sailing as a kid

Currently I'm in the process of clearing everything off my computer when I stumbled upon the pictures my mum emailed me of me sailing as a kid! some people think I'm joking when I say I've been sailing since I was 3, but it is no lie!!

Helping dad at the age of 3!

This was always my favorite spot on the boat! Glad to say im at the dryer end of the boat these days!!

I can't believe how blonde I was! and I wish I had a pair of those shorts now!!

Dad used to make me a brilliant swing from the main sheet!!

Yes that is my fault that every boats mooring lines are nicely coiled up!! haha!! what a fun game that used to be!!

1st Finished Suit

Hurah!!I have finished my 1st suit (blindstitched and all!) and it looks exactly how I wanted it to! My glueing has definitely improved from last year as there were no holes!!! :D I am a tad gutted that the suit is a little bit short for me, but we aren't supposed to make them for ourselves anyway!!

I am well chuffed!!! Pictures of the other suits soon to come!

More decoration!

I was a bit upset that the engraving didnt work on the pink neoprene because I wasn't engraving very deep (so it didnt weaken the neoprene or the nylon lining)  and so the black rubber didnt show up, so it was back to square one for how to get my triangles onto these panels! I decided to go with vinyl, as i had tried it before in my experimentation and it worked really well. However doing my triangle print in vinyl is rather fiddly!!

This is what the Vinyl sheet looks like once it has been cut into

The next fun step is to peel off all the bits you don't want around the outside!

I then was left with this, but obviously i now need to pick out the insides of all the triangles!

It was quite a lot of triangles!!

The final transfer ready to be heat pressed!

Gutted that it didn't work when heat pressed, it seemed to move and melt abit!

Close up of the mess!

After this failure I was left with one last option!! Dye Sublimation printing! I knew that because the pink lining fabric was Nylon then the Black wouldn't show up much but the engraving on the other panels wasn't the boldest thing ever so I wasn't too fussed!

A heat press disaster!!

 After all that it turned out that my neoprene doesn't like being heat pressed and instead melts!! :( which is possibly why the vinyl didn't work! so now i have decided to stop wasting time and this suit will just have to have no print on it at all!! The print was only ever going to be on the shoulder straps anyway so it is not like it was a massive detail panel!

Sailing Hurts!!

After dinghy sailing this weekend, I am now paying for it!! It was actually pretty windy, and I am now shattered!! My legs were killing me from the lack of hiking I've done in the last 3 months!! and yesterday when I woke up the back of my leg hurt loads, and when I looked in the mirror I was shocked to see the massive bruise up it!! But i guess this just helps to reinforce the reason behind my final collection having a protective bum panel that goes all the way down to the back of the knee! I tried taking a picture, but it didn't come out great! The flash makes it not look as horrific!! :)

For some reason I only had these bruises on the back of one leg!! I must have been hiking harder on one tack to the other!! Sailing again tomorrow night, hopefully i won't batter myself anymore!!!

Getting ready for sailing

The sailing season finally began on sunday, and last week I was preparing by making sure all my kit was properly cleaned. (I had washed it all at the end of the season too, don't worry!) My kit bag zips had ceased and slightly corroded so i put it in the bath to soak, and chucked a few other bits in too, and then I was slightly embarrassed to realise how much Henri Lloyd kit I have.

I honestly don't know why people put metal zippers on a plastic zip, it doesn't stop corrosion happening, and when it is stuff designed for sailing you would have thought someone would realise its not a cleaver idea!! 2 of my zips on my kit bag seem to be permanently stuck and the zip on my wetsuit is starting to rust!!! its bonkers!! if anyone has any answers why companies do this it would be much appreciated!!

Decorating Neoprene!

I haven't posted for a little while due to everything getting a bit manic down here and Blogger hasn't let me log in for 2 weeks! I am currently surrounded by neoprene on my lounge floor as I have decided to glue my suits at home so I can get as much done as possible without being limited to Uni's easter 9-5 opening times! Before I could get to this stage I had to sort out my print patterns. I decided from all my previous experimentation that engraving on the laser cutter was going to be the best option, both for cost and speed of getting it done. Although it still wasn't the quickest thing as one sleeve took an hour and a half to engrave!!

My cool triangle print, although its actually engraved not printed!! you can't tell though!!

The sleeve that took an hour and a half to engrave!!

My Collection all piled up on my lounge floor!! Hard to believe there is four wetsuits there!!

Gul International

A couple of weeks ago I went for an interview at Gul's headquarters in Bodmin for a job as a designer there. I won't hear for a while yet i don't think, but im keeping my fingers firmly crossed as it's my dream job to work there! Anyway, when I arrived I was so scared, but my fear quickly drifted away and I was filled with excitement and happiness just from looking around their reception area! It is filled with loads of amazing surf boards from all different era's! It is so cool! I only took a pic of a few of them because I only had my phone with me and the camera on it isn't great!

The amazing Union Jack board you are greeted with as you enter the building!

Some amazing retro boards all hanging above the reception desk!!