wanyic@andrew.cmu.edu – 62-150A: Introduction to Textile Media

Independent Project Final – Annie

For my final project I embroidered a jacket. I chose a jacket because I wanted to make something that I would be able to wear. Embroidery was something I found I really enjoyed, and I wanted to see what I could do with a single type of stitch.

I wanted to create something that was important for me. The design on the jacket is inspired by one of the endgame weapons from Okami, a video game that inspired me as a kid. The pattern grew a lot from the initial in game design; I’ve always had problems with creating abstract things, so I decided to challenge myself by doing this for the final project.

Creating a design that would end up on a body was way more difficult than I expected. When designing and making the design, I couldn’t really envision it on a 3D form as well as I had hoped, which resulted in certain designs being on slightly different parts of the body. For example, I had to extend the arm design because it ended up lower than I expected. Running out of colors early on forced me to mix thread colors, which gave the pattern a different feel when looking at it close up.

It was difficult to imagine where and what to put the swirls at the beginning, and I experimented with different thicknesses of lines by adding lines next to each other, using less thread in my stitches, and doing different types of chain stitches. About halfway through the design in the back, I felt like I had a much better handle of what I was doing. I also really like how the disc ended up, with the darker red thread adding a bit of depth. I even added a bit of weaving to create a thicker effect in the center of the swirls.

Overall, I really like how the jacket ended up. I might add more designs in the future, but I did manage to create the asymmetrical design and feel I was going for.

Materials: Jean jacket (x1), embroidery thread (a lot), felt patch (x1)

Independent Project Update – Annie

As of today, I have mostly finished the design on the back of the jacket. I first embroidered flame patterns on a red piece of felt, and appliqued that to the jacket. I made chain stiches along certain parts of the flame to give a feeling of depth.

I then embroidered the other parts of the jacket, eyeballing it as I went down since it was difficult to mark the dark jacket. I tried to change the thickness of the markings by using varying strands of embroidery floss. About the point of the first picture, I noticed that I was running out of embroidery floss and started mixing colors. I also made some rows of 2 chains to

For the “eyes” of the flame pattern, I decided to create a lazy daisy flower and weave through it, creating a bunched up effect. there are still some pieces of the jacket I’m not satisfied with, namely some of the strokes. I’m thinking of going in and adding more thickness to make some of the strokes seem more “full.”

My next steps are to fix some parts on the back of the jacket and work on the sleeves and potentially add a front design. This design didn’t curve around the front as much as I wanted it to, so I might add something small in the front to bring the entire jacket together.

Digital Repeat Pattern (Final) – Annie

I had decided to go the third prompt: drawing from my surroundings. I had recently got a mechanical keyboard, and decided to base my ideas off of that. The fat cats are based off of cats of a youtuber who I was watching while doing this assignment.

Choosing a color scheme was especially difficult, since I had wanted to make each cat unique in their own way, but I still wanted to stick to a bit more monotonous color scheme. I am a bit iffy about the shading though, since it was difficult to get certain patches colored in properly. I also wanted to give this a more cartoonish feel, so the line widths of the keys and the designs of the cats were chosen specifically to match that. I feel like overall, the calmer scheme of what I was aiming for definitely worked.

Since the review, I added a background color and integrated the cats and the keycaps a bit more. One of the color patterns is much more subdued and darker, with more shadows on the keys. Meanwhile, the other one is more lighthearted.

In terms of where I might see this, I think this would be really cool on the inside lining of a jacket, maybe on a mask.

Independent Project Proposal – Annie

With my final project, I want to explore childhood fantasies through embroidery on a denim jacket. Video gaming was a source of escapism for me when I was young, and this one game, Okami, really made an impact on me. Okami is a game which combines Japanese folklore and mythology, and you play as a a wolf goddess running around the country while wielding your powers through a brush. In this game, your drawings literally come to life and your power levels come from people’s faith. I wanted to convey those concepts, artistic freedom and self-belief, through this project, and so I took the one of the final weapons of the game and designed it so it would fit on the back of a jacket.

I’m planning on using an appliqued felt piece for the red circle (mostly since it would be very difficult to embroider something of that size and I’m running out of red thread), and embroidering the darker flames onto it. For the rest of the designs, I’m planning on using embroidery thread since I can create different textures and different thicknesses using those. Given that, I’m thinking of creating more elevated areas in the centers of the swirls.

Timeline

Week 1 (11/24-11/27): embroider red piece and applique it to jacket

Week 2 (11/27-12/4): embroider back of jacket

Week 3 (12/4 – due date): embroider sleeve

Three Ideas for Final Project – Annie

I want my final project to be embroidering a jean jacket, since I’ve really enjoyed embroidering and want to see what else I can do with it.

Idea 1: traditional Chinese symbolism/mythology (similar to encoded cloth)

Idea 2: exploring childhood, or specifically, studio ghibli since it had a large impact on me

Idea 3: some other design that I can throw LED/other electronics in, with hidden sensors that do interesting things when poked (eg. moon and fish light up when it gets dark, glowing flowers, space whale)

Digital Repeat Pattern – Annie

I also wanted to give this a more cartoonish feel, so the line widths of the keys and the designs of the cats were chosen specifically to match that. I feel like overall, the calmer scheme of what I was aiming for definitely worked.

The type of repeated pattern was also easier to choose than I thought it’d be, though I mostly went by instinct. I didn’t want the final pattern to be too crowded, but I also didn’t want to make the repeat block too obvious.

Found Patterns – Annie

Panel with the five poisonous creatures – Ming Dynasty, China, Silk in patterned simple gauze

For the patterned cloth, I chose this one from the Ming Dynasty in China. I found this one interesting since it seemed very delicate and the patterns almost seemed floral until you look in closer. Then you’ll notice the snakes, scorpions, and other poisonous creatures on the pattern. The deception in it really interested me.

I picked this contemporary repeat pattern since I really like feathers. I also found finding the repeat very difficult since it crosses over itself a lot, but eventually doable.

Encoded Cloth from the Future 3 – Annie

When thinking about the future, I felt pretty hopeless about both the state of America and the world. Between the decaying ecosystem, decreasing air quality, and the bloom of technology in our lives, I wanted to create a piece that could express all of those at once. I decided upon making a face mask that had integrated lights, using flower language to convey my thoughts of the future.

I had intended to make the flower pop out of the darkness, similar to hope out of darkness. The red and yellow colors of the flowers can also signify a warning or cautionary tale. I wanted to further play with the theme of hope and despair with the choices of flowers – the red mums signifying joy in some places of the world while being a flower of lamentation, adversity, and death for other places. Meanwhile, the yellow wormwood signifying absence. I think despite not knowing the flowers or the meanings behind them, the mask still conveys a sense of that, which I would consider a success.

In progress pictures, with closeups of the flowers. Embroidering the mask on the hoop was difficult

I found it difficult to integrate the lights into the flowers – the light needed to dissipate through a light colored fabric, and I tried to use the palest yellow to achieve that effect. I also wanted the lights to react to the environment in a way, and had a hard time thinking how I could do so. I ended up adding a photoresistor (light sensor) to the mask and made the upper lights shine faster in darker environments, while making the flowers shine brighter in darker environments, adding to the “finding hope in darkness” theme. It turned out to be pretty ominous in the dark, which was an unintended surprise but pretty cool.

I also found it challenging to camouflage the microcontroller and battery on the side of the mask. If I had more time, I would’ve made a better pouch for the battery to hide it better and make it more secure.

Here are a few more photos of the mask on Rowlett:

Per ardua ad astra – from adversity to the stars

100 Ideas – Annie

1	– technology
2	– electronics
3	– electronics story telling
4	– sensor integration
5	– cloth that can change color based on light
6	– auto camaflogue clothes
7	– leds?
8	– moving cloth
9	– futuristic colors
10	– cyberpunk
11	– mask fashion
12	– cyberpunk masks
13	– masks integrated with other wearables
14	– glasses integrated mask
15	– headphone integration
16	– climate disaster
17	– prints with extinct animals
18	– prints with endangered animals
19	– texture variety – different changing biomes
20	– lots of green/shades of green
21	– water
22	– clean water – filterable cloth
23	– clothes for dry climate
24	– pollution
25	– plastic cloth
26	– cloth from woven bags
27	– cloth from repurposed plastic
28	– metal cloth? from aluminum cans
29	– chainmail/chain from recycled cans
30	– space
31	– spacesuit like outfit
32	– space masks
33	– conquering and exploring – looking at previous outfits and making them more space-like
34	– plant replacement
35	– companion plant
36	– squishable succulent plant
37	– companion plushies
38	– like a story quilt but plant
39	– wish tree – but plant
40	– pockets
41	– dresses with pockets
42	– pants with pockets
43	– more pockets everywhere
44	– blankets with pockets
45	– blankets that suck at insulating but are really good for heat dissipation so you can curl up in them in summer
46	– story quilt for all extinct animals
47	– story quilt for extinct plants
48	– story quilt for extinct insects/bugs
49	– cloth to represent data
50	– climate change cloth
51	– co2 tracking cloth
52	– temp tracking cloth
53	– population growth cloth
54	– evolution termination cloth
55	– political shenanigans cloth
56	– ripped jeans but worse
57	– ripped shirts
58	– ripped shoes
59	– ripped socks
60	– ripped hats
61	– ripped some other clothing
62	– cosplay
63	– super realistic cosplay
64	– ai designer clothing
65	– ai generated cloth
66	– deeplearning stuff but with traditional patterns
67	– deeplearning stuff to combine traditional garments
68	– ai generated “human race” clothing
69	– f it, combine all traditional cultural clothing that ever existed, and just see what ai comes upw with
70	– meme cloth
71	– meme story quilt
72	– graveyard of memes
73	– social media quilt
74	– zuck cloth
75	– crochet food
76	– edible clothing
77	– cloth that represents the evolution of food
78	– idk man im hungry
79	– ice pack beanie for headaches
80	– music clothing?
81	– cloth that represents music
82	– cloth that captures the sync/techno music
83	– ai musicians? vtube musician merch?
84	– personal story cloth
85	– journey into ten years
86	– 10 years of introspection
87	– hopes and dreams for the next 10 years
88	– video game evolution
89	– changing lens of the world
90	– conspiracy theorists
91	– spiral of madness
92	– soft robotics
93	– space beanstalk
94	– blueprint cloth of futuristic tech
95	– clean energy
96	– nuclear energy
97	– death of coal and oil
98	– nature growing over abandoned places
99	– reclaiming of nature
100	– human migration/immigration due to natural disasters

Pt 1. Imagining the Future – Annie

It’s 2030 – ten years past the COVID-pandemic, and humanity has not yet done enough to slow greenhouse emissions, and therefore climate change has only gotten worse and worse. Hurricane season had come back stronger over and over, and the southeastern coast of the US is unlivable between that and the rising sea levels. Wildfire season is unmanageable. More and more animals have been going extinct in the wild, and efforts to rehabilitate rarer animals have redoubled.

Seeing this, more rational world governments have introduced harsh taxes on greenhouse gas emissions. Electric cars and clean energy become popular, gardens on balconies and rooftops are widely seen in large cities, and a large campaign to “save nature” begins, its efforts too little, too late. Blue skies become more and more rare within cities, and smog seems to be the norm. Efforts to create air filtering technology redouble.

Technology and automation have become a much larger part of people’s lives, and wearable tech has become all the rage. Google glasses have made a comeback, with more competitors. Apple’s iPhone now has 20 cameras on the back, and for some reason, people keep buying it. Self driving technology becomes more commonplace, and Uber’s and Lyft’s become more safe. Video games have evolved as well, and NerveGear becomes the next step after VR.

Automation has taken over many more dangerous jobs, and the skill levels needed for jobs has decreased due to the amount of assistance automation provides. This results in the job market being more open to people with lower levels of education, and an increasing middle class. The fast food industry will be taken over by robots. McDonald’s McFlurry machine will never break again. As much as life has been enhanced and eased by technology, human skill and labor is still valued.

Humanities attempts at going back to the moon as succeeded, and the moon colonization process has begun. Scientists have a regular base there, and people with enough money are now able to spend a few weeks for vacation on the moon. Space outfits become trendy. People are looking forward to the first humans landing on Mars.