Friday 25 February 2011

Tapestry Design

This is a design which I created for a tapestry and it was inspired by one seen on Kirsty Allsopp's homemade home

Saturday 19 February 2011

Harlequin Wallpaper

To complete my interior design range, I felt that it needed a coordinating wallpaper. The design for this was taken from my ties cushion, which I photographed, cropped and edited to separate the colours into layers. These were then printed onto acetate ready for screen printing. I chose to print one panel of wallpaper, 50cm by 250cm, with 11 colours and 2 or 3 layers of colour per diamond section. As screen printing is one of my preferred areas of art this was very enjoyable to do but it took me about 40 hours.
Below are photos of the process of screen printing my wallpaper panel.
 Ink on screen
 Day 1
 Day 2
 Day 3
Day 4 ~ Completed wallpaper panel

Foot Stool

This foot stool was re-covered using socks. In order to keep the harlequin theme, I plaited the socks as when lined up they form a diamond pattern. With the idea of feet ('foot' stool) in mind, I decided to stuff the socks for the legs of the stool, in order to create the effect of feet in a tip toe position. I feel that this was quite successful and the pun makes the piece more quirky.
Below are images of my foot stool.
 Close up of plaited detail
Finished foot stool

Jeanbag

For this beanbag I used diamond patchwork pieces which I cut out of old jeans. The jeans were collected from friends and I tried to use a variety of colours of denim, keeping the zips, pockets and buttons in the patchwork to make the jeans recognisable. I wanted to make the shape of the beanbag quirky and unique so I decided a doughnut shape was challenging and interesting. It is also very comfortable to sit in! Below are images of the completed beanbag.
 Finished beanbag
 Zip on back
Back of beanbag- patchwork detail

Ties Chair

To create this chair I removed the remaining broken wicker from an old chair and covered the seat with canvas. The canvas gave the seat part more strength so that when I stapled on the ties this would reduce the pressure on them. Initially I only covered the seat with ties but decided that the chair should be completely tied with ties. As this is part of my harlequin collection, I weaved the ties to create a harlequin pattern over the chair. The images show the front and back of my chair which is strong enough to still be functional. 
Chair with seat covered
 Seat close up
 Back of seat and canvas
 Fully covered chair
Back view

Friday 18 February 2011

Magazine Edited Version

Here is the edited version of my magazine layout, with better proportions, no spelling mistakes and less of a bulk of text. I have also removed the plug socket from the showroom image.

Magazine Layout

With all of the soft furnishings I have created for this project I decided I would like to take a more professional approach at selling them. I have done a lot of research into interior design and showrooms as part of my Contextual Studies work and decided to make a showroom of my own. I photographed the showroom and put it into a magazine layout with all of the items in the showroom available for sale.
Below is an image of my magazine layout

Tuesday 1 February 2011

Ties Cushion

This patchwork ties cushion was created using the off cuts from previous tie pieces such as my bag and dress. Diamond shapes were cut from the remaining silk which I sewed together using my sewing machine and backed with an old mens suit. I like the idea of the combination of a suit and ties and intentionally included the button detail from the suit so that it is identifiable. The cushion is stuffed with wadding from an old cushion and will eventually be part of an installation I plan to create with all things harlequin. 

 Ties Patchwork
 Cushion
 Ties and suit close up
Buttons detail

Harlequin Rag Rug

This Rag Rug was created for my current project, 'Clarify'. The idea behind this was to identify my strengths and area of interest from the previous project, 'Identify' in which I found new ways to reuse objects with upcycling. To Clarify, I decided that textiles were my area of interest and in order to keep a link to my last project I am continuing with the idea of reusing, in the recycling of clothes. All of the items which I make for this project will be textile based furnishings for the home. A theme of harlequin patterns will run throughout and this pattern came from the regular use of ties in my work. It is also resemblant of the circus which draws the idea of fun and playfulness.
I used old t-shirts donated by friends to create the rug, and the base was an old hessian sack. Below are images of the front and back view.

 Rag Rug
 Front close up
 Back view
 Back detail

Front detail