It was a nice dry day today to Bradford. I was feeling so nervous and wanting to get my award very soon and fast too. I wore a red pinstripe white shirt, jeans, black Base London shoes and a white tailored jacket to be like a designer, but at first that I want to wear the whole thing in full suit, but then again wear everything comfortable and not exposed too much in the crowd. My group had been taken photographs before we went on the minibus to Bradford. It was so much fun with photography and lots of smiles too. It was a quiet morning on the minibus and we had sweets along the way when we were bored. It was around an hour and a half to get to Bradford and also we were lost to get to the Rio Grande hotel, but we made it in the end to get registered.
It was around 11.11am and we went to Bombay Stores - The UK’s Largest Asian Department Store, which is a trusted name in textiles from all over the world with over 40 years of experience in supplying needlecraft enthusiasts with the largest and most exciting fabric haberdashery departments in the North. It had womenswear, menswear, footwear, kidswear, jewellery, fabric, bridalwear, make up, lycras, craft cottons/far 1/4’s, jelly rolls and lots more. It was a fantastic shop to go to and I would go there again because it had everything, we had a free goody bag with leaflets and also a pack of fabric samples.
Then, we went for the tour in the Wholesale Fabric Warehouse, it was interesting and also the supplies that they have that we can order and also get a good quantity of things too.
After the tour, it was lunch and we had curry chicken and cauliflower curry with naan bread, onion bahti and salad with creamy mint sauce. It was delicious! Absolutely delicious!!! After lunch, we took photos in the Rio Grande’s dining room with their stage that we are proper kings and queens. It was absolute a laugh and we enjoyed every moment of it, and later on that the other groups have stolen the Derby University’s idea and that should be sealed and no one copies Derby’s ideas!!! BECAUSE WE RULE!!!
After the gorgeous curry lunch, we made our journey to National Media Museum to view our entries and for the awards ceremony! I seen some of the winning entries and most of them are good, but some are not excellent quality. I felt that it has been biased that us Derby students worked so hard, and also competing other universities especially Nottingham Trent University that it has a reputation of their discipline that they don’t accept students to their university without their grades C or above in GCSE English and GCSE Mathematics, that they were snobby and also they kept things to themselves, but I didn’t find their work that impressive especially without any guidance from their tutors. But, I hoped that Derby will have their reputation next year!
When it was the awards ceremony begun, it was very exciting and I was so nervous to collect my award. It was a long time, we had the Première Vision talk from a French lady from the organisation herself and it was interesting the presentation video. I would like to go there someday when it is my turn to go there. It is going to be huge over there, some of my friends in my course said that it was massive and a lot of people too.
Then, it begun with the Weave Awards, then Knit, Print, Combined Textiles, Ecological and finally the Fashion part. Mostly everyone have got their awards, but only 3 people from my university have got one of the 3 top prizes, such as Hannah got 1st Place in the Interiors section for Woven Fabrics, Alice got a 2nd Place for the Year 1 Knitting category and another person have won 2nd Place in the Combined Textiles for Interiors category. Then most of us got Commendation awards. When it was my moment to get my award, I was so nervous and also I was so desperate to get my award and then out of here. But, I really enjoyed the experience and I was the last person to collect the award for the categories before the big ones coming up. Jonathan Dyson is the President for this year’s competition!
When Jonathan Dyson mentioned my name, my team has big cheers for me, and I knew that Jonathan has pronounced Kay-O, instead of “Car-Ho”. I was bit embarrassed, but oh well, never mind. And once, I’ve got up to collect my award, and everyone got their award. When it was me, I’ve walked proud and smiled to everyone and my team cheered for me for collecting my award and I was so honoured to walk and collect it too! I was so lost for words and it made me realized that I can work harder and also I am also talented too. I wished that Derby have won the whole thing to be honest, I feel like it was another Eurovision Contest that type. I am going to enter again next year and will get that first place very soon! It was a great experience and I am going to work harder for next year too and making my own projects in summer to get some information down and do some experimentation with different techniques too to get a head start for Year 3!
Thank you for reading my blog and have a great day…
