Week FOURTEEN.

Monday: Getting back into the swing of FDP, starting off with some stuff about colour swatches. It's quite cool to see how other people have sourced their colour swatches. One of the better things to do, would be to get a Pantone Color book, but on the website the cheapest one, with swatches included, was about £230! So I'm afraid there's no chance of one of those anytime soon. We also had split group tutorials, which was really handy as I still didn't really know what to do with the project. I've now decided on my idea, and even got a game-plan of what I intend to do with my designs.
Tuesday: I'm really annoyed about today if I'm honest. Got into uni, expecting to be with Jamie in group A, but apparently not. The timetable says 'split groups with jamie' so that's what I assumed. It turns out, we're actually still in Anoracks and Bomerjackets, like on Monday's lesson. If I had known this, I would've bought my Manifesto work in, but I didn't, so I left it all at home and had nothing to do. So I ended up spending the entire morning researching. Which there's nothing wrong with that, but I could've done something more important than that. I managed to get loads of images printed, so I've now produced a mood board and got loads of photos of relevant designers all organised and ready to go.
Wednesday: Buying and Merchandising lecture was pretty good. I'm pretty tired, so I thought I'd be falling asleep through it but I actually paid quite a lot of attention. So far pretty much everything makes sense to me, but I'm probably going to loose track soon so I bought John's book that I can read when I'm at home.
Thursday: Had another lesson on Lectra today, I'm really pleased with how well it went. I don't think I struggled with anything at all really, just a few things that went slightly wrong, but were easily rectified. I have a lot to learn though, all the different tabs and options we have, with all these crazy new words... a lot to get used to! Also today, I've been colour-swatching. Using some images for my Manifesto project I've selected colours to use for swatches. I also got a book through that I ordered which I think may help me. Inside it contains some tear-out swatches, but they're in coloured pairs which is a little annoying. I tried to get hold of a proper Pantone swatch book, but they're wayyyy too expensive for me right now.

Week Thirteen!

Monday: So, here's the first deadline of the year. Communications in Black and White, and the Melting Pot projects are complete and handed in. I think I've done ok with the Black and White one, but the Melting Pot isn't too fantastic so I'm a little worried about not passing this part of the course. We don't find out our grades for a few weeks yet, which I find a silly as now whatever mistakes I made with those projects, I'm going to make with the Manifesto's project too 'cause I don't know what I've done wrong! But ah well, not much can be done.
Tuesday: Apparently today was the date for the Fashion Capitals presenation we're meant to have done. I don't think anyone really knew it though, so the deadline has been pushed back a few weeks. I weren't really in a group before, so I feel better now that I'm in one and I can start with some proper research. Our group are doing Austrailia, which will be nice as I don't really know a lot about Austrailian fashion.
Wednesday: Our first proper lecture was today! I think our lecturer, John Maynard seems quite nice, he knows a lot more than I expected him to know! I'm not sure how I'm going to do with this unit, I'm not overally fantastic at concentrating on people talking at me, or being able to write essays... I just about managed with Business Studies at ALevel. So far, what's been said makes sense, but I'm not sure what's in store for the future.
Thursday: Another new unit, Lectra. I'm not entirely sure what is included in this unit, all I really know is that it's a program we use on the computer. We started off all together, learning stuff about the program and how to label pattern pieces and stuff, then we split into groups to do this thing on the Lectra board... I can't remember what it's called... digitising? Maybe... anyway, and we traced the pattern piece with this remote control and up on the computer, appeared my pattern piece. Very clever. I'm sure this is going to be a really handy tool.

Week Twelveee.

Monday: First lesson back after Christmas. The one and only lesson of the week, slightly annoying. Unfortunately, due to 'The Big Freeze' I have been unable to travel back to Bournemouth after the holidays. I know the lesson was based on customer profiles, for our Manifestos project. I will be sure to pick up the handouts and catch up as soon as possible.

Week Eleven!

Monday: New brief today: Manifestos! I have nooooo idea how on Earth I'm going to write my own manifesto. At first, I didn't even know what a manifesto was! It's a pretty open project, so I have a feeling it'll take me a while to think up some ideas of what to base this one on. The scariest thing is that we have to design a minimum of 100 outfits throughout this project, I don't think I've done that many designs so far in my life! I'm quite excited about how I basically get to rule this project with my own ideas right from the start, so hopefully I'm going to really enjoy it.
Tuesday: We were supposed to have a talk with Jamie about CV's today, but I'm pretty worried about the deadline for our Pattern Cutting and Construction units, so I decided to spend the day working on those. I've had a look through my folders and found that I've got a few bits missing, which has got me all of a panic now, I'm just hoping I'll be finished on time.
Wednesday: Private study day, I've been doing a whole load of bits. Mainly focusing on the pattern cutting folder, which is now complete apart from labelling the working sketches, and then I've done a little bit more for the construction folder, like re-doing a couple of my previous samples.
Thursday: The pressure is well and truly on. Quite a few of the other people on the course have now finished all the work they needed to do, so I'm getting quite worked up about the fact I could've been finished now. I am pretty much finished, thankfully. I've finished the shirt now, I think it came out quite well, but I made a mistake with the button holes, so I have lines of yellow chalk in the wrong place which has spoilt it a little as I couldn't wash it off. I'm pretty pleased with how far we've come, at the start when we found out we were making a shirt pretty much by ourselves, I was really worried, but working through it I realised it's not as bad as it seems, I guess I know more than I thought.
Friday: Spent all of last night making sure both books are 100% finished, now they've both been handed in. It's quite a while before we find out our marks, but I'm just glad to be done with them. They're all complete and now I don't have to worry anymore. Definately going to use the Christmas Holidays for a bit of relaxing.

Week Ten.

Monday: Trip to Somerset House in London. One of my favorite artworks shown was the video when we first entered the exhibition which was by Nick Night, where he pulled an outfit to shreads and covered it in paint and stuff. The expression in it was really interesting. I think the best bit about this exhibition was the photoshoot that we could watch. The room was closed off and we had windows we could watch through, where there were photographers from ID magazine taking photos for future magazine articles. It was incredible being able to see what the photographers do, how the models act and react and how the photos are edited.
The rest of the day was quite poorly organised in my opinion, as we were left as Somerset House to go off and do whatever for the rest of the afternoon. We ended up finding our way to the V&A museum to look at the fashion on show there, which, even though I've seen it all before, it's still nice to go back and look at things I may not have noticed before.
Overall, I don't think I personally got much out of this day.
Tuesday: Our debate on Eco-Fashion. I'm not much of a public speaker, so I spent most of the day worrying about participating in the debate. I had prepared a sheet of paper with some facts to bring up in the debate, but found out that morning a few others got their facts from the same sites, which worried me. Fortunately, the debate went really well. I don't think I managed to express many of my points, but I think that as a group we all worked together quite well.
Wednesday: First deadline, for illustrator. It seems like we've not really done all that much, and yet I've done all the work we were supposed to do. Looking back, I realise I have learnt quite a bit, but I'm quite pleased to be rid of it now.
Thursday: Cut out the shirt pieces today and started putting it all together. Got as far as the darts in the front and back of the panels. It's pretty scary getting on with something that I'm not being helped through. I know what I'm doing so far, but I worried about making big mistakes.
Friday: Yep, made a big mistake. Printed the interfacing onto the wrong side of the facing. Uni were also out of the fabric we were using, so I got a bit paniced for a while, but I found a bit of extra fabric luckily, so fixing the problem was quite easy. I got a bit behind, but I should be able to catch up alright in the end.

Week NINE?!

Monday: Felt like today was pretty pointless to be honest. The work I did, I might as well have done at home. Couldn't do any work for the presentation as I couldn't find a working printer anywhereee and I didn't really want to have to do the work on computer. I know I'm being a bit grumbley, but I wanted to do it my own way and couldn't, so I was in a bit of a sulk today.
Wednesday: Lesson in illustrator, good job I've kept up with all my work, we've got a deadline next week! We weren't actually told any sooner than this (which would have been nice) so it was a bit of a shock. I think I'm up to date with everything luckily, but I'm probably going to go through it all and make some improvements on the pieces I'm going to submit.
Thursday: I was notttt looking forward to today. Pattern cutting is not my strongest point, and we were attempting making a whole shirt pattern alone today. I was worried, to say the least. Saying that, I think it actually turned out ok in the end. I think I understood where I was going all the way through, until I'd finished the pattern and had to walk around the pieces and my collar was about 2cm bigger than it was supposed to be! I couldn't figure out what I'd done, so needed a bit of help understanding, but I figured it out and (after two attempts!) managed to get a perfectly fitting pattern. I'm actually quite surprised at how much I've learnt in the past three months.
Friday: Today we continued with our shorts. I really enjoy our construction lessons, even if I end up spending half the time unpicking! I feel like the mistakes I make are silly little ones, that I shouldn't be doing anymore, and yet I just keep doing it! Luckily, I must be pretty speedy because I spent most of the day catching up, but by the end of it I was one of the first finished. I'm really impressed with my shorts, but I feel like I need to put a popper or a hook and eye above the fly-zip because it looks as though if the shorts were being worn, that the top would pull away slightly and not look straight. I might consider this after being marked though, as I would rather submit it in the way that we made it in class.

Week Eightttt.

Monday: We started off the lesson spliting groups, our half worked on some working drawings. We've already done a few for our pattern cutting unit, but this time we looked at some ready-drawn working drawings to see what things you could do wrong in a drawing that would have effect if you were to send a drawing off for production. It's amazing how much can be interpretted wrongly! The next part of the lesson involved charcol... which I'm not overally fond of. We had some fabric scraps that we had to draw from, trying to get the right texture. I don't think it started off to great but I definately improved, I really like the drawings I ended up with.
Tuesday: Catchup session today, for all our IT stuff! I didn't have too much to catch up on, as I've pretty much kept up with the IT stuff, but I did have a few questions. I did, however have a lot of my blog to sort out, I can safely say I am now all caught up!

Wednesday: Illustration - blending objects together to end up with a gradient between a number of objects. I made a mistake trying to blend a couple of separate objects together - I just ended up with a huge mess! We also had a go at making shapes into 3D objects, which I didn't really understand for a while but now that I get it, I think it's a really handy tool to use! I also had a bit of spare time at the end of the lesson and tired using a bunch of these techniques to come up with a random design, which I think has come out really funky!
Thursday: Pattern cutting, this time collars! Our last demonstration, which scares me a bit as next week we're making a patter for a shirt, all by ourselves! But I feel as though I've learnt a lot so (hopefully!) I'll be alright with it, I thought the collars went quite well, but I completely messed one up and had to re-draw it a few times... I had a headache by the end of the day!