and the cogs keep turning

Working drawings for the patches piece.  Although I do like them as works in their own right.  Perhaps large scale mixed media pieces will be the way to go...

Patches coming together

The patches are slowly coming together.  It did start in some kind of order but then the wall got too small  and compositional balance came into play.  This photo goes upto the letter 'O' and I am determined to get to 'Z', however I feel by that stage the whole cabin will be covered.

Alphabet Swatches

Latest addition to the alphabet swatches.

I want it to be a playful and enjoyable experience to view.  There will be mis-matching, overlapping, and padding with all the pieces coming together at the end.  Hopefully the piece will be visually unified, with not too much repetition of the same themes and forms.  I want each to stand out yet harmonize.  With regards to the idea that is driving me, play, it is still present in my thinking, although, I am becoming increasingly seduced by the basic forms and colours.  I have been thinking about what makes an item 'playful looking'.  The rectangles are a personal response to that.  I will be asking further afield.  

But looking at this wall makes me happy and excited, which makes me know I am on the right track.   

  

Fabric Thoughts

A through to I.  Playing around with composition, shapes  and colours.  It's at such a fluid stage.  It really is just playing at the moment.  Trying to adopt a 'do now think later' approach.  Trying to make as much as I can and piece it all together at a later stage  

Dah di di dah

Carrying on...  I am going to let the hanging piece air for a bit, pick it back up at a later stage.  Still carrying on with Morse Code I looked into the different methods it is learnt.  Dichtomic search, a tree like system of working out the letters through their long and short sounds.  Its formulaic, almost mathematical appearance attracted me.  So I’m working through different ideas and arrangements...  

Now you know your ABC

Now here is the ABC in Morse code.  As you can see it is a little uneven on the right, which is not really what I want.  Ideally I was hoping for each row to be relatively equal in length, which hasn’t happened so I am going to have to work out some kind of solution.  At the moment I’m thinking some wall interaction, perhaps using drawing and line to restore the balance.  But definitely NO colour and NO further stuffed shapes.  I am still thinking about having it suspended away from the wall, with the piece itself acting as a type of division.  I am thinking that by having a wall up close behind the shapes it might take away from their three dimensionality.  We will have to see, but one thing is for sure the sewing is OVER! Well for now at least.

Pattern Cutting

For the last week I have been on a pattern cutting course, which has redirected me focus slightly from morse code blocking.  It was fabulously interesting and equally as fabulously difficult.  It did test my patients on multiple occassions.  However, I stuck it out and at the end of the four days I ended up with an actual skirt that fitted me!

A bitty visual documentation of the process

Frida as inspiration

and the final result...
                             ...front...

                               ...side...

                        ...and back...

   I know it's not an Alexander McQueen but i'm dead proud of it.  It made the continuous unpicking and restitching worth while.  Definately recommend it! Plus I met some great people :)