Designing and making for a luxury home ware collection

I initially researched and developed a colour palette inspired by the tropic and geometric trend this summer. I used my colour mixing skills to make the colours using pigment.

Drawing inspired my botanical florals and contemporary geometrics.

   

I created some prototype wall paper designs to develop my knowledge of the stages in which a product is made.

Finally i had my final wall paper designs digitally printed before applying both hand and machine stitch to them.

I hand printed and embroidered this design for a cushion to complement the digitally printed wall paper in a living room setting.

Floral Geometrics

Initial drawing for the design and business module part 1.

Application

   

I am really happy with the final outcomes for this project, I think the aim of producing a collection of luxury embroidered samples has been accomplished with attention to detail.

Using photoshop I created these visualisations to demonstrate the application of my designs.

Original image on left sourced from:
ELLE - January 2015

Original image on right sourced from:

ELLE - February 2015

Paris Research Trip

 Visiting Galerie Lafeyette and the Pompidou in Paris was an insightful experience giving me beautiful images to inspire my future projects.

Production

From my design work i developed my ideas to create samples using both digital and hand embroidery processes.

I used Wilcom, a software that you can draw designs onto to digitally stitch out my luxury designs. 

I learned it is cheaper to stitch out designs this way than to fully hand embroider every sample.

I also hand stitched onto digitally stitched samples and applied bead work.

Design

With the new design brief design production application I decided to create a luxury embroidery floral collection.

This included initial floral drawings with inspiration from William Morris.

Tropic Trend

With inspiration from the tropic trend proposed by Global Colour, I created these patterns using Photoshop.

'Remote'

I used hand embroidery techniques including straight satin stitch, fly, stem and cross stitch to create delicate designs that communicate autumn decay and the intricate detail that can be found within skeletal natural forms.

Autumn Decay

Throughout this project I worked on incorporating natural forms within my embroidery samples.

I manipulated the forms using paints and dyes to fit the 'Remote' trend.

Colour Palette

I mixed procion dyes to make each colour from the 'Remote' palette to dye my fabric and embroider on.

Natural Forms Inspiration

A photo-shoot photographing natural forms in their environment to inspire my design work for the Autumn/Winter trend 'Remote'

Fashion

Exploring fabric properties really suited my style of working, I found pushing the boundaries extremely fun whilst still incorporating hand stitch processes.

Interiors

I created this interiors collection using pre programmed sttich, I used fragments of motifs to create all over designs.

Colour nuances

I love colour so I was excited to develop colour mixing skills using both gouache paint and procion dyes. I took part in a technical dip dye workshop and made 50+ colours which were recorded in a technical file for future reference. These colour nuances were produced for a client led brief to which I created colour groupings with exciting presentation. This process made me eager to learn about other dying processes and using plants to create natural dyes.

Embroidery

I really enjoyed learning how to create my own sequences of stitch using the Janome sewing machine, I used different stitches to create patterns and block stitch.

I found a new way of drawing that suits me by experimenting with different drawing styles.

Being passionate about hand stitch made creating embroidery samples to fit the first impressions theme easy. I enjoyed learning and experimenting with various different processes which helped me to make the decision of specializing in embroidery.

Constructed Textiles

Within constructed textiles i enjoyed the technical aspect and recording processes. Working with various lifting plans enabled me to create beautiful intricate patterns within weaves as well use the knitting machine to produce supporting samples.

First Impressions

I enjoyed exploring the properties of usual natural forms through various drawing styles. The various facets and textures of natural forms I had collected allowed for experimentation with a number of mixed media. After transferring drawings onto a silk screen I was playful in how I printed my designs in a repeat pattern to demonstrate the qualities found from a first impression.