Hi everyone, sorry again for going a long time without a post, I've had another run of bad luck! The first being the house has been burgled, so much has been taken - mostly sentimental, I wont go into it any further otherwise I'll just get grumpy again. The second lot was I've been in hospital; I'm all fine now though :). Anyway on to what I was actually posting about... A Guide to Surviving a Fashion Degree First off as much as you may not like this some of it will be the usual things that your tutors will constantly drum into you all year, sorry but unfortunately quite a bit of it is true! 1.) Plan your work out in advance - Yes you may do what I used to and go into a sulky teenager insisting that you can't predict the future or you don't know when you'll be ready or "inspired" to make something, but its tough you've got to do it and it actually works! So plan what you want to have achieved by the end of each week, trust me...

Ok so as promised here's the tie dying tutorial! First you will need: Dye Salt Water Bowl Fabric Elastic bands Rubber Gloves And something to protect you floor Follow the instructions on the back of the dye packet as depending on what dye you get they all slightly differ. Always love the colours that come out of the dye. This will turn grey/black! While your water is absorbing the dye wash your fabrics and give them a good scrub to make sure the dye takes to them as best as possible. Once your fabrics are washed, using the gloves put your hand into the dye and give it a stir, feel the bottom to make sure the dye and salt have been disolved into the water, if the bottom feels grainy keep stirring until it disappears. Its important you test the dye first on little bits of fabric to make sure it comes out the colour it you want it! You can add more dye or more water depending whether you want the colour darker/deeper or lighter/fainter. While your fabric test is going on ...

So the other day at uni we learnt a little tip to add depth to our screen prints, its called bitmapping First load the image you want to use in photoshop Heres mine - its something I'm looking at using for mothers day The you'll need to convert you image to Grayscale - to do this go to [Image] [Mode] [Grayscale] You'll then need to adjust the contrast of the image to help add depth later - to do this [Image] [Adjustment] [Levels], play around with the slider until you get the desired effect - you can also use [Brightness/contrast] but I prefer Levels Your image must be a minimum of 150ppi, although it is better to be 300ppi. To adjust the number of pixels within your image select [Image] [Image Size] and you can change the resolution Now its time to Bitmap the image - to do this go to [Image] [Mode] [Bitmap] - this will open this window change all of the settings to be the same as those in the image. Depending on your type of screen mesh you may need to adjust the...