Mandy's ITP Blog: Final Project Documentation

During spring break I had three main objectives. One, to stop by Metalliferous, two, to round up as many jeans as I could and three, get conductive thread.

3/12/07 - Called Sheildex looking for thin, conductive thread that will hopefully work in my commercial sewing machine. I was sent a large sample of 235/34 4-Ply.

3/13/07 - Went to Metalliferous. I spent about an hour just taking a step back, and taking it all in. If you have never been there, there are rows and rows and columns and columns of bins that hold anything you can think of: clasps, charms, chains, etc. It can be a bit overwhelming at first. I started out by looking through the bins of clasps, and bought a few that I thought I could test out for my skirt. I am still not sure if I will be using surface mount LEDs to demonstrate the social network, but if I do, I will need some type if connector, like a clasp, to light up each network. Here are the clasps that I bought:

3/14/07 - Went home to NJ for about a day and a half. So many of my friends were happy to help out, and offered me their old jeans. I visited Kerry and Nicolas, Jill, and Susan. I spent so much time visiting everyone that I didn't make it to Patti's before she went to bed. I resorted to asking her to leave them outside her door. I took a picture of the exchange just for the hilarity of it all..

My Jean Collection as of March 22, 2007

While researching similar projects to mine, I began reading about patchwork quilting. There are two types of quilting that have similar themes of my project: medallion and friendship quilting.

Medallion Quilting - quilting based around a central piece of fabric. (My project will center around my jeans/personal social networks.)

Friendship Quilting - quilting made from the scraps of different people's fabric or clothing. Many times each person would sign their piece of fabric/clothing that was being incorporated into the quilt.

Here is the social network that I plan to portray:

Here is a sketch of what I would like the skirt to look like:

3/23/07 Presentation of Final Project to Class

I received some great feedback today from the class. I have decided to rework the design of my skirt, based on the suggestions that I received. I found that talking through a process aloud, can often increase inspiration. Here is a list of the feedback/questions that I received. Thanks to everyone for their ideas!

-Instead of waiting for all of the jeans to arrive so that I can map out the design of the skirt, I could map it out the way I would ideally like it, and leave holes to serve as placeholders for the missing people/jeans. If I do not end up receiving the jeans, the holes will represent the ways in which a social network can be broken.

-I could make the skirt modular, so that it can continue to grow, just as a social network does.

-I could create a tiling effect, and have all of the patches be the same shape. (Which could coinside nicely with the skirt being modular)

-How will I know whose jeans are whose? I could use transfer paper on the back of each patch to denote the owner of the jeans. And I could design the skirt so that you can "open up" the patch by flipping it over, to read a story and/or description of the person.

-The placement of each patch could depend on the chronological order in which I met the person. (The people I have know the longest will be closest to me, and I can keep adding people on to the outer perimeter of the skirt as I meet them.)

3/26/07 Tiling Ideas

I have been thinking about what type of standard shape I would like to use for my skirt, and I received a few ideas on my walk home from 59th Street.