Final Piece and Unit Evaluation

I have really enjoyed unit X and feel very proud of my final piece as well as all of my samples.

I have used a variety of fabrics that reflect the bright lights and the hustle and bustle of a fairground. For the pouch for the hot water bottle I have embroidered the outline of a ferris wheel. For the fastening I have made four small rouleaux loops and sewn  buttons to secure the hot water bottle in its pouch. 

This unit I feel I have learnt lots of new embroidery skills, and techniques for patchwork and enjoyed experimenting with different fabrics and materials to get different results.
I have enjoyed working with lots of new people and using discussion to help generate and evaluate ideas. I have also found doing contextual and initial research very helpful in creating my final design and giving an overall theme to my project.
However I could have organised my time better, and could have taken more advantage of the excellent embroidery machines, although I am grateful for the inductions and look forward to using them on later projects. I also feel that an aversion to mathematics has rendered my quilt ever so slightly miss shapen, and if I were to do it again I would make sure I was working with precise measurements in order to avoid this.

Final Product Designs and Planning

At the start  of the week, having been given the task of making a hot water bottle cover, I did some contextual research on Pinterest

http://www.pinterest.com/neongirlxxx/quilting/

Finding that often hot water bottles were associated with blankets, I thought it'd be innovative to create a patchwork quilt that has a built in pouch for a hot water bottle. Because of time constraints I thought it wise to aim for a small child's quilt as I'd be hand stitching the majority of it. I decided on hexagon patchwork as I loved the look my sample so much. I used fabrics that reflected colours of the fair grounds best.
After having tacked al my hexagons I wasn't sure of the arrangement.

This is the arrangement I have now settled for secured with masking tape to make sure I can transport the arrangement without messing it up.

I also need to consider how I'm going to secure the hot water bottle into the quilt. I think a pouch with either a velcro flap or buttoned.

Even More Samples

Having received the final week of learning new techniques I feel very well equipped for the brief.

This week we learnt how to crazy patchwork, which I really enjoyed, although struggled with some of the more extravagant hand stitching. Although we were a bit restricted with materials I still quite like this sample. 

I was also inducted onto the saddle stitch machine which has a very limited function, but does imitate hand stitching excellently, meaning that you can still get a nice "hand stitched" effect that is far less time consuming.  

Finally I was also inducted onto the Pfaff machine, which has enabled me to experiment with over 80 different, very complex and intricate stitch types. I think that this machine is absolutely amazing and hope to use it again soon!

Also over Easter were told to turn our hand to either hexagon patchwork or log cabin patchwork and I was quite proud to present this sample.