THURSDAY CLASS - and further sample development

Thursdays class was jam packed, with a short introduction into 3D modelling software and our first group tutorial with Faith and Sue.

Firstly, we had a play around with designing zero waste clothing with bits of paper, the act of cutting and moving the paper resulted in a really dynamic and visual way of designing.

From there I wanted to focus on laser cutting a "sleeve" design onto a bit of fabric, wanting to address the issues I identified with the first round of sampling:

1. Smell- very bad, not good for clothing

2. Is the fabric too weak once cut?

I altered the kerfing design I found on the Instuctables website to be larger, and then I laser cut this, so I could see if I could address the weakness issue. The resulting pattern was stronger, however the smell was more prominent than in the smaller samples, presumably because the sample was larger so the fabric was exposed for longer.

To address the smell, I decided to try gently hand felting one of the smaller samples we made. The resulting fabric was looser and softer than the original laser cut felt, however it was still weak. The smell has reduced but has not gone away, so I will try getting the sample dry cleaned next week to see if this will resolve the issue.

I also wanted to try some smaller samples to experiment with some of the concepts and ideas I had researched this week. As I had looked at modular clothing, I was interested to try out some fittings that I thought could work for a garment that I may produce and had lying around in my sewing box. I tried attaching some large nickle snaps and found they were quite effective.

I also looked at the Make/Use website this week so I thought I would try out the "Twisted Faggot" or "Insertion stitch" that the website recommends. I really liked the effect it had on the fabric and found the stitch really therapeutic! I also tried the stitch with a zipper as well, and found it was sturdy enough to hold the zipper in. With the right fabric, colour and yarn combination it can be decorative element as well.