BRADFORD TEXTILES SOCIETY
In my final year I entered my graduate collection into the Bradford Textiles Society Design Competition 2019-2020 and was awarded a commendation in the W1N category specifically aimed at a woven fabric design for interior furnishings or products.
CAMPAIGN FOR WOOL 10TH ANNIVERSARY
When the Campaign for Wool approached Heriot Watt School of Textile Design looking for students to participate in their 10th anniversary I was so grateful for the opportunity to be able to work with J.P. Hackett and Lovat Mill to design a suiting fabric for the fashion market. As a final year student specifically working on an interior fabric collection this opportunity allowed me to expand my knowledge and put the many different skills that I have learned at my time at Heriot Watt into practice. Wool has always been a favourite fibre choice of mine due to its durability and versatility, this combined with opportunity to work with a bold and vibrant colour palette that suited my style of design work to create an innovative tweed was a wonderful and unforgettable experience.
I am incredibly grateful that I had the chance to design for these prestigious companies and I am delighted that I can now finally announce that I have been chosen as the Lovat and Hackett runner up 2020.
CASHMERE COLLABORATIVE 2020
In my final year I took part in the Cashmere Collaborative project alongside my graduate collection. This was a collaboration between Sinclair Duncan and the Borders Developing Young Workforce organisation encouraging youths to take part in a design project with the help and mentoring from selected Heriot Watt students to create two cashmere scarf designs that were set to be produced and sold at Abbotsford House and the other to be produced and presented to the Best Dressed at Kelso Racecourse Ladies Day in May 2020.
I worked with S3 pupils from Berwickshire High School and had the honour of being awarded a runner up position and The DYW Award for work-skills Excellence for the cashmere scarf design that can be seen above.
TARTAN BLANKET CO. DESIGN COMPETITION
Hi there! I am Kait Murdoch, the textile designer behind Jarick Check in collaboration with the Tartan Blanket Co. This collaboration started as an industry project set by the Tartan Blanket Co. working with students, including myself, at Heriot Watt School of Textiles in the Scottish borders. My design process was based around the word colsie, as it is at the heart of everything by The Tartan Blanket Co. I looked at interior, lifestyle and colour trends, exploring ways in which I could reinterpret Colsie in my own way to show my personal style, yet create something that would work within the current collection.
My design project was inspired by the idea of a “Concrete Jungle”. Although this may not stereotypically be what comes to mind when thinking about the Colsie motto, my aim was to reinterpret this somewhat stark and cold image into something that highlights the hidden beauty that I could see. For me personally, concrete jungle was an opportunity to show that beauty can grow in the barest of places. The images that came to my mind were derelict buildings and abandoned spaces where nature has taken over and grown all around. I love when it creates vibrant pockets of beauty, breathing new light and life, thus creating an organic sense of colsie where encroaching foliage and vivid colours frame and create life in uninhabited places. It feels like an unexpected, inviting, peaceful beauty.
Following the brief set by the TBCo. in which I was set the task of creating a collection of woven fabrics, designed and woven with the specific end use of interior blanket fabrics in mind. Considerations had to be made to ensure the fabrics were suitable for the contemporary lifestyle market, fit within the TBCo. brand and have commercial considerations throughout. We were provided with a limited colour palette to guide our design approach and given an open brief in terms of theme. After conducting my trend and lifestyle research and deciding on Concrete Jungle I set about designing. I created a neutral striped warp as a base representing the stone and concrete tones found throughout my thematic research. I then established my own colour palette including those provided by TBCo. incorporating soft pastels and warm greens to convey my theme whilst still in keeping with the TBCo. brand.