Evaluation for SDP

Evaluation of SDP

For Self Directed Project, I chose to participate in Costume Store, which also merged with Breathe. I began the project one or two weeks later than everyone else as I was required to finish the Battle for the Winds jacket to a high standard by binding all of the seams and lining where appropriate, which was fairly time consuming. Following this I went straight onto work experience for two weeks (one of which was during the Easter holidays. This meant that upon arriving back to the costume store I was not particularly fresh minded and also struggled as most people had moved on to other garments.  I was however quite enthused about making a shirt, just nervous at the same time as I wasn’t sure what level of independence was expected of me. I thought that I wasn’t supposed to ask any questions regarding technique and work it out completely by myself after the initial run through with Dexter. I then went on to make quite a lot of mistakes due to being stubborn in not asking questions, as for my previous project this was a large part of my feedback. I did learn a lot from making mistakes, but it meant that in places my shirt was not constructed to its best standard, despite un-picking and re-stitching quite frequently.

I felt a lot of pressure to get the shirt finished and sent off for Battle of the Winds, and therefore rushed the construction. Whereas costume store shirts were able to be continued working on throughout the project up until hand-in. This would not usually faze me at all, and I usually embrace challenges, however throughout the project I have felt quite disorientated with all of the different projects going on at once, in my case Battle for the Winds, Strawberry Hill, Battle for the Winds shirt, Breathe, POP and then the blouse. However by the time of starting the blouse I felt a lot better in myself as it was alongside my peers, I would actually be working on the same thing at the same time. I realise that within industry this wouldn’t be the case, but I merely was in need of some coherency.

I did enjoy the variation between the projects, and I feel that each provided me with new skills and it was an amazing opportunity to be able to work on both. However, I found it difficult to work on costume store for Monday and Wednesday. Then breathe Wednesday evening and Thursday and to return to costume store on the Friday, as both projects required completely different mind sets and it was hard to change between the two in so little time. As once you had got into the right frame of mind for one project it was then time for the other. It took a while to adjust between the two.

Despite the above difficulties, I have really enjoyed this project and I feel that I have learnt a lot from it. I feel that it has helped me to develop as a practitioner. I think that it has also been useful to work on a blog alongside this, especially as it was something I’d never done before. It helps to think about the work from a more professional perspective as it is in the public domain. This also opens up more opportunities in promoting our work, and could assist and be the basis for a portfolio.

Costume Store has taught me the importance of working within a professional and clean environment. As well as the effectiveness of discipline and self influenced quality control. I have also learnt new technical skills and construction methods. I found looking at existing garments and using my own initiative as to how it was constructed a particularly useful skill, as well as learning how to scale patterns (increase of decrease the size of a pattern by using the existing sizes and working out the difference).

Breathe allowed me to be more creative which was nice as i miss this element from design. It was a lot more about costume interpreting as well as experimentation with textile techniques. All of these elements combined made it possible to create something rather organic. It was good to have quite a lot of freedom with it as costume store is so restricting, but it was fairly difficult to match the high standard of stitching due to its structural nature. The fringing was particularly difficult to apply as it was so thick and needed to be applied to quite a heavy base. It was hard to get such a large quantity of fabric under the machine, and it did snap a couple of needles. This caused the lining to become quite bunched and tight, I therefore let out the armhole to ensure movement. I also had to consider wheelchair use with the fringed jacket. This meant that the fringing couldn’t be too long around the arm, or restricting on arm movement.

Overall, from both projects, I learnt the valuable skill of successful time management. This is very transferable and possibly the most important aspect of personal development.