Unit X | Fabric Sourcing and Emboridery

This week we sourced our fabrics in order to prepare them for sampling. We decided to stay experimental with our fabrics and give ourselves a lot to work with. I went for a range of cottons and silks, both light and heavy weight.
We attempted to source outside of the universities resources and visited Bennett Silks. A few fabrics took our interest but the prices were around £23-£28 a metre, which on a student budget isn't very economical. In the end most of our fabrics came from the MMU fabric store, with the exception of a few online buys and some sourced from fabric shops in the city centre.
We dyed the fabrics different grey shades to keep with our colour palette.

Me and Nicole also sorted out our screens for the print room and booked some space. Unfortunately the print room can get very busy and is often fully booked, so to prevent people being left with no time there is a new rule for this unit where you can only book two days per week. Because of this, I will need some other form of sampling to experiment with as my time printing will be really limited.

Another specialism I have been mixing with print is embroidery. I thought I could develop the embroidery skills I already have in both machine and hand. I started by pin tucking different fabrics with different needle sizes, and also layering fabrics together to see what texture was created. I think they turned out well and they relate to the bandage drawings I have chosen to screen print. I plan to incorporate the two mediums together and possibly pin-tuck a screen print or print on top of some embroidery.