Monday 19th May Shetland College, Textiles and Design Department, Lerwick
Experiments and development
 


CG: We have established a workroom in the College. Collaborations have been formed and are now in action, working towards more defined projects.

Gordon, Margaret, Mary and Steph are working on seaming and joining and the potential of contrasting qualities – man-made with natural materials. The idea is to make features of seams. Christine is working on the past in the present, on control and disruption, on faux and real. She is interested in the dynamic and visual iconography of the football pitch and its model version in Subbuteo, a made up trade name of 'subbuglio' meaning confusion, turmoil, and 'teo' from theological. 'This word is a wonderful concoction of religion and chaos like many football matches'.

Hazel and I are re-examining glove forms and making a possible range of gloves – knit and embroidered, knitted felt, knitted acrylic, knitted wool (un-felted) and printed glove. We are using the cut outs to make scale changes, zooming in and out of different found textures.

Heather and Susan are developing a range of knitwear, working with Walter, the knitting machine technician, to produce a prototype of a sleeveless jumper, a basic garment with interchangeable ‘necklaces’ as a range of adornments as scarves or jewelry that are worn with the jumper.

Norma is printing directly from her own feet producing a long banner through silk screening processes based on the idea of a journey.

Freddie is experimenting with single fibres joined into a textile by means of paint as well as using paint as a solid material.

HD: In talking with Margaret, she tells me that in her experience of running the shop, Fibres, she has noticed that Shetland people don’t buy the same things as people who come to Shetland from abroad.

"I'm always left with the brown and the green...I don’t know if it’s the landscape (that accounts for this)"

She explains that you have to make a prototype of a prototype when gettting a new design done on the industrial machines.

 
Quotes of the day
 


"I’ve never known a day in college to go so quick!" (definitely a luggage label).

"Five folk and an inch!" (five folk clustered around a knitting machine and one inch of knitting to show for that).

CG: Gordon gives his presentation before we go home. It is very selected but emphasizes technical innovation, which is good for this context.

We head for the best Indian restaurant in Lerwick – the Raba. Excellent food and we laugh a lot.

SB: Today is the first day I am confident the Lab process is really working (again)... so we now need to build on the group dynamic.

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