Knit-e-pedia

THE place for excellent information about all things techincal to do with knitting. Click on the 'Modules' section at the top of the page. I particularly like the 3D animations of rotating knit structures and info on medical textiles, and more, a lot of it is beyond A-level but well worth a look.

http://www.knitepedia.co.uk/home/default.htm

Brilliant templates site

I get so fed up with using the same old templates for students so I like to use this site to mix things up a bit. In my dream land I also have a suite of macs with adobe illustrator and I can use all of the down loadable free stuff, but until then its just printing and tracing over the top of them. You cant really beat good old pencil and paper anyway.

http://www.designersnexus.com/design/free-fashion-croquis-templates/

BBC classroom clips

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/indian-block-printing/917.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/fire-proof-clothing/6057.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/high-tech-clothing-takes-to-the-catwalk/9166.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/screen-printing/916.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/technical-textiles/6260.html

Five small but perfectly formed clips to stick into your favourites if you havent already, I particularly use hte technical textiles/sustainability one and the screen printing one to show at the stat of a double practical lesson then do an exam question about printing as aplenary or h/w.

Pattern drafting tutorial from LCF. Brilliant for beginners

http://www.arts.ac.uk/learning/garment/login.php

Worth signing up to for excellent animations for the basic blocks, dart manipulation and garment construction.

Textbooks for A-level textiles

As we all know, AQA in all their wisdom do not publish a textbook to accompany their truly vast A-level specification so cobbling together a decent reading list is essential, here are the books that I think are invaluable;

Clothing Technology
http://www.amazon.co.uk/CLOTHING-TECHNOLOGY-fibre-fashion/dp/3808562250/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1288465302&sr=1-1
Amazing detail and plenty of good diagrams and examples, no recent stuff in it although my editions are about 15 years old so maybe the newer one has some more up to date stuff.

Textile innovations by Ros Hibbert, has all the up to date textle developments that you could want, a good compliment to clothing technology I guess!

Basics fashion design 01, 02, 03
A set of three little books published for London College of Fashion Students that are amazingly helpful for sketch book examples and basics of fibres and fabrics, loads of good website links and very easy to use, ideal for year12
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Basics-Fashion-Design-Research/dp/2940373418/ref=cm_lmf_img_5_rsrssi0

Fabrics for fashion
A new addition to my collection and this book is STUNNING in its presentatgion and detail about the origin of fibres, yarn and fabric construction, very up to date and relevant fashion applications for everything, entirely colour photos, diagrams etc. Only downside is that it is only for natural fibres (So far, maybe more is in the offing) The sample book that goes with it is on order so I will let you all know what its like.
If AQA were to publish a text book then this is exactly how it should look!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fabric-Fashion-Comprehensive-Natural-Fibres/dp/185669612X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1288465972&sr=1-1-spell

These are of course all theory based choices, I have an ever growing library of costume history, pattern making and decorative techniques books too, I have a particular aversion to the the google based researcher so any budget that can go on books is well spent.

I will post info on other good titles and if there are any I have missed then please add a comment.

I think the fabrics for fashion one is a real find and would be great for any Textiles/Fashion/Clothin A-level course.

Or is it Btec fashion and clothing?

Just been reading some tes posts about this, is it worth persuing to help students who want to progress to foundation courses?

Any thoughts?

Art Textiles or Textiles Technology

I have always taught Textiles technology but secretly thought that art textiles offers more freedom for teachers and that maybe what is really needed is a cross between the two?
I am about to switch my A-level course over to an Art Fashion and Textiles course, hugely inspired by what is going on at Esher College but will it be out of the frying pan and into the fire?

Please feel free to comment or to email me about anything Textiley, thats how this will work (I hope!)

Welcome to the hub of all things to do with teaching textiles

I've been teaching Textiles in a DT departments (2 different ones) for 5 years now and so many things come up that I would like to discuss with other textiles teachers (frustrated with AQA anyone?) I'm a bit fed up with wading through all of the other DT stuff on the TES forums, not to mention missing all of the interesting stuff about teaching textiles in an art department, I felt like there could be more of a hub for just Textiles teachers. Often you might be the only one in your school, it seems to make sense to share as many good ideas as we can.

I want to keep all of the content positive and non-moaney if possible.

So................... how can Textiles be taught better?