Amazing water fun!!

This looks like sooooooo much fun!! Water provides the best sports and entertainment!!!

Crazy Patterns!!!

I thought the sleeve pattern on my womens wetsuit was pretty crazy but I think I've trumped it with my Mens wetsuit under arm panel!!

New Shorts!!!

I have been on the hunt for some new shorts for over a year now, but I tend to struggle due to having such long lanky legs!! Womens shorts are always either too short, or massively too wide which look like bell bottoms!!! (or disgusting colours!!!) but today when shopping with friends in Truro, I was bored in Topshop so wandered up to Topman where I was pleasantly surprised to find lots of funky shorts that fitted me amazingly!!!

I fell in love with this pair and ran to the cash desk to buy them!!!

There are many more I'm loving the look of on the Topman website!

Virtual Sailing!

In two weeks time its the Virtual regatta at RCYC, but this time around its inter club! I seem to have become in charge of the team for Restronguet Sailing Club. Although i don't think any of us have ever played it before...could be interesting!! Why do they not make Virtual skipper for macs?! :(

I hope we do well, there are some amazing Henri Lloyd prizes up for grabs!!!

Cushiontastic

When clearing out the junk from my mums house I found this cushion I made back at school in a textiles lesson, but never got round to doing the button holes, so i brought it back to Falmouth with me and put some button holes in at uni. I think it looks pretty good, shame it doesnt go with any of the furnature in our flat so I may be selling it! Maybe I can make and sell cushions on the side?! hummmm...

Neon Wetsuits

Yesterday we had Elsie from Neon Wetsuits come in to uni to help the 2nd years with their wetsuit project and I managed to pick her brains for a bit to hep me with my suits, and she is by far the most friendly and helpful person to help me with my uni work yet! Defiantly glad I witnessed her pro gluing skills before I start gluing mine, I now see how it is supposed to be done!! hahaha!

This is one of Elsie's wonderful creations!!!:

Retro Spirograph!!

I am currently back home at my mums for a visit and to clear out some of my junk! when rummaging around I found my mums old Spirograph, which is the original from 1965! All the packaging is still in immaculate condition and all the pieces are still in tact!! AMAZING!!!! (I loved this as a child and forgot we had it!)

The AMAZING Original Spirograph, still in pristine condition!!

Complete with all the original bits!! and some my mum did as a child (top right!)

Not a piece missing!! we even think the pens are original!! one still works!...sort of!

As soon as I found this the clearing out stopped and the Spirograph fun began!!! I was defiantly a bit rusty but was having fun and made some cool things! I feel this may become a new craze to be intergrated into my designs!! (especially the wheels that make triangle based shapes!!)

A few of my better experiments!! ...still with many slip ups, but that's the fun of Spirograph!!!

Triangles, Triangles Everywhere!

As i was on my way to Uni today I looked up and saw the strangest clouds I have ever seen!! I'm not sure if I've just become obsessed with triangles or whether I am just noticing how many things are triangles! but there is defiantly no mistaking the triangle likeness of these clouds!!!

Prizes!!

well everything has been handed in, ive finally slept and then last night we had our prize giving at Restronguet Sailing club. It was a really good night, lovely curry, some lovely pints of ratter and to top it all of some lovely prizes!!! These prizes were from last year from Spring Sundays, Summer Sundays, Summer Wednesdays, Autumn Sundays, Autumn Wednesdays and Frostbite series on the RS 400 I sail with Martin. We are not totally sure which prizes are for which series because the guy handing them out decided to give them out to us in one big lump!

Me and Martin - Dream Team!

Not to bad for my 1st year on the boat!!

By far my favorite trophy! it is just so cute!!

Vinyl wetsuits anyone?

With my experimentation at uni to find different ways to decorate a wetsuit I turned to the amazing Vinyl machine at uni. I was told that this would never work because you have to heat press the vinyl onto the neoprene and of course the neoprene expands under heat. However I was pleasantly surprised that my triangle pattern worked really well and doesn't come off. (although I'm sure it will come of pretty quick in salt water and with the general wear and tear a wetsuit goes through but that's something i still need to experiment with.)

The Vinyl! Removing the bits i don't want on the print.

The print on the neoprene. looks pretty good to me!

I love lasers!!

For the past two years I have been so scared of the laser cutter at uni but this term it has become my new best friend! And now i am authorised to use it on my own ive been having great fun with it.

The dream machine!

laser cutting onto neoprene

I have been greatly surprised at how well this worked engraving onto neoprene, and didnt seem to affect the strength of it either, so could defiantly be a possibility for embelisment onto my wetsuits if it will cost too much to screen print!

Gluing Samples

The time has come to try out some gluing samples!

You may think this looks odd, and this is not how you glue wetsuits...and you would be right, but because of my mens chestzip wetsuits I have some panels that are going to have to overlap and be stuck together flat, rather than along the edges. So with this sample i have put a thick layer of glue on and am leaving it for 24 hours to soak through the Nylon lining, then adding another layer before putting them together!(I have been told this is the best way to make it strong without wasting glue!)

I am also doing samples of single, double and triple glues seams to see which works best!

Sample madness!

Glue!!!!

wooo! We finally broke open the neoprene glue today and I put some in a little tin (to try and preserve the rest in the big tin) and its so miniature its cute!!!

Latex Neoprene Anyone?

After i tried screen printing I then made a stencil on some acetate and used some liquid Latex to try making a print style pattern but it would be really subtle because it was clear latex and so it just gives a nice shine where the print is.

Acetate stuck to the neoprene with double sided tape to try and stop it moving.

It's so runny i just put a big blob on and spread it around with a stick!! (it looks so disgusting!)

all the stencil covered!

the end result when the acetate is peeled off! (it dries clear though)

I was a bit gutted that however hard i tried it just kept seeping under the edges of the cut outs on the template! but could be a good idea if i can stop it spreading!

Homemade Screen Printing!

The lovely technicians at fine art gave me a small screen printing screen for free last week, and today i finally put it to the test! I decided to do it old school by using paper and double sided tape to make the image on the screen, with help from a scalpel and the laser cutter!!

The samples are a bit hit and miss! half because I've only ever screen printed once before and also because i had very limited choice in what colour inks were laying around and they didnt work great on dark neoprene!!

These samples worked quite well, apart from I didn't really put enough ink on and the squeegee is about half the size of the screen so I couldn't get an even coverage, but I'm happy with it as a sample. I also did some samples on black neoprene with bright blue ink but it was a complete fail because you can't see the screen print at all!

2 inch wave!

Today is starting to feel like spring is nearly here!!! I decided to walk home the scenic route from uni via Gylly and Swanpool beaches. I was entertained for ages on my walk by watching some people trying to surf at swanpool on waves that were about 2 inches high!!! love some peoples optimism!!!

YouTube Channel

Sailing Betty now has a You Tube Channel!! All the Video's from Carnac 2010 are now up there!
http://www.youtube.com/user/SailingBetty

Toiles ... the end of...for now!

wooo, we have to hand in all our toiles today by 4.30 and im already finished!!! here is the last toile of the mens long john suit. also handing in dissertation in half an hour!!! woooooo!!

Guess what?!...More Toiles!!!

Finally managed to do the bottom halves to both the womens wetsuit toiles! I think i may be running out of Lycra so I'm just going to overlock them together round the waist for the line-up next week!!!