Final Bag

Overall I feel the bag I created was a sucsess it shows link to the theme of fairground from the twisted leather and shows clear links to the artist Llane Alexis from the colour scheme and the textural effect of the weave. I found the sewing together of the leather quite tricky because on some parts it was several layers and others only two layers. I feel that this unit has taught me some vital skills in leather which is something I never had, these skills will be something ill take forward in my further practice.

WEEK 4- Leather and Sheep-Skin

This week was the week of the construction of my bag, I began with the strap as it was the longest piece of my bag and so would hypothetically take the longest amount of time, my thinking was that after making the strap I would get an inkling as to how much waxed thread I would use and the amount of time it would take to sew the bag. Robin showed my two different ways of making the strap one quicker and the other more time consuming, I chose the latter one as I felt it gave a more professional finish to the strap.

constructing the strap was a very time consuming process however I found that it took much less waxed thread than I initially though it would do. I then sewed the back to the width of the bag and began constructing my woven front piece. I cut a variety of thickness' and colour blue and black strips of leather and played around with the placement. I wrapped strips of leather around other strips to create the circular pattern I had seen on the heltaskelta and candy floss sticks and used these more textural strips within my weave. The weaving process itself I found quite fiddly as the leather would move around in the weave and so I decided to add a small amount of glue to the edges of each strip to keep it in place this was very efficient as it kept all the strip in the correct placement and the process became allot simpler.

WEEK 3- Leather and Sheep-Skin

After looking back through my research I had decided that I would create a woven front to my bag, I knew that the company which sold and suplied the leather would be coming later on in the day. For weaving I would only need strips of leather and as I wanted my colour scheme to be a variety of blues I didn't want to buy lots of large leathers.I worked with the group and explained that I was creating a woven front and so would need strips of any blue leathers and they were very helpful and I gained a variety of coloured blue leather.

At around eleven o'clock the spokesman for the company came in to sell the group leathers of our choice at the discounted price of five pounds.Before selling us the skins he explained how there were many different types of leather and different animal from which they come from I learnt that pig suede could be bought and is a well used material this was something I was oblivious to before the talk. Throughout the talk the man kept reiterating how their company was an ethical company and all of its leathers and skins were a by product of the meat industry and the animals were not killed purely for their skins. I hadn't realised that using leather bothered me slightly however once I found out that the skins with only a by product my mind was settled and I felt allot more comfortable using the materials. I purchased the leather that I would use for the side panels back and strap of the bag and so after lunch began making my pattern

As I learnt from making my paper bag in the first week, I was very exact about the measurements when creating my pattern and so the process of creating my pattern and transferring it onto the leather was something I found quite simple and enjoyable. However when it came to my strap I didn't have enough leather left and had to go into another pieces with a lighter tone this didn't matter as I was creating a woven front to my bag I could just incorporate the straps leather into the weave, from this I learnt that if I was to do it again I wound create and have my pattern pieces with me whilst choosing the leather to make sure I had enough.

Research and Development

In the middle of second and third week the group got together and we had a guest designer in to show us a variety of skins. This was something that the whole group was really enthusiastic about as it was something that on the whole as a group we hadn't looked into before. He taught us a variety of processes and techniques that would be used with the skins. Although this unit is primarily working with leather the information we had learn't will be very useful in our further studies if we choose to work with other skins.
Over the Easter holidays I decided to look more into bag design, I created some quick sketches of different bag designs

I knew I wanted to incorporate a textile technique within it somehow whether it be through weave, knit or patchwork, my eye was caught by the twisting patterns on some candy floss sticks as well as the heltaskelta iIhad seen at the mosi museum and photographed. I wanted to somehow bring this into my final bag as it linked back to the theme of fairground. I began researching some textile artists who create bags and came across Llane Alexis a self taught artist who creates bags by plaiting different fabrics together adding leather straps and forming a bag.

the idea of the soft slouchy bag really interested me and as I had previously stated about wanting to work with soft leather, researching this designer just confirmed my choice of creating a soft leather slouchy bag. Although the materials Llane uses to plait aren't leather the textured feel to the bag as well as the blue colour scheme is some that interests me and would like to take further in my process of constructing my bag

WEEK 2- Leather and Sheep-Skin

This week we were introduced into working with leather. We were set into small groups, due to the stitching being visible when working with leather it was vital that we learnt techniques of different decrotive stitches, as well as how to attach a zip and other different fastening technieques.

We used a curved needle and waxed thread to join two small rectangular peices of leather together, i had previously used these stitching technieques and so found this process fairly simple. Creating these samples will allow me to choose suitable stitches for my bag.

We worked in groups and were taught how to encorperate zips as fastenings and how to make a handle for our designs.

when creating the handle in our groups i took the leadership role and created the handle amongst the group. I found this process very interesting and i realised how much goes into makeing a handle which to me before seemed like such a simple thing and i never gave it a second thought as to how much effort it takes to be made.

The processes i learnt this week will be very useful in the process of making my bag however if i do intend on changing my final design idea into a 3 dimentional sculpture these processes will still be helpful. All of what i have learnt this week, how to use; a mallet, curved needle, waxed thread, chisel, scalpal and other leather tools will be helpfull in my further practice as a textile designer.

WEEK 1- Leather and Sheep-Skin

I was very enthusiastic about the idea of working with and learning a new craft of leather work. I found the first week very useful as we found out how to make a pattern for a bag. This was something i had previously had no experience with. I found this process challenging at first as i didn't realise the importance of the measurements. I firstly created my pattern to my bag on patterned paper and then on to cartridge, however once i cut my patterned pieces out the measurements didn't match up exactly which is why i then had to remeasure the pieces accordingly. Although this was something that went wrong it taught me a vital lesson to take forward with making my bag in the further weeks.

This process of creating a paper bag made me realise that it was infact a bag that i wanted to create for my final piece. When it came to ansembling the peices together, they matched up correctly however i struggled as do the paper not being flexible, glue wouldnt hold it together and so i hade to use staples. This made me want to use a soft leather for my bag as it would be much more flexible and easy to work with.

Another thing i learnt about working with leather is that the leather is sewn on the outside rather then the inside. After finishing my bag i realised that i hadent worked out the proportions properly which left my bag slightly too oversized this is something i will correct in my work in furtre weeks.

Blackpool Pleasure Beach Archive

After the MOSI archive we visited Blackpool pleasure beach. We were given a talk about its history as a fairground and the rides. The fairground first opened in 1896 and was owned by William Bean, the fairground is still owned by the same family today. We were took on a tour around the park to see the rides and attractions and then to the pleasure beach archive. The archive itself had a variety of collections. Something I found highly interesting was the photo showing the pleasure beach as it was the vast difference to todays pleasure beach was shocking.