DESIGN BRIEF POSTER
System mapping & Material mapping
How the design can have a ten year life given what you have shown in your map (why it will still be useful to you and how the systems you have mapped could enable it to last)?
All materials I use for this project is organic and I combine practicability ( heavy weight denim fabric for protecting the cushion from be damaged ) with comfort ( soft cotton fabric for user to sit on ). Because I will be a professional fashion designer in future, I will have lots of garment wastes during the processing of producing garments. By making this fabric collector cushion, I can not only reduce the costs of buying new cushion with synthetic filling but also reduce negative impact of those non-degradable materials to the environment.
PERFORMATIVE DEMONSTRATION
Cloth waste from garment making process.
Patterning
Cut all 6 pieces by following the pattern. leave 1/2″ for seam allowance. Be careful the wrong side and right side. I use both sides of this denim fabric in order to make it more interesting and joyful to use. Also, I can save materials and maximize uses of a fabric.
Start sewing edges together. Make sure to leave 1/2″ for both ends of each edge.
The base part of cushion is finished.
finishing the opening for putting in cloth wastes. Double folded both edges and top stitch.
In order to secure filling inside the cushion, I add three hidden snaps inside.
After closing all snaps. ( No filling inside )
After putting fabric scraps inside the cushion case.
I can take out or add more fabric into this cushion as I wish.
There are three main reasons that it can last for 10 years:
First, I use a very durable and practical material, which is heavy weight denim with dark color and rough texture. This fabric is left from another bag project and have not been used for one year but it still stay the same. The bag that is made from this fabric is super useful and durable for bringing things around and I do not really take care of it.
Second, all filling materials are from my cloth wastes during the process of making garments. Sometimes I will just throw those little pieces away because they are too small to be used for garments. For now, I can use it not as a cushion for sitting on but also can be a fabric pieces or even scraps collector. And I can always add more fillings into it.
Last but not the least, I intentionally design this cushion with classical and clean style, which can be used for different decoration styles and last for long time.
