Transformation Project

Today was the first project of my second year of my college course and we were thrown in at the deep end.

We were given set timings to follow and tasks to complete within that time.

Our first project was called Transformation. We had seven hours to make a collar and two samples from one white shirt. We were give words to inspire us such as Shred or Fold. We were also asked to bring in source that lended well to fabric manipulation.

I took apart the shirt with a  seam ripper. I laid out everything and started the samples using the sleeve sections. I had a short sleeved shirt so I ended up using more than just that but I was determined not to go for the obvious (Using the actual shirt collar to construct a collar) because to me that sort of defeats the purpose of making a collar from a shirt.

So the two samples I had no idea of what to do. We had brought in some source photographs from our print project but the photos of actual physical source images that I had for my print project were stuck as a RAW image on my camera and so unreachable without proper software. I just experimented with random stuff. I looked at the source images and noticed some plaiting on the neckline of one of the source images so I tried out pleating and gathers and then I used strips and draped them around the neck then stitched them together. I liked ripping strips off the shirt pieces. That satisfying ripping sound as the pieces turns to strips is heavenly.

 

I really got more of good idea for the final collar. I started by pleated the shirt section with the button holes and arranged it around the neck I had an idea of maybe buttoning on strips to hang from the collar but I scrapped it as I like it the way it was. I then put fabric at the back to join the two sides but the back was looking a bit plain. I decided to used an idea taken from the source of tubes of fabric sewn in patterns onto the fabric background.

I went back and added to my samples as I believed I had finished my final collar. I knotted the plaits with strips of plain fabric so that they were all connecting and tied it to the centre back to make for a nice finish where the two gathered semicircles met for my first sample and added twisted fabric strips to my second as well as an almost hooded effect using the actual collar of the original white shirt as I felt that my samples were not as good as my final collar.


 I did forget that I had to be able to fit my collar over my head and so I was about to take it apart when one of the lecturers came over and said to me that I was supposed to add my samples in to the final collar. It solved my problem of a small space for the neck. Instead I took one seam out and added my first sample in. It actually looked quite good when I finally finished it with ten minutes to spare. I used the rest of the time to tidy up as I'm quite the messy worker though I can usually confine it to a single desk.

We later did find out that the last year to do this project got twenty one hours to do it which was a little unfair but then it did push us to make the most out of our time. I reckon any less time and most of the class wouldn't be able to finish.

We were told to start visual journals and technical journals. I'm looking forward to making up a journal. It might help me keep my thoughts in order. A technical journal certainly would be useful to record where things are sourced from and sizes of things.

Bobbi Jean Shields

Quintessential Designs