Multiple With A Soul

Project Intro

As a result of my interst in textiles and their construction I intially began this project by focusing on knitting. My reasons for this were that, for me knitting is a craft that is stereotypically looked upon as a hobby for elderly women, housewives or people with not much time on their hands. However in past few years it had become much more of a 'trendy' past time, and much more young people are taking it up.

http://www.castoff.info [link to cast off]

Being equipped with the basic skills, I spent some time producing various samples with different yarns in order not only to develop my skills further, but also to learn about the behaviour and certain materials and how they look when different stitches are applied

Research

It was at this point in my research that I began looking into the works of other designers such as 'Marcel Wanders' and his 'Knotted Chair', as well as other knitting and weaving constructions and particularly the work of fabric and textile designer Ann Sutton. Ann Sutton's work particularly interested me as a result of her ability to not only design textiles, but to create produts from them and design innovative ways of making this transition.

http://www.craftscouncil.org.uk/Exhib/k2together/index.htm [link to Knit 2 Together Exhibition]

After having looked at work by other designers I became motivated and inspired and decided that I wanted to carry the themes of size and colour through into my own work. However it was also at this point that I felt I should focus back on the brief. In looking at the name of the brief and the words 'multiple with a soul' it occoured to me that this concept could infact be related to the knitting theme.

'Multiple' = Many stitches, so knit, pearl, knit pearl being repared over and over

'Soul' = Almost biblical air or breath part of you, Putting part of you into your product.

Inflatable knitting

This led me on to the idea of some sort of inflatable knitting, where by the consumer brought a knitted product such as a table cloth, place mate or rug, and by inflating it allowed the object to increase in size and change its function and allowing it to become possibly a foot stool, seating or a cushion.

In settling upon this theme I then had to begin to tackle the idea of inflatabiliy and passing this through to textiles. I began this by playing with balloons weaving them in and out of fabric samples and attempting to inflate them (poorly).

I also did some research into the company inflate and contacted them. In visiting their london office I was able to speak to them about possibiliies for construction of the piece and perhaps how it could work.

http://www.inflate.co.uk [Link to inflate]

After further experimentation and testing I realised that what I actually needed was just 1 long length of inflatable tubing. This led me to the idea of using bicycle inner tubes. My idea was to cut them and join then together in order to form 1 long tube. After vising a specilaist bicycle shop, I explained to them what I wanted to do and they suggested I use a soultion called 'Weldite' which they use to mend bicycle punctures. The solution works by melting the rubber and fusing it with the piece it is attached to. Having created this long length of inflatble tubing, I then covered it with its own knitted cover thus creating my inflatable foot stool.

Online Links/ research

• http://www.castoff.info
• http://www.inflate.co.uk

-- NicolaRobinson - 04 Jun 20