I had a busy four weeks to prepare for my degree show and New Designers exhibition, while I sent off job applications to vacancies that applied to Textile Design.

First of all, I painted squared frames for my textile samples in white paint and mount them onto card. Then I hung some of my other textile samples in line with a collection of experimental samples and presented them on a table.

I was preparing for my degree show for a week and a half and at the same time, I had a careers catch up with the Employability Engagement Manager. She informed me I had been offered a design placement with Frugi in February 2020. A Senior Designer from Frugi, will send me the outline of the project brief closer to the time, before I start my placement at Frugi HQ in Helston Cornwall.

I was given positive feedback from Frugi HQ about my online portfolio I sent to them with my CV and cover letter:

‘I really love Farrah’s boat illustrations and her use of mixed media within her work, it really gives it another dimension and brings it to life. I like that she draws inspiration from nature and other artists and the way in which she presents her thoughts/processes in her sketchbooks.’

Alongside this, I prepared my CV up to date with cover letters and sent them to the careers team to look at, before I applied for jobs.

Back to the degree show which included private and industry viewings, I had so many positive comments about my work and I had the confidence to discuss the concept of my textiles work titled, ‘Tactile Textiles’. It was originated by my practice-led dissertation which involved written questionnaires and a focus group. It was a successful experience of presenting my graduate collection to both public and professional audiences and an opportunity to enthusiastically talk about my work.

On the evening that I came back from the industry preview evening, I had a phone call that I had been successful out of 20 applicants, in getting a job working for LoveKeepCreate. This was the result of a lot of hard work I put into my work ethic over the years with taking opportunities that had been offered to me and practising interview questions that I was likely to be asked.

Private viewing of the degree show took place at PCA on Friday night where I celebrated my successes with my peers and staff at university for three years. The biggest highlights of the private viewing evening was celebrating success on what I achieved whilst I was at university. I collected my Board of Governors student award with £250 prize. The Board of Governors student prize is given to a student who has highlighted and celebrated outstanding achievement, who overcomes personal difficulties to educational achievement, raised the university profile and demonstrated a significant contribution to college life. I felt all the hard work had paid off and I received recognition for persevering and work hard with the support of lecturers, technicians and my friends. I was so happy and positively overwhelmed that everybody came to support me collecting my Board of Governors student prize on the evening of the private viewing.

I WILL BE FOREVER GRATEFUL!!!

Monday 17th June – I had lots of positive feedback about my portfolio of work and my professional development and this gave me more encouragement and confidence as I developed myself as a textile designer and maker.

Following on from that week, I managed my time by professionally preparing my portfolio and my graduate textiles samples for New Designers 2019. I made sure my samples were ready for the staff to transport safely to London with my professional portfolio.

Then, the next week I interned for Zandra Rhodes for a day on Tuesday 25th June. It involved screen printing onto different fabrics in three colour ways formed in large-scaled rigid repeat patterns, using different pigments. I screen printed repeat designs alongside the print manager and another intern who interned for Zandra Rhodes for 6 – 8 weeks. We were screen printing fabrics for Zandra’s dresses, in preparation for Zandra’s 50th anniversary exhibition taking place at the Fashion and Textiles Museum in Bermondsey, London. I will be writing about this on my next blog and put up the images of the dresses that I screen printed.

Furthermore, I attended New Designers everyday taking in visual experiences and catching up with industry people and friends. We were ‘Talent Spotted’ by Sainsburys’ Home as a university, which was one of the highlights I will forever cherish.

I took myself to see Sainburys’ home for a portfolio review and they were happy to review my portfolio right away. The portfolio review took place at the Plymouth College of Art stand and I enjoyed going through the visual process of showing my portfolio. As I was going through the portfolio pages, I had lots of positive feedback about my work. This demonstrated three years of dedication and hard work during my time on the Textile Practices degree at Plymouth College of Art. This portfolio review is one of the key things I will take away from my experiences of exhibiting my work at New Designers. I always took resilience when receiving positive feedback from my peers, lecturers, technicians and every support that I had provided to me. The only thing I need to work on to develop my portfolio further is working on my digital skills using adobe software programmes, including Photoshop, Illustrator and In-design.

As I am writing this, I have now started my new job at LoveKeepCreate and I am learning so many new things, including sewing on the industrial machine, making tutu skirts, stuffing animals and other keepsakes, hand embroidering the animals’ mouths, using both domestic and industrial embroidery machine to sew typography onto fleece fabrics.

My advice to you all wonderful creatives is to keep trying and fighting for your dream job you are aiming for and keep applying for jobs, internships or business opportunities that may come up and are applicable to you and to your personal VERY strong skill set.

Love Farrah x