Saturday, February 19, 2011

Textiles

So I've just started the HSC Textiles course, and am finding it very challenging. My teacher has very high expectations, and I find myself turning up 10 minutes early to every class just to avoid the chance of being late and getting a demerit! I feel like such a nerd.

Anyway, we've started work on seams. We've been doing some sample work, and I thought I'd put some pictures up.

Pardon the terrible quality photos, but I couldn't find my camera and had to resort to my computer webcam.


These are my bound seams - very tricky. I was the first person in the class (but certainly not the last) to get a cotton lock over doing this fiddly work. That means that the fabric gets stuck in the bobbin thing and you pretty much have to take apart the whole machine and rip out your fabric. Thanks for using me as a demonstraction, that really made my day (not). At least I learned to be more careful!


These were my first attempts at using an overlocker - what a marvellous invention!! A few seconds of loud noises, and the machine creates a complex stitch and cuts the fabric for you, and it always looks professional.


On this page I sewed some very simple hems, and the bottom three were hand-stitched. Oh yes, I am amazing at handstitching after those hundreds of hours I've spent on cross-stitches!!! It was supposed to take the whole lesson, and I finished in the first 20 minutes :D Browny points for me.


As a reward for fininishing the handstitching so quickly, my teacher showed me this very unusual seam. Hand-stitched again, but I'm not sure if I did it quite right... I think this is called scalloped or something? It's supposed to be a decorative hem for sleeves or something.

So yeah, Textiles is turning out as more challenging than I thought, but lots of fun! Haven't had to do any figure drawings yet though ;)