Work Placement Mini-Blog: Episode 5: Days Six And Seven
The last two days of my internship at Nelly's Treasures! It's taken me a while to write these up as real life jobs / DJing / beach partying took over a little bit, but here we go:
I did a lot of screenprinting on day 6, and although it started out well (with a lot of help from Nelly herself), towards the end of the day my technique started to suffer a bit and prints weren't fully coming out, or were flopping off the edge of the fabric. I could try and blame tiredness or distraction but I think it's a case of not being fully practised in the art of screenprint. It truly is a skill that I imagine most people don't fully appreciate, and I have utmost respect for Helen and anyone else for mastering it! Anyway I couldn't figure out why I could make clean prints in uni, with not-as-good equipment and a lot less space and why I couldn't do it at The PrintHaus, and I psyched myself out and never fully recovered. Helen even gave me a step to stand on, but it didn't make a lot of difference. So that was a self-inflicted low end to my day. I also did some seam trimming and interface ironing earlier on in the day which I did rather well at so it wasn't all bad!
Day 7 was the last day! A sad day indeed! First of all I cut out some swing tags into heart shapes; branding and packaging are very important for a professional finish. After that it was time to do some dyeing! Since we were at The Nelly Studio HQ and the weather was nice, this took place outside. I helped by tying up t-shirts into weird fish shapes, which were then soaked in bleach. Helen also did some tote bags and t-shirts in other colours of dye and they turned out really cool. She printed them a couple of days later:
They all look really cool, such pretty colours, but I looooove the UFO shirts the most! Dyeing is another skill on my list to master and is one of the tougher ones as it's fairly unpredictable, so it's always really fun to see the results, especially when they turn out this lovely! Keep an eye on the Nelly's Treasures Etsy site as I'm sure they'll be up on there soon enough!
The other big job of the day was finishing off these cushions:
They turned out so cute too! All the vintage fabrics are so beautiful, I really have to start hunting more regularly to stock up my own hoard. That's really about it, and I also did mini jobs like cutting fabrics and making tea and things of course.
I must say [another] big thanks to Nelly Herself for having me, being very patient and lovely and also to Jude from The PrintHaus for her help and loveliness; I had so much fun on my placement and learnt a lot of things (and also made a few minor mistakes!), plus I got to meet some cool new people - always a bonus!
My next placement will be at Hand & Lock in December... very exciting! I also know that Nelly's Treasures will have a stall at the Art Car Bootique in Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff next weekend, so head down to that if you're around!
I did a lot of screenprinting on day 6, and although it started out well (with a lot of help from Nelly herself), towards the end of the day my technique started to suffer a bit and prints weren't fully coming out, or were flopping off the edge of the fabric. I could try and blame tiredness or distraction but I think it's a case of not being fully practised in the art of screenprint. It truly is a skill that I imagine most people don't fully appreciate, and I have utmost respect for Helen and anyone else for mastering it! Anyway I couldn't figure out why I could make clean prints in uni, with not-as-good equipment and a lot less space and why I couldn't do it at The PrintHaus, and I psyched myself out and never fully recovered. Helen even gave me a step to stand on, but it didn't make a lot of difference. So that was a self-inflicted low end to my day. I also did some seam trimming and interface ironing earlier on in the day which I did rather well at so it wasn't all bad!
Day 7 was the last day! A sad day indeed! First of all I cut out some swing tags into heart shapes; branding and packaging are very important for a professional finish. After that it was time to do some dyeing! Since we were at The Nelly Studio HQ and the weather was nice, this took place outside. I helped by tying up t-shirts into weird fish shapes, which were then soaked in bleach. Helen also did some tote bags and t-shirts in other colours of dye and they turned out really cool. She printed them a couple of days later:
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| Dip-dyed Woodland Aminal Totes by Nelly's Treasures! |
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| Tie-dyed UFO T-shirts by Nelly's Treasures! |
The other big job of the day was finishing off these cushions:
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| 'You Are My Sunshine' Cushions by Nelly's Treasures! |
I must say [another] big thanks to Nelly Herself for having me, being very patient and lovely and also to Jude from The PrintHaus for her help and loveliness; I had so much fun on my placement and learnt a lot of things (and also made a few minor mistakes!), plus I got to meet some cool new people - always a bonus!
My next placement will be at Hand & Lock in December... very exciting! I also know that Nelly's Treasures will have a stall at the Art Car Bootique in Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff next weekend, so head down to that if you're around!
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