My concept was 'Observing Patterns in Architecture' working with lines and shape that I made and manipulating and editing them on my laptop to bring a new element and distort what I was working on so that I steered away from my images and samples being to literal.  

Bringing what I have learnt about embroidery and the different machines such as the cornelly and berninas, risk taking into how far I could push them into doing what I wanted so I could get the texture and detail into my sampling. 

My context is what pushed me to bring more to my development, From the start of the unit I researched into ways I could bring a different angle to my drawing. Then into making and developing samples I looked at fashion knit and how designers like Mary Katranzou, and how Peter Pilitto has used bold lines to create detail, Valentino has brought knit and machine embroidery together and it has work so well, I want my work to fit in-between these both and appeal to the fashion and knit industry. With what I have done in Intentions has taken influence from fashion and knit, I feel has a different edge and an be a new aspect to knitwear. Going in the next unit I want to specialise into high end knit fashion, working with more detailed and textural knits, Yarn and threads. Still bringing together Knit and Embroidery, because I feel that what I have done in this unit has worked so well together. 

With this unit, there could have been a lot of things I could have done differently but from that I have learnt that I need to be more selective with my thought process, maybe even taken a few more risks with my knit techniques and looked at a broader colour pallet so that my final fabrics could have more diversity and from my sampling have more choice of what to take forward. 

2.1.8. Elimination.

After a few weeks of sampling and embroidering my knitted pieces I felt the need to eliminate and tweak sections of the samples that didn't work so well or were not the texture I was looking for.
With half of my knits it was problems to do with colour balance an flow of colour through out my collection. As well as that, chaining round what technique will suit best with what is something I will be deciding. Once I have chosen which pieces to take forward and remake into final fabrics, There will be a few tweaking in-between them all, whether it be adding more of a lighter tone or changing tones all together.
Chopping and changing samples round with each other as well is something I think will pull together my collection, Pulling an aspect of one and a different aspect from another and placing them together will hopefully create diversity through out my final fabrics. Something I feel I need to make sure of is  my colour tone choices, that I have them running through several so that they all look like they belong together as one, trying to avoid stand alone tones in just one sample.
I am going to be spending my week refining, chopping and changing up my ideas to do with my final fabrics, I think that I will look back through my sketch book and bring in things that I dismissed before to get a diversity to fabrics, zooming in on details and putting samples together.

2.1.7. Refining & Maison Martin Margiela.

I worked a lot with producing and working back into my knitted samples this week. Some of them i found to be quite successful and others not so much. I have relied on punchcard and fair isle for my patterns, so this week I wanted to push that and see how far I could take it. Also I want to step outside of my comfort zone of the punch card and work with other techniques the knitting machines have, to recreate my images. I want to look at washing samples to see what effect it brings to my Wool yarn, as well as embellishing them bringing the both aspects together will work well together flow through my sampling fabrics. 

I want to spend time refining and figuring what works well and what doesn't, bringing out more depth in the colours in my images to increase colour pallet and range of collection. 

Maison Martin Margiela.

Margiela's work is really inspiring and made me think about working in gradients of colour and count of yarn to get the fading out feel to my samples, grading from really dense fabric to thin and light also that making my embroidery parts look like knit. So I am still able to bring detail from my images to the samples. Playing with different tensions of knit so that they go from really dense to thin fabric.  Working with different types and textures of threads and yarn to bring a more textured and detailed feel to my samples. Bringing in monofilaments, cottons, metallics, different plus of wool and lambs wool, experimenting with which works best.