Raiding The Pantry
Week one of Design Practice asked us to create 51 artefacts with varying time constraints and a size constraint of A6. My research explores how to bring wool to the forefront of the wearables industry. This will evolve into a more fledgling research question as my master's journey progresses. Currently, I split my hunch into two avenues: 1) creating superior products with wool, and 2) creating more awareness around wool and growing its community. In this exercise, I wanted to focus on the latter as widely as possible. I wanted to explore the concept of "how can wool be used to make a statement?" Simultaneously, I also wanted to explore methods I was underdeveloped in and revisit methods that have worked for me in the past. Our final constraint was choosing three words to guide our creation. These were chosen from the following list: raw, processed, readymade, hot, cold, porous, desiccated, solid, viscous, ephemeral and fermented. As you go through my work, see if you can see which words come through; they will be revealed at the end.
Ideation (5 min)
My starting point for this was just to create and get back into making. Keeping my goal of creating a statement in mind, I created 4 different artefacts that were 'weird' and made you think. This led me to create some 'thought cards' about how I viewed wool in relation to my product and how that shaped the story and narrative I was trying to tell.
My five minute artefacts also featured the brushing of my brown and white wool in preparation for it to be carded. This is a process that I hadn't done before and it continued my valuable learning on understanding the wool product chain.
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Prior to my masters I have been working on collaboration with Cornwall park to create products for their shop. I watched the shearing of their wool and then took it to be scoured (cleaned). This is the next step in the process.
Mixed Media (10 Min)
Continuing in my exploration I scanned in the 5 minute artefacts, and played around with colours to create a 'statement' with wool. I was interested by how the different colours could influence how you digest the image. Using wool to create pieces of art serves as a interesting medium to connect wool to a wider range of audiences.
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This led me to continue to explore mixed media through older photos I had and continuing use of my five minute artefacts. You can see how the exploration of font through mixed media influences my design in my one hour artefact.
Carding (One Hour)
My artefacts didn't follow a linear process, as I needed to card my fibre before setting up my 15- and 30-minute artefacts.
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The carding process took far longer than I expected, creating an interesting connection between the time something takes and my connection to it. I felt very proud of the card I created, and by understanding the process, I created a link between myself and a part of it.
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From a business standpoint, though, it is concerning to consider how long the process takes and how that impacts costs and consumer decisions, specifically in the wool industry. However, this process is hand-operated, and there are more efficient methods.
Felting
(15 Min)
Upon carding, I took it to a digital felting machine. I wanted to create a wide range of samples with varying conditions for the digital knitting machine. The three conditions you can control are the roller speed, the needle speed, and the time you spend passing through the fabric. I created various samples with different settings, such as 70 needle speed, 30 roller speed, and 30 needle 70 roller.
After creating 12 samples, I created an example two using my preferred settings, which were 70 needle speed and 30 rollers. The more needle hits created a denser felt. My white wool was half as dense as my dark wool, which also gave me an interesting split on how thickness impacts feel.
30 Mins (P2)
Naturally dyed products have been the primary way people have felt connected to my products in the past. This is because people can contribute ingredients they have seen create strong colours, which helps build a deeper connection to a product.
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I used two dyes that I was familiar with (lichen and red cabbage) and one new dye, pahutakawa leaves.
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I wanted to test designs on different wool media (felt, raw wool, yarn, and shoelace) and see if there was any differentiation. I also wanted to test natural dyes on brown wool and see how they would affect it.
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Dark wool had little success on natural dyeing, with some orange poking through with lichen and very minimal colouring with red cabbage and pahutakawa. My shoelaces and yarn took to the dye the best, but this could be due to wool type, as my laces use 28 micron wool compared to my raw wool, which is 38 micron. Felting took the dye slightly better than raw wool, but the difference was marginal.
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Interestingly, I did two different lichen dye tests (there are over 10,000 types of lichen, but three key groups) and by using 15g of fruticose lichen, I received a brighter result compared to using 75g of foliose lichen. This is important to note when considering materials for larger batches and material sourcing.
Lichen (fruticose)
Red Cabbage
Re Dye
(1 Hour)
Upon dyeing and drying, I wanted to re-dye the fibres with a different material. This can be used to create more specific colours and to continue building a narrative and interest. For my initial test, I just wanted to experiment, so I used flowers from my backyard. I was a minor colour shift in the lichen dye, but a complete shift in the red cabbage dye, going from a pale blue to a khaki green/brown. This isn't a commonly achievable colour, and green dyes can be hard to make colourfast, so this was a win.
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It is also worth noting that all dyes observed in these artefacts have been mordanted with alum and washed to test colour fastness.
Shoelace-bet
(One Hour)
Carrying on from my mixed media testing, I wanted to use piece of woollen shoelaces to create a type face. I was unable to get it into a typeable font within the time frame, but this served as a good prototype.
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Upon reflection, cutting the laces into smaller pieces to create shapes took away from the authenticity and wasn't a good call.
Words
Raw, Processed, Hot
Did you get them? I feel as though raw and processed shine through, where as hot was a bit short sighted of me as I was thinking about how I could be eco dyeing and that would be hot. It was more important to me in week two to use words that reflected more so on the ethos and methodology rather than the methods.
Reflection
Getting back into making was hard. I struggled to start, and I felt like I couldn't let the ideas come to me I had to create them because of the strict time limits. However, I do think it was a good shock to the system and a reality check about the required workload for a master's degree. It also got me into the making mindset and set up for a smoother week two. I felt as though the word restriction and size restrictions were unnecessary, and that time was enough. I do not think creating on an A6 scale particularly challenged or added an extra dimension to my work.
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In terms of my own output, I was grateful to get lab time to explore felt and try methods I had not used before. I was pleased with how my work followed an iterative approach, and you can see the learning in the 5-10-minute artefacts applied to the longer ones.
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I am to continue iterating on my week two work and build on the learnings I have gained, while applying new lenses to techniques to help me gain a greater understanding of them. My goal continues to create awareness around wool by creating interesting story-driven artefacts, but hopefully this will begin to take more form in week two.