Being a Knitwear design student I have found that Nottingham Trent University is definitely the place to be.

Knitwear design as a degree can seem too specialised when you are choosing courses and unsure what to do, its an important decision which can feel rushed. As student ambassador I see most students don't know what they want to do, and I myself remember being confused by all the choice. Although I have a passion for both textiles and Fashion and have enjoyed knitting as a hobby, I also felt during sixth form that choosing knitwear design would be very specialised. It wasn't until my foundation course that my drive was garment construction and fabric design. There is something about taking a final garment completely from the start. We can spin, make our yarn, dye our yarns, experiment with fabric development and how this will look like on a garment. It is all considered from the start to the end which means a knitwear designer has a huge amount of skill.

NTU has given me great opportunities and contacts. During the summer and some days during my time at university I volunteer at frame works knitters museum to keep the traditional skill of Frame knitting alive. Developing my skills on the lace bar, and feeding this into my university work. 

We are soon to be visiting Florence to see the yarn trade show "Pitti Filati".

It isn't all so easy but it is all fun, we are currently working on fundraising for our final catwalk show! This will be costing us £20,000 which will be in May 2018. We will be making an instagram account for our course and the work we will be producing. Everything from fashion illustration to knit samples and garments!

JoJo

First week back at university!

Lectures and briefings ready to start the term, it's an exciting year. Our course has 17 new students, 3 are exchange from New York who will be leaving before Christmas and the others joining are direct entry or transferred from textiles at Nottingham Trent.

During first week we also received an email about the collaboration of our course with WGSN. Before the Summer holidays, Tutors and students submitted samples to respond to a trend of S/S 17. I feel very privileged for one of my samples to have been chosen for inspiration for one of the trends. There were many successful beautiful samples, I can't wait to see these samples inspire garments of S/S 17! People signed up will be able to access the Nottingham Trent University Future Trends PDF through the WGSN website sorry I cannot personally share with you.

http://www.wgsn.com/en/

The year ahead is looking exciting!

We have currently been set to decide upon a Live project (A project with industry) from Next, All Saints and Acorn.

http://www.next.co.uk/

http://www.allsaints.com/

http://www.acorn-swatches.com/

These companies will give a presentation at the university about the briefing. It's an exciting new step on the course to be working with industry! Whilst working on our project we are also applying for Placements to 'fill the Sandwitch' of our Sandwich Degree. This just means after second year you will go on placement for 36 weeks or more to achieve a Diploma of Professional Practise. To assist us in choosing the placement thats best suited for us (and a placement we can afford) we will be watching the 3rd Years presentation about their placement year. This will enable us to understand what the placements expect from us, where we will be living, if we need and how we get visas, what they gained from the placement.

This year the course seems far different than last year. We now need to build research from Trends and collate a Shop report, building upon design that already exists and not just making something because you we it. The main aspect is to aim for a target market.

Tomorrow we have more lectures then Thursday I am planning to go back to the Frameworks Knitters museum to practise knitting and using the lace bar.

All for now!