When I first started planning what I wanted to do with my final project, I thought of making something that would represent me as an individual. I knew I wanted to share my own struggles and somehow connect them to a larger issue. I thought of creating a piece of clothing in the form of a Girl Scout slash, as I was a GS for many years and saw the discrepancies between what I was taught as a child and my own mentality which evolved as I advanced to middle and high school. My intention with this project was to create something that revealed the societal pressures a young woman has to face as well as the internal conflicts she must deal with.

Process:

As stated before, I originally wanted to create an article of clothing but after a while, I thought it would be more powerful for the piece to be a sort of graphic poster. To me, graphic posters are bold and when hung up on a wall, they draw everyone’s attention. I used applique for the actual slash and the for pasting the badges on the slash. I also incorporated some hand stitching as I thought it would perfectly fit into the theme of childhood.

Learning:

From this project, I learned that hand stitching is very difficult and time consuming. It was the part that took me the longest especially since my pieces were so small that a lot of attention and care had to go into it. Also, I realized that the slash did look like the state of California, especially when it was hung and looked at at a distance. If I were to do it again, I would be more precise with the cutting and drafting of the center piece.

In terms of materials, I mainly used yarn, but I also included multiple kinds of ribbons. I also included a found object (red square with circle cut out) as a small accent.

One of the techniques / patterns that I used was danish medallions. This is a motif that I explored in several ways, but as I tried to create cohesion in the piece, repeating patterns felt important. Other patterns and techniques used weren’t as commonly repeated. I skipped certain warps in order to create striping, and I also skipped certain warps to expose the colors of the warp. In one area, I tied ribbon around bare warp.

I found planning this piece challenging – one of my priorities was to explore texture, and while I was able to experiment in the first weaving assignment, I worried that I didn’t know the textures well enough to plan my weaving well. Ultimately, I found repetition to be helpful in iterating and allowing for exploration instead of creating something that is very carefully planned.

Motivation

I planned to make a quilted bean bag chair that would be an appropriate size for an adult. I was inspired by these chairs that were in the Carnegie Museum of Art:

I think that furniture design in general is very exciting, and by creating a bean bag, I wanted to be able to explore textiles that interest me while exploring furniture. 

Materials and Construction

The bean bag was created by stitching together 6 square textiles in the shape of a cube. I purchased styrofoam pellets to use as filling, then filled a cube made of muslin (dimensions around 25 cubic inches) with them. Then, I constructed the 6 sides of the quilted outside separately and sewed them together. 

This pattern was found in a quilting pattern book. This side is meant to serve as the “top” of the chair. 

The following are the 4 other sides that are visible.

What I Learned / Next Steps:

This project helped me understand quilting better, and helped me understand the challenges of quilting in a new way. I realized how difficult and time-consuming quilting can be, but this also motivated me to try and develop my sewing and quilting skills. While I probably won’t make another beanbag in the near future, I do plan to work on more quilting, and hopefully will build off of what I learned in this project. 

My intention with this project was to create a garment that showed how the media that we consumed as children (mostly cartoons), influence the way we perceive our sexuality. The piece was intended to express the duality of the consequences of being exposed to these types of influences. My project intended to use mostly female cartoon characters that were reminiscent of my own childhood and that were reasonably recognizable to my audience. The piece also intended to show how we hide those aspects of ourselves behind closed doors; which is why I originally intended for the garment to be jeans that were reversible. The reversed side of the jeans would have the sexually explicit version of the cartoons.

Process:

To make the garment, I debated whether to start from scratch or not. However, I knew I had oversized men’s worker jeans that I had gotten in Peru. They needed alterations but they had enough leg room to create a canvas for the artwork that I wanted on the pant leg. The first step was to alter the pants at the waist; in order to preserve the original structure of the jeans, I decided to make two pleats on the backside (centered in the middle of each back pocket). Then, I ironed on the images that I ordered off Amazon. All of which would be ironed on the outside right leg pant. Then I used multi-purpose markers to sketch the rest of the images on the pant leg; sketching first with white to accentuate the color since the pants were a dark wash. After this, I embroidered the Bugs and Lola bunny patch that would go inside the pants, as well as Courage and Tweety Bird (located on outside left pocket). Then, I made them into iron-on patches and ironed them on.

Learning:

At the beginning of this project, I wanted to create a garment that would stand alone as an art piece. Something that could stand the test of time and could be seen as a symbolic object forever. However, I learned that with a topic like sexuality and the media there is a fluidity to it that can almost not be frozen in time. Instead, I chose to present the jeans as if they were in a store. This would symbolize that these jeans, as much of our attachment to cartoon characters, will pass with the season. Soon there will be new cartoon characters that represent something different for the following generation and I believe we are moving towards a global consciousness that is becoming aware of that now.

When starting this project, I wanted to create an object that would help CMU students destress, but also not appear to do as such on the outside. I created it as a product for my friends, but also as a statement against their deteriorating sleep habits in the face of stressful times such as finals or project deadlines. Since I enjoyed printing textiles during the encoded cloth project, I thought I should do the same for my final, and decided to print out one for the exterior (the black hexagons) and two for the interior. I felt that making an object that could transition between two forms instead of being two distinctly different objects reflected what I wanted for my friends: to be able to cope with the stress and work to their full potential but to also be able to remember to practice self-care and wellness, particularly with regards to sleep. I decided to pick a messenger bag because it would still be able to have practical use while encouraging the user to rest.

Process:

I decided to make the exterior black and white to reflect the conforming nature of CMU’s stress culture–to work harder and not smarter–as well as students’ very work-oriented mindset. The honeycomb pattern was to refer to how students at CMU are always “busy as bees” to inject a bit of humor into the topic. The inside was made of two patterns, both modeled after images of the galaxy and subtle auroras to induce a visual representation of something that personally calms me and to remind one to sleep.

Learning:

I still have a long way to go with my sewing skills, but I was pleasantly surprised to realize how much I enjoyed creating my project. If I could do it again, I have many things I would like to add on and improve, such as the sloppy edges and structural integrity of the bag,  an embroidered bee, or a laptop slot for practical use and pockets. I also had a lot of fun painting the galaxy/aurora fabric, although I probably should have dyed the fabric first so it would be less stiff, but it all worked out eventually. All in all, I’ll definitely be revisiting this project in the future and will expand to other objects to introduce aspects of wellness into the lives of my friends.

When starting this project, I knew I wanted to create a fairly traditional looking quilt that used both patchwork and applique. I decided to create this quilt for my brother, because I knew he would use it, and I intended for this quilt to celebrate our family, and specifically our identity as Japanese Americans. Because I had never created a quilt before, and had never done applique before, I checked out a couple of books from the library for inspiration: Beautiful Botanicals: 45 Applique Flowers & 14 Quilt Projects, by Deborah Kemball, and The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946, by Delphine Hirasuna. At first, I wasn’t entirely sure what direction I wanted to go in. I wasn’t quite sure if I wanted to go more into my family’s history, our ancestors, and the internment camps, or if I wanted to use the quilt to more generally celebrate our ethnicity. I decided to keep the quilt a little more simple, and went with the latter, focusing on our Japanese American identity. From there, I knew I wanted to incorporate California native plants and my last name written in Japanese. Using the book on appliqued flowers, I started to sketch out possible layouts for the quilt, and decided that I wanted the quilt to have a center area, where the flowers and my last name would be.

Process:

After creating a rough sketch of my quilt, I bought three different cotton fabrics, two for the background, and one for my appliqued last name. I decided on two different navy blues for the background, as indigo dye is often used in Japanese textiles, and I went with an off-white fabric with small flowers, for the applique. Based on my sketch of the quilt, I figured out the dimensions of each separate piece, and added on a half inch seam allowance. After buying and washing the fabric, I measured the width and length of each, and drew a couple of diagrams to help me figure out how to best lay out and cut each of my pieces. I then used chalk to mark out each piece, and a rotary cutter to cut. Starting in the center, I sewed the border pieces to my middle diamond, and worked outwards from there, making sure I ironed my seams open each time. 

After putting the background together, I moved on to the applique of my last name. To begin, I printed out my last name at the size I wanted my applique to be, and traced the characters onto freezer paper to create templates. I then cut out each of the freezer paper templates, ironed them onto my fabric, and cut out each character. I knew I wanted to tuck the edges under to give the applique a cleaner finish, so I started to fold and iron the edges of the fabric around the freezer paper templates. However, the freezer paper kept on coming up, and it was difficult to fold over the edges, so instead, I started to just hand sew the characters onto my quilt, folding under the raw edges as I went along. This got to be really time consuming, so after talking to Margot about it, she recommended I use a glue stick to fold under the raw edges, so that I could use a sewing machine to quickly go around the edge of the applique. While this is as far as I was able to get, I will continue to use glue at the edges. When I’m ready to sew the characters and the rest of my applique on, I plan to use a blanket stitch on the sewing machine, so that I’ll mostly be sewing in the gutter, and occasionally stitching  onto the appliqued piece.

Learning:

Although I haven’t finished this project yet, I learned a lot about the planning stages of a quilt, and how to go about creating a patchwork quilt. Even though I wasn’t sewing together that many pieces of fabric, it was really surprising to me how long it took to actually figure out the math and cut out each section. Moreover, it was really difficult to match up my pieces well. For example, several of my corner “squares” are a little bit off, and definitely look more like rectangles. For the applique, it was really interesting to try out several different methods before I figured out the ones that worked for me, from the freezer paper, to hand sewing, to glueing the edges. Overall, I definitely learned some of the basics of patchwork and applique quilting, and I’m really looking forward to continuing this project, and adding more applique and maybe some embroidery.

My process included many separate steps to combine into the larger piece. After choosing base materials for the body and shirt, the first step was to do the block printing. I chose to do a floral pattern because flowers are a common symbol of beauty as well as common motifs used in both fabric and tattoo designs. After printing on both the skin and shirt fabrics, I did some basic assembly with a sewing machine to put the pieces together and further solidify the split halfway through the piece. I then threaded the hair using brown yarn for one side and multicolored yarn for the other and braided each half in simple french braids, tying off each side with yarn from the other half. I put some finishing touches on adding in various amounts of earrings to either side and doing any final adjustments to the braids as needed.

Throughout this project, I learned a lot. Aside from the more obvious increase in understanding of the tools and materials I used, this piece also helped me to understand some bigger picture topics as well. While the topic of body modification and the perception of tattoos and piercings was a topic that struck home for me personally, as I worked on the piece and contemplated further additions to the work, I realized how many similar parallels can be drawn with other pieces of identity in a similar way. I also got to learn first hand how a single piece or statement can affect the world around it, as we found the display of my piece next to others impacted the interpretation of both mine and others’ projects.

Final Piece:

Body Image Suffocation

Intention:

My intention for my final was to create a textile sculptural piece. Since I did my encoded cloth project as a garment, I wanted to push myself to combine more skills. In this piece, I intended to create a sculptural piece that would be almost like an installation. The theme behind it is my feelings about body image in America and how suffocating it can be to be a woman in this world. I chose a neutral yellow satin to represent high fashion as well as yellow and red tull. The final detailing would be in pink sparkly fabric.

Process:

I got the materials for the sculpture, which included wire mesh, canvas, and a mask. I hand sculpted the body onto the canvas, securing it with duct tape and using cut-proof gloves to protect my hands. After the body was created, it was stuffed with paper and I used paper-mache on top of it to create a more sturdy base to wrap the fabric around. I then stapled the yellow satin around the canvas to keep it secure. The next layer was the yellow and red tulle. The red tulle specifically went over the mouth and torso to represent the restriction of voice and reproductive rights in this country. Furthermore, I hand-made and sewed fabric roses onto the body to represent the censoring and sexualization of the female body. Lastly, I added pink roses to draw the eye around the body and to hint at the “pretty in pink” stereotype.

Learning:

I learned a lot from this project, including form and craftsmanship. I also learned how to make a provocative piece without blatantly “stating” or making an obvious message. I gained a meaningful critique about how to create a figure that may not look dead by including the limbs a bit more. I felt as thought my message came across in a powerful way and I learned how to blend clothing-making and sculpture!

For my final project, just as in the previous, I continued investigating camouflage. This project took the form of a Tyvek mask, constructed out of shipping envelopes from the United States Postal Service. I printed eyes in red and blue on different parts of the mask, working with the classic American color scheme we all know and love. I used the eyes motif in the construction of the mask as well, stitching variously colored eyes all over the surface of the mask, alternately covering or revealing the printed pattern and colors underneath. I cut out some of the prints in a pattern reminiscent of woodland camo, but just stitched these shapes back onto the eyes, creating no high-contrast pattern disrupting the outlines, but instead disrupting the pattern itself.

With this project, I wanted to investigate surveillance, occlusion, the omnipresent, all-seeing eyes that we spend our days living under, and what is revealed and hidden by these eyes. The mask has no eyeholes; it obscures the sight of the wearer, but is itself covered in eyes, of differing colors and shapes, obscuring and revealing their own eyes and structures, shrouding the wearer in a riot of shapes and edges. When you can’t see out, who is doing the looking for you? The lies of false surfaces, books becoming their covers, becoming entirely cover. We’re all stuck inside Yog-Sothoth, living in the head of the omniscient, but knowing less and less ourselves.