3. Circular Open Source Fashion

( All images are mine unless marked with a hyperlink )

Ideation

This week I was feeling very inspired by the modularity of quilts. Quilting historically was often used to make something usable out of fabric scraps, so it seemed like a perfect refernece point for a zero waste modular design. I love the geometric star often used in quilting and wasnted to incorporate that motif into some of my units. I also was very inpired by cross stitch designs because they use modular units to create an image. I wanted to try to refernece crossstitch designs to create more decprative units to add to the quilt as well.

1. Quilt design by Arie Pettway
2. Cross stitch designs
3. Quilt stars
4. Geometric units by Andrea Russo
5. Crossstich combined with digital media by Hella van 't Hof
6. Cross stitch samplers by Jane Bostocke
7. Arrangable compositions

Research

My goal is to make an arrangable wall piece referencing quilt patterns. I really wanted to try to make a zero waste unit that could interlock. I started by playing around with some paper designs. The struggle with making a quilt-like design was figuring out scaling so I could make smaller squares that still fit into the larger ones. This took a lot of trial and error! I started in rhino and then made paper versions before laser cutting some samples. I eventually figured out the scaling so I could have two different scaled squared that still interlocked.

Tools

• 2D/3D modeling Rhino3D
• 2D modeling Illustrator
• [Laser cutter]

Materials

• Scuba Neoprene
• Felt
• Iron on adhesive backing
• Mesh

Process

• The settings I used for neoprene are Speed-40 Power-35 MinPower- 15

• After figuring out the correct settings and making some trials I started to cut more units to play around with

• The settings I used for felt with an adhesive backing are Speed-40 Power-25 MinPower-12

• I used white felt with an iron on adhesive backing to make iron on patches to put on my mesh fabric.

• This kind of double sided iron on adhesive works well

• I used both the positive and negative cut shapes to optimize the fabric use

All files have been uploaded here

Surface Treatment

I wanted to have more than one color of quilt squares. I found a large sheet of scuba neoprene in the sales bin at the fabric store so instead of buying another color I decided to see if I could bleach half of the units. Even though the fabric was labeled that it had a wool surface on top of the synthetic neoprene base the color didn't lift with bleach. I then tried soaking half of the tiles in water down white fabric paint to lighten them. It didn't offer a very even surface but I liked the mottled texture next to the plain, dark squares.

I also added a fabric backing to the squares I cut the star out of to give them some more structural support.

Arranging and Testing

The strength is okay for a wall piece but I would need more support for a functional item. The squares stay together but cam't withstand much stress.

The small squares have either a hole or flap on each corner of the square. The larger squares have both a hole and a flap on all edges of the square so you are able to attach two large aquares together or a large square and a small square or multiple small squares together in a grid.

Playing with some arrangments

This is an arrangment with the attachments intact

Notes and Things to Improve

• It took many trials to figure out a nice way to scale units to create smaller and larger squares that still fit together and maintained the zero waste design

• I need to keep working on the design because some squares only fit in at a specific rotation and it would be nice to have them fit more universally

• I also want to edit the attachment flaps to have a wider latch so they stay in a more secure way

• I also attached the mesh components with ties that wrap around the latches, I think this attachment would be better if there was more holes added to the design for the mesh to attach to

• This project is not functional, and is meant to be an exploration of quilted designs for people to play with unique compositions. I think it would be fun to improve on this by making it with materials that could also become a shirt, lamp or something for the home as well as a wall hanging.