​Todays tutorial was really helpful, we talked through my work for the bridal buyers award and discussed what I should do next. I am really happy with the progress I have made this week as I feel that I have tried a lot to focus on my drawings. I struggle with my drawings as I feel that they never fully capture what I am trying to portray,  but I feel that these have really progressed over the past few days, so I am going to continue to practice so that I can keep improving.
Over the next few days I will work on developing fabric samples for this competition, as I have found a fabric I really like but it is out of my price range but I am going to do experiments so that I can create my own that has the same effect just cheaper!

​Today we had a group tutorial with one of our tutors, this was a really good session to make sure that we were all on the write page and on track. It was really good to hear lots of peoples opinions on my work, giving me lots I can work on until my next tutorial. I feel I am getting a lot better at tutorials and I feel a lot more confident presenting my work which is helping me be able to convey my ideas a lot clearer.

Today I spoke to my tutor for the first time about the bridal buyers award, this was a really good chance to just discuss all of my ideas, I am really excited about this competition as it gives me a chance to fully explore the bridal industry.
We discussed a lot of different ideas from where I can begin to explore, the things that stuck with me were looking at the heritage of bridal wear in my family and also butterflies all of which will work alongside the Old Hollywood Glamour theme that they have 

​Today we had interchange, I signed up for the business session as I thought this would be very beneficial in the long run with my plan for setting up my business. This was a really good session and a lot of fun and it got us to really think about different business ideas but also how to sell the ideas to people, making them want to own our product. We learnt all about pitching and then had to pitch the ideas that  we had come up with to the whole of the careers team dragons den style, this was a really good way for us to be able to learn the good ways of pitching. The whole session really got us thinking about how we sell ourselves to others and about how you should talk for less but have quality to your words. Overall this session was a really good experience and I know that I will retain all the information that I learnt.

Today I was in London, this was a really good day as I got to see and do a lot. We started at the fabric forum, this was a really good way to see a lot of different fabric suppliers and to see what they all have on offer thinking about my third year collection, I now have a long list of suppliers that I can check out nearer the time. We then went to the V&A where we had a good look round, this was helpful as I had been really struggling to come up with a theme but looking around allowed me to become really inspired. We then went to the natural history museum which much like the V&A helped to inspire me.

This morning we had an advanced photoshop session with another one of our tutors, this was really helpful as it gave us a chance to talk about our work with another tutor, getting another pair of eyes and another opinion, when we were discussing what I was doing at the moment we came up with lots of ideas of things that I can do to help improve all of my work. Then in the afternoon we had a session for our research reports, this was an interesting session as it got us to think about our sources and how reliable they are, we had to create a sea creature that we felt summarised the source and then decide where in the sea you would find it, on the surface were magazine like sources that weren’t very in depth or academic and then near the bottom were journals and academic writing, this helped me to understand how important sources are for backing up your opinion and work. Although the session was slightly mad and odd! It was really helpful and by the end it all made sense.

Todays tutorial was quite hard, I had really tried this week but had been struggling with the projects and the tutorial just confirmed that, I will take this next week to develop my ideas and perhaps change the projects I am doing so that they fit my aesthetic a lot better. Although I had a lot of helpful advice I still feel stuck with what I am doing, the main thing that I took away from the session is that I need more drawing, this is something I am going to have to work on.

​This morning we had the briefing for BA2B, this is quite a lot to take in! there are quite a few different sections to this unit, which is making me very excited to start but I also know that I need to be very on top of my time management to make sure that I get it all done. I am not sure how I feel about the collaboration project but I will wait until we start that to make my judgements, for now I will work on the other projects.
We also had a library session today about paraphrasing, I found this a good session as I learnt more about how to paraphrase and how to use it to the best of my advantage. I also enjoyed playing with the LEGO!
Todays lecture was the last of the business start up lectures, these have been really helpful and very informative, as I want to set up my own business once I graduate these sessions have been very beneficial. They have been really interactive and allowed us to be creative in a different way to our courses.

The past two days I have spent doing research and deciding on which competitions I want to work on, I have decided the YKK brief looking at millinery inspired by industrial works and then the Clarks brief designing bridal shoes, I will talk to my tutor on Friday and see what she thinks and then I will be straight onto the rest of the work.

Todays session on our research reports was really helpful we had both our essay tutor and textiles tutor going through everything with us for our research report proposals and answering any questions that we had. They then came round and saw is in small groups to discuss what we thought we would be writing our reports on. I have decided to write mine all about sustainability throughout the bridal industry, as this is the route I plan to take in my future I feel that this will be the most valuable topic for me to cover as well as being one that I will enjoy researching and furthering my understanding of. Over the next few weeks I will begin my research and begin writing my research report proposal ready for hand in.

Todays individual tutorial was interesting, we mostly just talked about the last unit and then also discussed the courses I am hoping to take part in the summer which was really helpful but we also talked about third year after I said that I wanted to do a sustainable bridal collection, I was then recommended that I don’t do a complete bridal collection instead focus on bridal competitions and do something else as my collection, this was really hard to hear as I know that the wedding industry is going to be where I end up and want to spend my time focusing and exploring the bridal industry and gaining new skills, but at the same time I know that the advice was given for a reason, so I will have to think about this a lot and decide the route I want to go with my graduate collection but for now I need to focus on completing year 2!