The cloth after the wash

Text C: an original fiction extract.

Elise began her placement in the clothing workshop expecting to help design the new work aprons. On the first morning, supervisor Arun gave her six squares of cloth, a ruler and a sheet divided into empty columns. The aprons would be worn and washed repeatedly. Before anybody chose the colours, the workshop needed to know how the proposed material behaved. Elise had prepared sketches with contrasting pockets. None required a column.

She measured each square and wrote the result beside its sample number. Arun asked her to measure in both directions. She had assumed the cloth would change equally, but the threads followed different paths through it. He showed her where to place the ruler and asked her to repeat the first reading. The second result differed by a few millimetres. Elise wanted to replace the original figure. Arun told her to keep both and note why she had measured again.

Three samples went through the usual wash; three were held back for comparison. Elise watched the machine while a machinist, Bina, explained how a pocket opening could become awkward if the surrounding cloth changed more than its stitched edge. Bina had returned two trial aprons the previous year. One still hung behind her chair. Its pocket puckered when Elise laid it flat, though it had looked neat in the photograph taken before washing.

At the end of the cycle, Elise wanted to measure immediately. Arun asked whether wet cloth would tell them what a dry apron would be like. They hung the samples in the agreed way and returned the following morning. One direction had changed more than the other. The three washed pieces did not produce identical results, but all differed from the held-back pieces. Elise drew a thick circle around the largest change. She thought it settled which cloth they should reject.

Arun asked which batch the six squares had come from. They were all cut from one trial length. The workshop had another length from a later delivery and no results for it. He also asked whether this wash represented every customer's routine. Elise looked at the single cycle setting in her notes. What they knew was useful, but narrower than the circle she had drawn around it.

For the afternoon discussion, Elise put her pocket sketches beside a chart of the measurements. Bina pointed to one design and suggested moving a seam so that an opening could stay comfortable after a modest change in the fabric. Arun proposed testing pieces from the second delivery and making a small trial set before a full order. Elise had imagined testing would interrupt the interesting part of design. Now an empty column looked like a question about whether somebody could actually use what she drew.

Before leaving, she photographed the old puckered pocket with Bina's permission and labelled it as an earlier trial, not one of their new samples. She left the repeated measurements visible on the chart. The report would take longer to explain that way, but nobody would mistake a neat row of figures for a certainty they had not earned.

You are Elise. At the end of the placement week, write a report for your college tutor about what you learned from the fabric test.

In your response:

• explain the purpose of the test and what you did
• evaluate what the results showed and what they could not establish
• recommend the next steps and explain how the experience changed your understanding of design

Base your response on Text C, developing its ideas in your own words. Write about 250 to 300 words. Up to 10 marks are available for reading and up to 10 marks for writing.