Textiles in Practice: Origins Reflections

Starting Origins I was very excited to delve deeper into textiles further than what I had done before and explore all aspects, especially 3D. I highly anticipated learning how to use the looms, and seeing where embroidery could take me; as well as refreshing myself with some knitting and print.

To begin with print was most familiar and I was excited to begin. However I don't think I got involved with the hand printing as much as I found it hard to be creative with pre-done screens. So I decided to focus my efforts on digital print and really enjoying being able to use the brush tool so freely to create different layered and multi coloured prints.
Next, embroidery was definitely my downfall of the bunch, I found it hard to translate what I had drawn in my summer project using the needle. And the lack of colour made it hard for me to really express myself, and I unfortunately pushed embroidery to the side. I found it hard to manoeuvre the fabric on the machine and it was an over all stressful 2 weeks, and I wish I had spent more time with it.
Next unexpectedly I really enjoyed weave. The use of colour, and 3D aspects really brought it to life and I loved experimenting with all the new patterns and the the way it affected the weave with the use of thread, and different thickness. As well as adding tassels, and thicker lines. This made me doubt my first decision to do print as I enjoyed it so much. However I didn't anticipate how time consuming weaving was, and it took me a while to get into the groove of the patterns. I wish I had more time to add to my collection.
Finally, I also really enjoyed knit, delving back into my previous knowledge was useful, and I enjoyed trying to create samples. I tried to make them as interesting as possible for my technical file and wish we could have created samples from research for this, as I really enjoyed it.
Overall Origins has been an eye opener and helped me to pick out what I enjoy most and excel in most. I think going forward Print, then Weave is the areas I wish to learn more in.