Knitting work! Think I should retire early!

These knitting needles are bloody

huge!

Ughh, no sixth form for the past two weeks has been incredibly boring for me; I feel like I`ve got absolutely nothing to do all of the time... So, I`ve had to improvise quite a bit and make something for me to do! If that even makes any sense...

I`ve invested some money in some pieces of fabric and stuffing, some new knitting needles and some new small balls of wool that I got locally! There`s a small haberdashery that`s been in Ilkeston for years, and it`s just around the corner from the library in town;  I remember my grandma going in there quite a bit, but I`ve never actually been in there by myself or bought something.
It`s only small, but it`s got a giant range of practical textile equipment and sewing machines, at AMAZING prices; Definitely the cheapest place I`ve been too, and from using the wool and the new knitting needles, I`d say that their really good quality.

I can`t believe how cute this

fabric is!
I haven`t cut it all up yet..

I`m definitely going back there for more materials, I got half a metre of the cutest fabric for only £2.65! and the chunky knitting needles I got where only £6, and they`re 15mm; they`re bloody huge, but they`re very easy to use. At the moment I`ve got tons of balls of wool, I`m not sure as to why I keep on buying even more, I`m beginning to run out of room for everything, I don`t know how I`m going to cope when I got to University and I`m bringing all of my equipment and materials home!

Despite running out of room in my own bedroom, I do want to invest in a pattern book for my sewing machine, embroidery and knitting. I am thinking that I might aswell retire right now, but I`m finding it as a quite fun hobby whilst I`m not at sixth form; I may pop in though soon to scan some work in and then photoshop for redbubble, but for now it`ll just be knitting and sewing machine work.
Hopefully, If I do find a decent pattern book for my sewing machine then I`ll be able to make a lot of my own clothing, and it`ll hopefully be quite useful for when I go to University; it`ll definitely show that I`ve got more skills than throwing paint at a canvas.

Just as a beginning to my knitting and sewing work, I started off by making a some small samples that are now in my knitting and sewing scrapbook... which is under my bed and under all of my other sketchbooks and giant portfolio, so I actually can`t get it out.
Through the samples and practicing my knitting with small needles, I`ve used my bigger needles to try and make something practical that I can actually use. So I went for the easiest thing that I could think of, a bloody scarf.

Yes, how very original and complicated; but then again I`ve only just started doing knitting and things that I should start doing when I`m retired...

I used two separate balls of wool to make the scarf, and it isn`t too long since all of my other scarfs always poke out the bottom of coats. It was a bit weird using two different balls to knit with at the same time, and because it was my first time using two balls of wool; I kept on getting confused and ended up adding stitches by accident... I`ve got no idea as to how I kept on doing that, but it meant that my scarf started off quite slim and then got bigger towards the end, kind of like a chubby worm? Yeah, let`s go with a chubby worm.

Since the weather has also dropped slightly cold around here, I sat with it around my neck for a while to keep me warm. I have to say, I`m quite impressed with myself; even though to make a scarf like mine, you just keep on using the same simple knit stitch until you think it`s long enough... I just kept on measuring mine by wrapping it around my neck and then seeing how far it comes down my torso. It really is comfy, I thought that I wouldn`t be able tog et it that long and that I would run out of wool before it got that long, I only had about 4 inches left of white wool by the time I had finished my scarf.

Next I`m going to knit my nephew a blue and white scarf, and then my older sister is going to have a red and white scarf; So I`m going to have to go out and try and find some similar coloured wool to what I have now, since I don`t think I`ll have enough to finish enough complete scarf. 

it really was easy to make, I would say that this should be a starting point for anyone who`s just starting out at knitting and textile work.
The best thing is, my mum and little sister know how to crochet; so last night we all sat down and watched Wimbledon whilst knitting and crocheting. It was weird, very weird, there was wool everywhere and the dogs where lying all over what we where doing because it was warm and soft for them.... Think I need to move into the care home that I`m working at!


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Personalization Time!

I`ve even been customising some of my smaller

sketchbooks!

That`s it guys, I`ve officially finished sixth form now! I`ve been going on, and on, and on about sixth form for months on end now... But that`s it!

Since all of my storage boxes that I kept on my desk at
sixth form had gotten really dirty, I decided to jazz them up

Just a little bit.

I`ve been signed off of my course officially and I`ve handed in all units for my coursework, I`m still going in every now and again to scan in some work and help out the teachers by being their art technician; But work wise, I`ve done!
I`m extrememly happy and excited at the fact that I`ve finally finished sixth form... but what comes next?
Well for starts, I`ve had to bring every single piece of equipment home which means that my room is now full of folders, boxes and random glue sticks with no lids!

I`ve struggled a little bit with taking everything home and finding a way to store it all inside my tiny box room. luckily, I`ll be moving into my little sisters room, we`ll be swapping so I`ve got room for all of my University equipment and books. At the moment, there are boxes shoved underneath my bed and a bag of spare fabrics for my two new sewing machines, so it does feel quite weird having to have everything crammed inside my room... It`s even weirder not going into sixth form everyday.

I`ve even been through all of my sketchbooks and I`ve worked on customizing those quite a bit, like adding brown paper covers and adjusting the metal binders on them. So at the moment, it`s just getting things ready and trying to keep myself occupied with little things; soon, I will be working full time up until September which is when I`m starting university... So for now, I need to find something to do to keep me somewhat occupied!
Something that I have been trying out is small DIY bits, for instance; My friends found a small tutorial on how to make decorative hedgehogs  out of old books, no glue needed too! Unless your adding buttons and bows, then you may need a small amount, but apart from that, you just have to keep on folding the pages over and over again for it t be stable.
I won`t be writing the tutorial, I`ve got some small pictures above, but the tutorials can be found anywhere and I don`t quite see the point in copying off of them.

I`ve also got my hands on two sewing machines! I`ve got two as I bought a second hand old one, and then a friend from work had a spare one that was just sitting in her garage, so she`s kindly given it to me for free! Lately I`ve been messing around by doing a few bits on there, mainly just heart bunting for my new room; I haven`t used a sewing machine in about 2 years though, which is making it very awkward to get back into the habit of using. I have also begun to personalize one of the sewing machines, It` been spray painted plain black at the moment, I just need some gold spray paint to add the splatters over the top of the black. So, it`s not quite there yet, but spray painting it black beats the dirty look it had before.

Over summer, I`m going to be investing some money in a scanner so I can keep on uploading my work to deviantart and on this art blog. Hopefully, I can find somewhere local that sells fabrics and small bags of stuffing so I can keep on producing small bits of work on my new sewing machines. Hopefully, I`m also going to buy a pattern book for my sewing machines, so I can make things that will actually be wearable, should be fun to experiment with over the summer holidays!

I`m also hoping, really, really hoping that I can go back to shed2studios at some point to go back and do some work with Dawn Turner! If you can`t remember Dawn, she is a local glass artist that let me work with her for a few days within her studio space... she`s amazing! Even though I`ll be working full time next month, I`m hoping to see her for a couple of days just as a catch up before University and of course, for advice! I`m hoping to do quite a bit of work within glass myself, and I`m hoping that she can give me some advice on where to start.
Looking forward to this summer!


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Final Piece!

Click on the images below to make them bigger, that way they`ll look a

bit better.... Hopefully.

You may of heard me not shuting up about this bloody final piece that I`ve been going on about for months on end now. But I`ve finally got it done, and if anything... I bloody hate it, I literally hate it; all because of the final outcome.
The three days seemed to of gone quite slowly aswell, probably because I had to keep on waiting for everything to dry for a few hours each day... Which then gave me even more time at the end of the three days to just add a few extra final touches.
The whole piece included a lot of fire, a lot of plastic fusion and a lot of burning myself on a hot glue gun that has no temperature control on it whatsoever... I`ve still got some areas healing on my hand from where the hot glue had burnt me quite quickly.
it took a while to complete, and I`m really disappointed in myself since it doesn`t look like anything I had imagined it to look like.

For starts, I had three different boards that I was going to complete for my final piece... Which would be quite a challenge within itself to complete three boards as a collective piece.

To prepare myself for the exam, Since you can`t put everything together until the exam, I began to wrap different layers of papers with different thicknesses around the board and let it all dry... here`s the way you get around the rules though, even though it was wrapped around the board, it wasn`t actually glued down to the board, there was just glue on the paper to hold the shape together. I actually did this same little technique during my last exam in year 12, it allows you to start the layering in the background as int he exam, you won`t have near enough time to wait for everything to dry and for everything to set correctly.
I had to do the paper wrap layers on all three boards, and they had to be quite thick since I had to set them on fire... Yes... I was setting everything on fire, and everyone was getting quite mad with me because of the smell that kept on coming into the art rooms; luckily, I didn`t set any of the fire alarms off... I think I might of been close to doing it twice though.
I also had to have David on stand by with some water, since when I did it by myself, It got wayyyyy put of control and burnt through the back of the canvas and then began burning the paper that was at the back; after that it didn`t stop and I had to scream for David to help me so I could finally put it out, I think I also singed my hair a little bit.


The base layers where the layers that I had to focus on before the three days we had for the exam. The paper layers weren`t stuck down still, but I threw a lot of ink and paint at them that just seemed to be completely random colours at first.
But they eventually blended into the correct colour scheme towards the end of the piece. One of them had a bright, bright green base, another had a very dark grey and another had burgundy... The amazing thing is that, now you can`t tell which one was which unless you look quite closely, you can kind of see the colours a few layers back slowly blending into the greys and white washes that are on the top layers.

The inks really helped pull the colours together too, they where much paler, so when I began to start the white washes on top; they added pale tons from the first few layers and it added a nice effect with the blending.

I think the one thing I really struggled with in these pieces, was the illustrations and text that appeared on top of the initial layers that I created. The pens that I used, yes normal bloody pens, They wouldn`t bloody fade out when I used the white washes over the top. Which then meant that there where a lot of random white patches where I tried to cover up the thicker parts of the text. It was just normal biro pen that I used, but for some reason it just wouldn`t fade out when I covered it.
I also had to use a lot of ripped up pieces of dyed papers, chip paper, packaging paper and paper just with normal scribbles on. Working over the top of these, and then peeling them back off meant that I had layers of colours and texture that I had worked over earlier. A lot of the textures where quite thick and I was getting quite annoyed with myself as the first textured layer I added was wax, which meant that I wouldn`t of been able to draw back over the board normally, then I added plaster and thick emulsion paints.
Worst thing was, I did this to all three boards before realizing that I had completely forgotten to do the illustrations and text first, which meant that I had to use a wallpaper scrapper to get it all back of. That then wasted a lot of time during my exam.


The last few layers that I added where some of the hardest ones, since these would just finish off the piece; they where supposed to be more detailed and more textured, but they came out a lot more differently than anticipated.

Before I worked over the board properly, I cut some holes into the back of one of the boards, and then holes in the other twos paper wraps. This meant that I could then add plastic fusion work through the holes so it looked like they had been burnt away to then be revealed... If that makes any sort of sense. When the plastic fusion came through the back of the board, I had to melt even more plastic over the top to make sure that it blended in properly with the backdrop I had created. This was one of the very last things that I did to my pieces, I wouldn`t of been able to do anything over the top of the plastic since it`s just too stiff to even move. This meant that on the last day, I had a huge, huge rush to melt everything over the top of the board.
On the second day of the exam, I actually had to stay behind to get some preparation work done to then melt on the third day. I had to make loads of layers of flat plastic fusion in the heat press, then I sewed them all together and created patterns and flowers with the stitches.
Then when it came to melting all of the plastic work, I had to go outside and then re-melt all of the plastic fusion with stictches, and the plain pieces of plastic I had to then merge everything back together. It was ridiculously hectic.
Like, very ridiculous and I`ve never stressed out so much over the course of three days before.

Hoping my final piece will look better once it`s

in the exhibition!

The worst part is...
I`M NOT EVEN HAPPY WITH THE WAY IT LOOKS!
I spent three whole days, I spent loads of extra hours staying behind at sixth form to get more work done, only to then be disappointed in all of that hard work that I did.
I know for starts that it`ll look wayyy better once It`s in the exhibition in the gallery, at the moment I`ve just got my board balancing on three plastic boxes and my two smaller boards on two dirty old easels.

I am really, really annoyed at that fact that we didn`t get to go down to the gallery to see what our work would look like, I would of carried it all down there and I would of set up everything myself, but the teachers said no when I asked. It`s just sooo annoying because the projector was dirty, and wonky because it was on my desk, the easels where dirty, my biggest board was just balancing on a bunch of boxes and it kept on falling off whenever I had to lean on it to add more illustrations.

It`s so frustrating.
I`m happy that I`ve finally got it done, and I`m kind of happy with the way it looks at the moment; but I do know for a fact that it`ll be better when it`s up on display in the gallery.
I need to clean the projector aswell, and hopefully find a table that isn`t wonky, find some easels that aren`t as dirty as the ones up in our art class and then get some metal hooks in the back of the biggest board so it isn`t left balancing.

It`s just waiting for the exhibition now...


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