Throughout this section of Unit X I have been focusing on how I can incorporate both my Red List crafts with my narrative quote ‘A red sleeve Broidered with pearls’, as well as using my preferred choice of materials: clay, glaze, fabric and plastic beads with traditional and contemporary making processes. Initially my material tests began with using ivory stoneware and either impressing by use of traditional methods into found bisque fired ceramic stamps or more modern methods of pressing into bottle caps and other circular forms, as well as using a handheld ceramic extruder with interchangeable caps. By experimenting on my own to create ceramics buttons and with another group member braiding, twisting and improvising with strands of clay for passementerie tests. Once bisque fired, the experiments were either coated with red or black iron oxide stain or glazed with two different types of white glaze: one shiny and one matt, as well as using a clear glaze to bring out the brilliant white of the pieces.  Alongside these, I also produced samples using both bought and handmade scraps of different types of fabric, ribbon/trim, wool and thread in various shades of red and embellishing them with bought and found pearlescent buttons and beads, in order to display the physical aesthetics of the ideas and designs for body adornments I had created. Despite the numerous material investigations I made, not all were a success due to the fact that some pieces of my ceramic work broke either due to too much a saturation during glazing and were too fragile or in the case of some fabric samples weren’t seen as being relevant to the quote I was using as inspiration. However, from this I redesigned my piece to more closely represent my quote – a red tasselled sleeve embroidered with my handmade buttons and commercially made beads, portraying the quote and the poems aforementioned themes of grief, death and unreciprocated love through not only the colour palate but also the shape and form of it – the draping of the tassels over the hand like a shroud for Elaine’s, the one that gave the favour to Lancelot as a symbol of her affection for him which ultimately kills her. Before making this final piece, I produced a mock-up out of calico cotton handstitched with red thread, to display a basic idea of the piece I intended to produce. As an aside to this I created a sample with the same fabric I planned to use in my final piece and stitched my handmade buttons onto a long strip of said fabric to show what aesthetic these different shades of white would create against the red. Ultimately, I chose the shiny glazed shell shaped buttons as not only were they the most pearlescent but their appearance also resembled the metal embellishments on one the shields I saw in the South Asian Design show (in the poem Elaine’s family are asked to guard Lancelot’s shield, she steals it, makes a sleeve for it and gazes into to imagine her life with him). Furthermore, I decided to use the smallest pearl beads and stitch them on irregularly in a zig zag formation on only a selected few tassels to create almost a constellation or starry night sky aesthetic, doing so in order to add an extra link to the theme of love, grieving, life and death. In addition, this design idea also has further connections to other sections of the poem such as

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“There bode the night: but woke with dawn, and past
Down through the dim rich city to the fields,
Thence to the cave: so day by day she past
In either twilight ghost-like to and fro
Gliding, and every day she tended him,”

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“there first she saw the casque
Of Lancelot on the wall: her scarlet sleeve,
Though carved and cut, and half the pearls away,
Streamed from it still; and in her heart she laughed,
Because he had not loosed it from his helm,”

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Finally, I decided to use different shades of red cotton fabric to make my sleeve out of, due to lack of having enough of the same shade. However, I believe this creates a nice contrast and pleasing aesthetic which is evident when the garment is being worn.