Student Description

"My wearable textile art project is a reversible bolero jacket that has plain, black velvet on one side and colourful patchwork on the other. It was inspired by bolero and matador jackets, crazy patchwork and the emotion of passion. I used the bolero style to create the shape of my jacket (long sleeves, short length) and the matador style to decorate it by incorporating black lace trim around the edges of the velvet side of the jacket. Crazy patchwork enabled me to experiment with a variety of techniques and create something that was visually interesting. Passion gave me the colour scheme for the patchwork since warm colours (particularly red) are usually associated with this emotion. I used a premium black velvet material on one side of the jacket and a variety of cotton fat quarters on the other to create the crazy patchwork. I have used silk ribbons, cotton embroidery threads and assorted beads to decorate the colourful patchwork lining with a number of creative techniques including hand embroidery, ribbon embroidery, beading and machine embroidery. My most frequently used hand stitches include lazy daisies, French knots, stem stitch, and chain stitch. I learned how to accomplish many of the skills and techniques mentioned above including silk embroidery and crazy patchwork. I also learned a great deal about time management which is an area I found particularly challenging especially after self-isolation earlier this year. As much as I enjoyed embroidering the jacket and watching as it came together before my eyes, the most rewarding experience was doing the last step in the process (the topstitching around the edges) because I could finally see what it looked like as a whole and the relief of finishing the project was very exhilarating. It was also a relief knowing that my wonderful teacher could finally take a break from anxiously asking me when I was going to finish embroidering the project! My greatest challenge was time management and knowing when to stop. My teacher (as mentioned before) was very worried I would keep embroidering until I had run out of time to sew the jacket together so learning to use more time efficient techniques and larger decorative patterns was a big learning curve and an interesting challenge for me. My greatest sewing challenge was embroidering with the ribbon, which would not always look how I wanted it to."

Images of Work

"I made the crazy patchwork base with enclosed seams using the stripping method. This improved the aesthetic quality of the jacket as there were no raw edges or stitching exposed, and it provided a smooth background for the embroidery. It is also a very durable method of crazy patchwork."

"Hand embroidery was used all over the patchwork layer to incorporate aesthetic texture and detail onto the project. The rough texture it creates, opposed to the smooth velvet layer, adds to the stark contrast between the different sides of the jacket created by the conflicting colour schemes."

Select Student Folio Pages

The pages selected for each project reflect the individual students' interpretations of the syllabus guidelines for the MTP. Each student should develop their folio according to the guidelines, relating to their own individual project. This may result in a variety of presentation styles, numbers of sketches and/or experiments.