The knitted piece - Monday 19th May 2014

As discussed with Emma, my knitted piece is now completed at knitting club today thanks to Lidia.   So it's similar to the samples I did as I have used a tuck stitch which has created a slight bubble effect to represent the stones that I walked on each day whilst in Borth.

The colours I have used are greys, light, dark and flecks.   I have used a range of thickness (or I should say "ply") from 2 ply to 4 ply.   The 2 ply wool is Islay and is 90% wool and 10% nylon.  This wool due to its fineness, I doubled up when I knitted with to make it thicker.   This then gave a mix of the greys consistently. I also used wool that I had purchased from the charity shop a couple of months ago and this was thick.

Whilst knitting today, and during previous lessons doing samples, I encountered issues such as casting on due to the wool looping and not catching on the pins -this was down to usually one of two things: my tension was too loose for the wool I was using i.e. 4 ply I had on 7 tension whereas the two ply coped better with that tension; the second reason included setting on the machine not being right but gradually over the weeks I have got used to which setting I need to have the machine on for knitting.   Lidia introduced something new to me today which I wasn't really up for as I felt I hadn't yet achieved one really good completed piece but she showed me anyway and explained that I could use two colours if i used it - IT being a plating yarn.   This replaces the standard yarn feeder.   That's as technial as I'm going to get.   It worked, I understood what I was doing.

So casting on 80 stitches, I knitted around 5 plan rows before introducing the pattern, using tuck stitch and before introducing alternate colours.    I did 20 rows at different tension settings, namely 7, 6 and 5 to represent the different sizes of the stones.   The tension gives a looser knit.   Altogether, the final piece measures 18 x 12 inches consisting of 80 stitches and over 100 rows.

Casting off was fun NOT!   This is still something I am getting my head around.  I can hand knit with my eyes closed, but machine knitting is a whole new experience.  I'm sure in a few months I will think how could I not do this but at the moment, I'm still at the stage of some things being like morse code.

My final piece is shown below.   I have embellished the piece with a knitted cord, rope from the beach, and other contrasting threads, all of which were colours found on the beach.

on this picture you can clearly see the pattern which also resembles the sands when wet - i have one picture in particular that I am thinking of 

the cord that I knitted and then have woven through 

here, i have added the photograph that I had digitally printed onto fabric - i wanted to photograph it with the knitted piece as it shows the colours that I found on the beach

In addition to the above, I hand knitted an orange square in very chunky wool which I purchased at Wonderwool.   I wanted to use it as a frame for something within the exhibition.   However, I have found a use for it now by creating a plain knitted piece (at home) with stripes.  However hte piece I felt wasn't good enough to be the final knitted piece as I couldn't case off in the way I wanted and I ended up just threading wool through the stitches.   To hide this I then turned it into a long narrow sock like piece and put stones in it.  Sounds awful but actually I feel it works well.  The delicate knitted piece against the chunky orange and the rocks complement each other.   The rocks and the plain knit are as smooth as each other.

Reflection:  I reflected today with Lidia, the tutor who has been patient and helping me get to where I am today with the knitting.   She said "I was a bit worried in the beginning as you were a bit aggresive with the machine"!   I am she said today improved and in control of it.   I feel more comfortable with it but I still look in down at my knitting in amazement when nothing has gone wrong!   Lidia also did say that's probably why it keeps going wrong, because I keep looking down to see if it has gone wrong!

I have learnt how to put my machine together and take it apart, including simple things like putting the yarn tension unit back into the lid.   I actually photographed it to remind how it fits together when put away because if it isn't in right, the lid isn't going on.   I wanted last week to throw it threw the window because I just couldn't do it.  I can now do it.

I feel I underestimated doing a knitted piece on the machine.  I thought once I got a machine working, it'd be a piece of cake.  It has not.   I have gone from not knowing how to get a machine going, being given a second machine to use the parts from to get mine going, then after discussion with Lidia, agreeing we were flogging a dead horse, I donated the two machines to a charity that refurnishes them for 3rd world countries.  I then purchased a new second hand machine from Lidia, a Brother machine, which she felt was the better machine.   I then had to start again, using what I had been learning, i.e. casting on and trying to knit.   To today, where I have cast on, knitted plain stitch, then used a pattern, several colours, tuck stitch and tried to cast off but felt it was going wrong, so I was rescued by Lidia.  I did not want to ruin what I felt was a good piece of work that had taken me all morning.   Casting off is something to be continued as it's a vital part of knitting.

hand in day 14th May 2014

Final hand in day is here.   And I have been working like a crazy lady.   Have left myself only a short amount of time to complete my practical work.  I have spent months sampling and only weeks to complete the main pieces of work, which in hindsight is not ideal.  I have though been working to the guide that we could have a few weeks after hand in to complete practical work, although I think I have taken that to the extreme.

I have chosen 2 sets of 3 photographs.  I stated in my proposal that I would produce a tryptych and instead i have produced 2.  I have chosen photographs that I personally like and that are two different themes: one the landscape and the other a vintage pram which I spotted in a garden.   I spent time selecting the right colour mounts: I had in my head a vivid yellow which I had seen in Aberystwyth when i visited a framing shop there, but on putting that colour against my work, it clearly didn't compliment or add anything to the images.  The staff at the shop were also very helpful and even suggested I might crop one of my photographs.

for some strange reason Blogger is rotating these even though they appear right way up before uploading! 

I have put together my sunset inspired piece which consists of 5 strips of fabric, horizontally stitched together, with heat transferred images on, reverse applique, stone prints using water based inks inspired by Suzy Ray.

salicornia - two top photographs again have rotated themselves 

Other dyed pieces have now been put together.  One, inspired by the sunset, is shown below.  

My website design is complete, but I have chosen not to publish it.  I think I have met the basic requirements of the project though.

I have one piece of knitting to complete which i hope to complete tonight, 14th May.  I tried to do this on Monday this week at knitting class.  Having had a successful morning trying out final wool choices, when it came to the afternoon to do the actual piece I wanted, it went horribly wrong.  Wool was looping and not catching onto the needles, it was jamming and no matter what I did, time ran out and I gave in for that day.   My samples from that day are in my sketchbook in the last few pages.

I have brought in everything I wanted to hand in other than the knitting.

The Big Fish (projection of Borth community map onto calico fabric)

The big fish is a project map of Borth community boundary which I found on their community website.   The map was projected onto calico fabric almost 3 metres long.   I drew around the projection using soft pastels, using green to reflect the land side of the boundary and blue on the sea side of the map.

I have started to populate the map now using various media including

heat transfer - I have used a photograph of the mud flats and cut this up and then attached it using double sided tape to hold it in place and then stitched into it with mohair wool, which is very subtle against the image.  It is also very soft against the harshness of the dry mud flats.  Also, being Wales, I associate wool with Wales.

I have painted on roads using concentrated yellow watercolour and also drawn on in soft pastels.   The drawback with the soft pastels is that they smudge easily when the fabric is rubbed together which has happened en route to college as the fabric is so large it has to be folded up.   I could though use a fixative

"So, what is fixative? Fixative contains a large amount of alcohol and diluted damar crystals that, when sprayed onto a surface, can hold (“fix”) pastel pigments onto it. As a result, it protects the drawings and prevents smudging." (http://www.explore-drawing-and-painting.com/pastel-fixative.html)

I am concerned that the size of the piece is not going to work and will look like a cut and paste piece.  I see the piece being hung up, by creating a flap at the top and threading either rope from the beach or a piece of wood.  Given the length of it, I am doing to allow it to drape on the floor and add some rocks at the bottom and maybe a bit of sand.

There are pieces on the fish that have been printed on a4 linen fabric for example the "serving suggestion".  Again I don't want the piece to look full of stuck on pieces so I am taking care to ensure this doesn't happen.  I feel though that at this stage with most of my work, I feel uncertain whether it is any good.   It is usually a few months later that I look and think "mmm that was pretty good".

The fish is to be completed with more hand stitching and will be titled "wish you were here".  I have looked at the "wish you were here" logo from the television programme but it's not anything worth replicating.  I see the title though to be large and diagonal and maybe embellished with yellow wool tops.

Website Creation

From research websites, I know what I find attractive in a website.  Something clear and easy to read, bright and colourful, easy to navigate, something fun i.e. animation.  Examples include Caren Garfen and Tilleke Schwartz (my faves by far as they have animation/motion).

I sketched out a plan of my website, nothing too detailed, using symbols and colours as directed i.e. red for clickable parts.

I was going to use Squarespace to build and publish the website and started to look at domain names and priced up traceyeharris.co.uk and lardyeric.com through 123 reg and it was very reasonable price for 3 years.   It is best to do this for 3 years as opposed to one or two because time goes so fast that if I took out only one year and for example I was away for a couple of months when it was due for renewal, I could lose out if I didn't renew it.   Giving myself 3 years therefore is planning ahead.

I spoke to fellow students who were all using Prosite, which was linked to Behance.   I had seen work on Behance but thought it was for graphics work so didn't set up a page.  However I have now done this, as I concluded that for the purposes of this project, it was the easiest option.   I will not be using this site because I want more flexibility such as use of different fonts.   Also, my branding may not be what I have created for this project.   Also, I have not published this site again because I will not be using it and it costs money to publish it and it feels wasteful to do that.

this is my Behance account which is linked to my Creative Cloud 

One of my pages from my website 

the front page of my website with my logo on the top right

The Prosite website that I have created is a web builder as opposed to one that has to use code to build i.e. html.   Using code is more time consuming if you are a novice (in my opinion).

From the short time I have been using Prosite I feel fairly confident navigating it after encountering things I wanted to do but couldn't work it out so I asked for help.   I have used arial bold font which is not the same as my letterhead.  There is not the option to import other fonts and there is a limited selection available.  

I have used the same colours throughout my branding which are colours from my logo shown below and which are contained in my letterhead and CV.   The font in my CV is a vintage typewriter which I have used throughout, including business cards.

 

6th May 2014

Couple of weeks to go and I've done my 5 year plan, and have typed up the reflection for my first year and now need to do the second year.   I'm secretly freaking out.   Infact I want to run away.  I have the urge to give up my job, and sabotage all the good work i've done in the last 2 years.   I'm coming to the end of something that has been challenging, therapeutic, enjoyable and safe.  I'm stepping into the unknown and I don't like it one bit.   My whole body is saying FEAR (f**c everything and run).  The very small sensible part of me is saying, just talk about how you're feeling and then do what you can today.

So I'll do a  review of what i've got left to do:

1. journal is pretty much up to date 
2. reflection on 2 years reflection! (written work) is 2/3 done - need to print out and read through what i've written - and get Lance to go through it tomorrow to ensure i'm on the right lines 
3. go through with Emma on Thursday what I did in Borth, and have a tutorial 
4. finish all practical work 
1. the big fish isn't touched yet - have though about doing a bit of lino print on it but scared of making a mess on it as it's 2 yards of fabric
2. need to sew together my dyed fabric 
3. make something of the large knitted orange piece - either using the yellow felt or wool hand stitched
4. a piece about the rocket launching site - "Towards the end of the war (with certainty from 8 February 1945 onwards), Ynyslas was selected by the Air Ministry to become a missile-testing site to explore the effectiveness of solid fuel in comparison to liquid fuels. The Liquid Oxygen and Petroleum Guided Anti-Aircraft Projectile (LOPGAP) project was a merger of the Brakemine project developed by Cossor (3 x 3in rockets) and the Spaniel Project, the first surface to air guided weapon developed at the Projectile Development Establishment. The Ynyslas establishment appears to have been operational until its transfer to Aberporth some 15 months later on 17 May 1946. " (http://heritageofwalesnews.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/local-people-help-to-reveal-wartime.html).
5. a piece about the plant SALICORNIA which I understand is an edible plant - served in posh restaurants ..... however one can pick it one self and add garlic, lemon and olive oil - also have noted it is used for herbal remedies and medical healing in the gut!  
6. knitting is on Monday coming so I will start and finish the stones piece in the company of Lidia
7. need to price up getting my work mounted as I'm not keen to do it myself - infact if I do it myself it will cost me more in mistakes so best to outsource

Created in Borth

Whilst in Borth I did some art work using fabric, charcoal, block paints, soft pastels and oil pastels, concentrated watercolour and indigo ink.

I purchased the block paint to use with the stones on the beach and to get a bit of Suzy Ray look.  I applied some paint to the stones and then pressed the fabric over them which gave mixed results so I tried it the other way round i.e. pushing the stone onto the fabric.

this is fabric pressed over the stone which has given a firm shape of the stone 

a different larger stone using the same process, with soft pastel in orange drawn around the edge of the stone 

adding another stone using paint and pastel on the same fabric 

charcoal rubbed over stones on cotton fabric - stone shapes can be clearly seen

using string found on the beach, I painted it with block paint and then pressed it into the fabric and it gave these interesting lines

Reflection: I feel the best thing to come out of this work is using the seaweed and rope by dragging it down the fabric.  Also the charcoal rubbings are interesting.    I could see the charcoal fabric mounted and panoramic - simple without embellishing

similarly with this piece of rope I painted it and pressed it onto my fabric