7th January 2014 - Bradford Decisions

7th January 2014 - Bradford Decisions

Front of manipulated machine knitting

As part of this project of work, we are required to enter the Bradford textiles society competition. Earlier today I researched the society in more detail, and now I have a sheet (a set of sheets actually) displaying all of the different topic headings that the competition offers. These are an amazing list of different topic areas in which to enter from, The clothwokers foundation award for a woven fabric for interiors to The prestigious textiles award for a printed textile design for the textile market. 

This is where I feel it wise to start my sketchbook alongside this blog/research. In my sketchbook I have begun to think about each of the competitions, thinking about which one I think may work best for me. This is a very VERY difficult decision because a throughout my uni course so far I have refused to limit the way I work into one type of media. Unlike many other people, \I enjoy exploring the whole range of textile processes. I was not sure what to do next!

Back of manipulated machine knitting

Looking through all of the competitions, there is an entry for literally every different process and end outcome, certainly that I can think of. I decided to think back to my time in uni so far, to see if there was something that I particularly enjoyed back then, that I didn't feel I had enough time to explore. I enjoyed this idea of thinking back and picking out something to explore further. 

In my first year I had fallen in love with the knitting machines, I thought they were absolutely amazing because it took no time at all the knit something. I had briefly touched on a exploration of this in one of my projects, creating a knitted collar from sections of patterned knitting, but I had wanted to take it further and explore through printing and manipulating. By accident, in one of our first workshops on machine knitting I created a piece of manipulated machine knitting, picture on this post. I created it by picking up stitches from the already knitted fabric. Looking back on this now, I can see its potential. 

This was the focus of the Bradford competition project. I will follow the course of the experimentation of knitting, looking at textures as a way of obtaining visual research for inspiration and possible printing opportunities

.