Hiver Fashion

Please vote for me in the GenArt Plastics Make It Possible Competition!

2009-11-27T19:42:00.005-06:00

Gen Art is holding a fashion design competition sponsored by the American Chemistry Council, called Plastics Make It Possible. All designs had to be constructed of synthetic materials and had to include 2 looks. The winner will receive $10,000 to make a small collection that will be shown during fashion week in NYC for fall/winter10. Designs are uploaded to the Genart Discover website and users rate and review the works, and the design with the highest score is the winner.

I am imploring you to please take just a few minutes out of your day to visit the site, check out my design, and give me a high rating. The more votes I get, the closer I can come to winning and showing my work to the world, so please after voting, pass this along to a few friends, family, etc to increase my chances. I usually don't like to ask for help like this because I don't want to be a pain to anyone, but this time I really am relying on all of you out there to help me!

here's the link to see all the photos of my entry, as well as where you can read my full description of the garments, and rate and review my work:
http://discover.genart.org/media/view/1065/anchor=&clean_title=motions-of-the-hours

To be able to vote, you have to create a user account, which is free and they don't send you any spam as I've had an account for several months. It literally took me 60 seconds to get it, its super easy. You can always just delete it afterward if you don't want to keep it

Again, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for helping me out!!!!!

Additional thanks to the always lovely Jocelyn Farwell for modeling, and to Jullian Woods for the ever outstanding photography!

FML

2009-11-20T21:45:00.003-06:00

so fml

my bike got stolen. as if on top of everything else, I just needed my one little bit of love and joy to be snatched away. That ride to and from work, in the wind, in the rain, in between busses and yuppies driving SUVs with a starbucks in one hand and a iphone in the other, it was my meditation for the day. Pop those headphones in, put on some beats, and I could just ride for miles and miles, that repetition that balance that fluid movement. Gone.

So I was really sick all week. Like I was almost ready to march my ass to the ER on wednesday, like I was all ready to tell people I got some Hiney (mostly just amused that someone decided to start calling it that somewhere out there on the interwebs, because what makes a pandemic seem less threatening than a cutesey name), but it really just ended up being a really nasty cold that made me miss work this week (and be late on my rent too). Before that I was sick with problems still stemming back to a bad reaction I had with some medication like 6 months ago since my hormones are going all oout of control. Oh yeah and last week I lost my keys, that was really fun and I'm not even going to go into how much fun I had. So I couldn't go rescue my baby from where I parked it up in Wickerpark over the weekend because by the time I was able to come back and ride it home, that's when I got sick and have been on bedrest till today. So when I came back to get my ride today, instead of the bike, I simply found the pole it had been locked to, bent at about a 30 degree angle across the sidewalk with no bike on it. The tears will come most likely at some point next week when I am stuck on a redline and am about to throttle someone.

seriously i need to go get like screenwriting for dummies or something and just write everything how it happens to me day by day, and i'll be swimmin in money in a few months after i sell the script to like CBS as a 30 min sitcom. I kinda want to make every sound on my cell phone be a laugh track because i feel like that, and a studio audience, are the only things keeping my life from being someone's sitcom.

so yeah.fml

there will be no more of this anytime in the near future, more like beat up paperbacks stolen from the harold washington library and rice with soy sauce for me.

in case your the dickhead who took my bike, i will castrate you with a mellonballer when i get my hands on you

so simple. and yet....

2009-11-13T22:06:00.001-06:00

....so eternally frustrating

holy crap, awesome!

2009-10-22T19:03:00.003-05:00

in my tumbleweed-esque rolling about the internet, i bumped into this. I think i have a new favorite website.

better words than I haven't

2009-10-19T23:46:00.002-05:00

So in addition to my sorta kinda full time now turned holy crap more over time than i can shake a fist at job as a seamstress in lakeview, a commute that's seen me drop weight like ......i can't really think of any non-offensive euphemism at this hour, but in addition to that job, i've been working for the YingYing Yang ltd on the side. Alstaire of Veil got me into it (also go check out their stuff, it just went up in the window of Gamma Player over on Division st tonight. i grovel at the knees of the mannequins of such amazing work, plus Al is my absolute kindred spirit of design, love ya!) back when I graduated simply because I was bored out of my mind and loosing my drive for a bit. Ying is great and she's trying to get a design collective going, and its truely a challenge for me to get out of my target market mindset and get into the "seven to seven" state of mind as she calls it. Basically apparel for the professional woman who knows what she likes. Not what I typically think of as a customer, but I enjoy working around those things, keeps me from getting in a rut or anything.

We're rampin up things to get ready for spring 2010 production, so get ready to hear more and more about this whole project. But in the mean time, the website got updated with designer profiles, and I must say that of all the designer profiles and whatnot I've had to write about myself, or have been slapped together by unfamiliar ears, this has got to be the best one so far. I'm exceedingly flattered that someone could sum up my skills better than I could possibly ask for.

I'd say that's it for now, but as I'm a visual learner and text is....boring to be honest, here's a pic of me from the jettision quarterly shoot....which makes me look fat as hell compared to the giraffe i'm standing next to.....oh fixed gear biking....how you only made me more muscular and not stick skinny as i foolishly had hoped 2 years ago....

this winter is a little impatient

2009-10-11T20:41:00.006-05:00

.....oh i hate cracking jokes about my last name, but sometimes they slip out.

I think this is my first time in a VERY LONG TIME that I've been able to kick back and relax both personally and professionally, and.....I'm bored. Of course you can't take work away from a workaholic without withdrawl any more than you can take herion away from an addict.

While August was jammed full of artistic endeavors, September was chocked full of social engagements. In addition to the Jettison Quarterly release, at the same time my cousin from the UK and her boyfriend came and stayed with me for a good part of a week (which considering my full time job and the fact that I live in what amounts to a total hole in the wall starving artist's crash pad, had me runnin around like a chicken with its head cut off), then the following week I pretty much didn't sleep for 3 nights to throw together a dress to wear to my cousin's wedding, which we drove up to Minneapolis the morning of the wedding....

There's me on the left there. Made it from a Nancy Reagan esque beaded skirt and then cut a bunch of bias strips of the gabardine left over from Fred's suit jacket for the top part. oh and most of it was handsewn on the car ride there....

And then the following weekend was my birthday. So let me preface with the fact that until my previous birthday, all years before had been atrocious, generally meeting with some horrible emotional trauma or utter disappointment. Last year was peaceful and joyous, yet nothing exciting. I've never been one to be like, Wooo its my birthday lets partay all week, but seeing as it was actually on a Monday, I had a few days of celebration, a goodbye sotospeak of my year I got my act together, and a welcoming of the first year of official adult mode.
So the best way to get people to not bother you on the cta is to open up your purse and start pulling feathers out everywhere and then start pinning a bunch of needles and other sharp impliments to your clothes. no fat woman is gonna try to share that bench with you any time soon. Hard to tell in the photo because I was leaning forward on a particularly uncomfortable ottoman, but I've lost so much weight that this dress that once barely fit at all, had to be taken in 2 inches on both sides, hemmed 4 inches because it was hanging down past my knees, and now i can actually button those cuffs around my upper arm, and I had a whole other button undone at the bust and I wasn't spilling out of the dress. Kinda makes me wish I could go back in time to all the times I had such a terrible self image and no self esteem and just show myself what's possible.

So since i've lost so much weight (i've sort of settled at about a 6/7ish, having been at my worst in college a 12, but at my last birthday I'd say i was like a 9/10, and at 13 I was my worst at a 16 to 18. If i stopped the starbucks drinkin and dropped a bit more of the junk food binges I am occasionally guilty of [whole box of poptarts in a day is my worst, but then again I make up for it by biking a lot the next day] I could probably make it down to a solid 6, I'd like to get to a 4 though and maybe squeeze my tush into some of the leather stuff i made for my thesis once upon a time) none of my fall clothes fit. And it seemed about the right time for a total image change, since last year I was trying to ride through the winter for the first time and was all about gigantic oversized cosby sweaters, unflattering mom jeans, and scuffed up and muddy knee high boots. When I was pulling out my fall clothes I packed away in a box when I moved down to pilsen, I tried on everything and felt like a kid trying to wear adult clothes. A pair of high waisted size 6 jeans that I bought like a year ago at a thrift store as a joke, that couldn't get up over my thighs back in March, zipped right up, with room to spare in the seat. So I scrambled through the wardrobe, gave away a good large trash bag sized pile of clothes, and started sewin away some new stuff.

At the same time I got some new glasses. I've been a four eyes for over a decade now and I always hated wearing my glasses. Frankly for the past 2 years I wore my contacts just about all the time. I had heard about some websites that sell super cheap glasses so I checked them out and bought these puppies from bestpriceglasses.com, prescription lenses, antiscratch coating, and shipping for only $65. I got another pair that are black and more square but equally large and nerdy from zennioptical.com for only $40. Last fall and winter I'd sum up my color pallet as purple, medium grey, black, and cerulean blue. This year its rust, steel blue, navy, cream, charcoal, and a light cool grey. As you can see from that first photo, I'm definitely goin for a total nerdy look, I'm callin my whole look for this winter (biking and all) Buddy Holly Goes Deer Hunting.

I'm going to refuse to buy anything new (asides essentials like socks n that shtuff) for my whole 23rd year on this earth, so either thrifted clothes, garments I've sewn from scratch, or chimera garments from used and new materials. Its definitely something I've toyed with doing for a while, but this week alone i've slapped out quite a few garments for only a few bucks a pop (thank you remnants table at Vogue fabrics) and its giving me the flat patternmaking kick in the ass I needed. I actually came across this blog where a chick is making absolutely everything she's wearing for the next year, underwear, shoes and all. Its a super inspiration, and I'm going to figure out how to set up my camera to take some good polariod style shots of what I make for myself.

well, now what to do for the very rapidly approaching winter? I'm sort of perched on this fence right now, one side is grad school applications, the other is starting my own line and really goin all out to the point where I don't need a day job to pay the rent. Both roads are hard and harsh, and both involve gettin my butt in line and making a full rounded portfolio. That would be it then, charging ahead with both routes and getting everything together. Needless to say, I'm excited about it all. Five years ago, at my worst hour, I never once thought I'd ever be here, and I'm proud of myself for all the pitfalls it took to get here. My birthday wishes this year were not for love or happiness or material things as they have been in the past, it was for absolute success.

Jettison Quarterly Release

2009-09-08T22:43:00.003-05:00

This Thursday, be there for the first chances to see the third issue, with my holy crap amazing shoot! If you can't make it down to my new favorite place to spend money, check out the new issue when it comes out on friday, online for free.
www.jettisonquarterly.com

aaaaaand here's a taste of what craziness you might see then haha.

as this rather nonexistant summer draws to a close....

2009-08-27T11:52:00.006-05:00

As there was in the victorian times, a year without a summer, this has most certainly been the year Chicago had no summer. It is as if the long separated lovers of spring and fall finally decided to consumate their affections, wet cold and grey as the days they spent apart. Or to be narcisistic about it, I could say that the weather was bound to my slightly discoloured mood for the past few months. You know that scene in The Graduate where Dustin Hoffman's character is laying at the bottom of the pool staring up at everyone above in silence and its as if they existed in separate universes; I'd like to think that I went about this so called summer with that sort of feeling swimming about my head.

So I graduated, and turning back to it now, it is another lifetime behind me. Honestly, I don't even go downtown anymore, I couldn't tell you the last time I was in the south loop for anything...must have been at least two months ago. And I think I'm alright with that, that that area of the city is just a blank slate in my mind. Well, except the library. I have finally returned to reading, once a great joy of mine. I remember being younger and ravenously devouring thousands of pages a week. Somewhere in my senior year the lightbulb or biological clock or whatnot went off in my head that I needed to acquire a library of my own, and perhaps thats the last stage in the transition from larval teen form to fully formed adult. The bookcase I have had my whole life, which once held my herd of My Little Ponies and later the plethora of bad plastic jewelry from Hottopic, now is a temple to my hipster-esque taste in knowledge. It also doesn't hurt that I rearranged it all in the art school grad color wheel pallet scheme. Yes, my bookcase is not arranged by subject or author, its arranged in a rainbow, and I wouldn't claim it to be my own idea by a long shot. But it provides some ironic combinations, like World War Z next to a fashion design textbook from 1942 next to the geology textbook my mother had in the 70's from UIC which is next to my freshman year in high school French 101 book which is next to Atlas Shrugged.

I moved south, far south, where its cheap enough to have a 2 bedroom on my own. Its...isolated here, sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes bad. I was very ill for a good part of the past few months, falling somehow into the shady conspiracy world of what drug companies and doctors can get away with doing to people. On the days I could barely get out of bed, loosing my mind from the poisons I was being forced to take, it was torture to be so far from the people I have held dear, and yet on the days, now, as I dumped out all of the medicines and refused to take anymore, that I have my strength and clarity back, I enjoy having a home to myself. And it is that, a home. It is not a place I pass out at the end of a 14 hour day at school, it is a place I keep my belongings, a place I put my art up on the walls, a place where I can sit and reflect. Granted in my weeks of illness, it got rather.....lets say sloppy. But with good reason! And, having finished my biggest project to date last friday (i'll get to that), I cleaned and rearranged, taking cues from my ever so clean and organized roommate from my old place. Despite feeling so sick, I did quite a bit signifigant this summer, hopefully to the benefit of getting into gradschool or advancing up the job ladder.

Well first of all, I had an art piece in a gallery show. Funny to see how people who have known me for a good year or more had no idea that I actually was an artist. The theme of the show was Telephones, and it was shown at the Barbara and Barbara gallery just north of Augusta on Western. The barbs are always awesome and I was elated to be part of the show. I'm looking forward to hopefully having a piece in their "self portrait" show in november-ish. I've been waiting to make a piece of that sort for a very long time and it will be rather cathardic to get that out of my system as well.

So please excuse the crappy cell phone shots of that one. Eventually I'll take a picture of the whole thing, seeing as how its tacked up on the wall right next to my bookcase, but I'm still actually pondering the idea of continuing some more work on it. The title of the piece was "Rituals of Ineptitude", and I was trying to deal with my somewhat strange OCD complex about talking on the phone that I've somewhat overcome. If you've ever spoken to me on the phone before, you'll understand. Basically my cell phone plan is 1 hour of talk a month with unlimited text. The piece itself was done in something of a scatterbrained satin stitch that I fell in love with immensely, as well as chain stitch and a slight bit of french knots. I found the process of "drawing" with the thread much like the jerky way I went about working with oil pastels in high school, sort of violently jabbing small slashes of bright colors side by side rather than make a clear blend between them. I guess you could say I've come full circle on the fine arts going into fashion design going back into fine arts.

Well after that came a fashion show that was actually last week. Normally I would be hesitant to be a part of a show at a club....the ones i've been to or helped out with haven't gone all that well or the other designers were a bit....subpar. But after meeting with the organizers of this one and showing them my portfolio, they were super professional about it and most of the other fashion was done by stores in the area that I actually was a fan of. And despite some last minute craziness backstage (which is always to be expected), I was pleased to have been a part of it, have another experience to slap on my resume.

So immediately the next day after the show (and me running on 4 full days of no sleep, which i'll slap up that picture in a bit, its amusing) I had perhaps the most amazing photoshoot of my career this far. I thought the ones I had during my time in the fashion photography class that I dragged myself to every saturday morning were out of this world, but this blew me away. Jettison Quarterly chose me to be the main focus of their fall issue's fashion editorial back in like June, and let me just say that things went astronomical from there! The issue should be published tenatively Sept 5, but I'll be sure to go into detail when it does. The humble side of me thinks that its sheer luck that all of this fell into my lap, but then the hardworking side of me demands these rewards for my talent. We shot in an apartment to die for up on the 81st floor of the handcock building (on a side note, i'd never been in a building that high up before. I lived 3 blocks from the sears tower for 3 years and never once went in it or any higher in any building more than like the 35th floor, so this was a jaw dropping experience) that the artist Jared Hatch so graciously let us work in. Elite gave us 3 models on a Friday night, and one of them was a winner of America's next top model (and when you see the photos, you'll see why she won. And all three of them were absolutely perfect). One of the models got swapped out at the 11th hour and I didn't know who it would be until I got to the shoot, at which point I discovered it was my favorite fit model .... (like how's this for a blast from the past?)

...so I knew everything would fit perfectly. I had brought a bunch of those black clamps for styling, we didn't even crack the package open. I ended up using them around my apartment to hold up my stolen CTA train maps. I've definitely decided to keep going on the sort of atheticwear/futuristic thing that I started back in the spring with my first shoot with Jullian. In like 3 weeks I threw together 8 looks, and these garments all had multiple functions. The stuff that I was pulling out of thin air was just.....it was a relief really. A good part of the beginning of my summer was spent in deep turmoil over whether or not I should stay with this or scrap it and go back to school for paleontology. Needless to say, that doctorate will have to take a backseat to me getting my masters in fashion design. Really, everything came together for this shoot, the space, the models, the team, the makeup artist, the photographer, and my work. It was this huge step up for me, but now I've gone from hamburger helper to fillet mignon, I can't stop thanking everyone who helped me get there for this. I am going off the walls wanting to see the final images, but I know better than to be a pest, this next issue of Jettison is going to knock everyone's socks off.

I snapped this pic with my blackberry of two of the models posing, on a Zaha Hadid couch. Funny enough, the photo that everyone liked from this look was the one at the exact moment I took this picture and the model on the right looked over at me. Sometimes life just comes together like that, all the puzzle pieces that were strewn about for so long suddenly make sense in how they go together and the pieces fall in line in quick succession.

Well....what's next? Uh....well I got some sleep. That was important and this would be me....after 4 days, 3 nights of no sleep, and on top of that, the ADD medication I was taking was magically recalled because of a "super-potent" production mishap according to the FDA, so I had a really fun time dealing with basically what ammounted to an overdose, and the doctors, pharmacy, and drug company get away with it completely when I had 3 days of hell not knowing what was going on. Since leaving school, I completely lost all the weight I had gained from all the stress in college. Long ago I kept onto my junior year prom dress (and I realize that by this point i am digressing into trivial personal matters, but as my self image has always had an effect on my work, and well, er, public persona I suppose you could call it, I shall digress) which was from when I was my slimmest in my whole life. And all through college I would pull out the hideous concoction of poly duchess satin and get upset that it did not fit at all. Now, i can zip the whole dress up and have to hold it up or else it just slides off. Pants that I bought at christmas that were too tight at the time and resulted in the ever evil muffin top look (hence the winter of cosby sweaters for me), are now so loose that they need to be taken in at least 2-3 inches at the waistband, or just altogether scrapped. I found a pair of St. John jeans at a thrift store that were a size 2, I went home and squeezed myself into them , even hacked them apart into skinny jeans no less. and 10 years ago, just being a size 12 seemed impossible, here I am now able to wriggle into the garments that I've made for the giraffes. I'm forever covered in bruises because I was so used to just having that weight to me, and I'll bump into things as I am a klutz, and forget that now its just bone. My favorite little black dress that I bought myself as a grade school graduation present has always been the sort of high water mark per say for my weight, and I actually had to take it in at the side seams over an inch, which would mean in total I took it in like 4 sizes. I had to hem it up 3" because it was hanging down so far that it was going past my knees. And when I wore it at christmas, the buttons at the bust and hips were straining to stay in place, now here I am taking it in all over. What I swore last summer I would never never ever wear, the American Apparel lame high waisted leggings, here I just went out last night in a pair of the matte black ones and a white dress shirt from Theory (dude I love thriftin, I find the best stuff). At first I thought I'd get crap for basically not wearing anything, but even my mother, who would give me crap for anything outside of conservative wear, didn't flinch when I showed up in them, and at work no one said a thing, not even my coworker who likes to make cracks at me when I wear a pencil skirt and heels.

So it slowly sunk in that for the first time in my life, I've really made myself a physical representation of my happy state. Not everything is perfect by a long shot, but finally that horrible cloud that hung over me for my whole life has disipated, maybe its no homework, maybe its the fact that I pay my rent and I earn every cent of it. I am, as you will have most certainly noticed by this point, a diehard workaholic. I had never been so happy as I was when I took that photo of myself, exhausted to the point of just falling over from working so hard to reach my goals. And my job, I really do enjoy my job! I've worked at Barry Regent Cleaners up in lakeview for well....three months now. If they'd bump me up one more day a week I'd be a happy little clam, but even now I'm proud of my job and after 8.5 hours of sewing, I go home and sew more. That was my real test this summer if I was going to stick with this design thing, if I could do it to pay the bills and still come home and enjoy it. And I do, very much so. Work is one of the top cleaners in the city, so its not just some hole in the wall place stereotypical cleaners. Its the size of like a walgreens, and on a daily basis, i have probably $50,000 worth of garments pass through my hands, and thats just doing alterations. I see mcqueen, jil sander, armani, dolce and gabana, viktor and rolf, and etro each shift. It was funny, I must have applied to 500 office jobs, and this was the first sewing job that i applied to, and they called me the next day to have me start. I'm exceptionally pleased with the job, plus the commute to work is a 14 mile round trip, so biking all that has been one of the motivations for the weightloss. it just feels good to come home and look at the things i have, and know that its all mine and I earned it.

so yes, whats next? Well, Jettison is going to come out soon, and there's plans in the works for me to have my own gallery/fashion show thing, but that's still in planning. Something along the lines of cat chow's fashion installations is what I'm musing on. I want to do some large scale illustrations to go along with the garments to further pull out my ideas and inspirations. Living down in pilsen means that to get back and forth from the old hood I have to cut down Damen, which gets into sketchy territory going under the rail yard by 14th. seriously its a tunnel for 4 blocks, so I like to cut through the UIC medical district and make googley eyes at the post modern architecture. Ah yes, I have become quite interested in architecture as of late, and mid century modern furniture design.

And then? Well....I guess I'd like to see if anything comes of that, and I do have a few commissions on the side right now to chug along on, but really nothing is keeping me here. There was, but that blew up in my face about two months ago, so now I'm still looking across the pond at grad schools, but there's also two companies headquartered in portland that I would really like to work for. So I suppose this fall will be a refinement of my portfolio, and maybe having some menswear in the winter issue of Jettison, but I'm trying not to get ahead of myself too soon. Really I have a future laid open and clean to be steered in any direction. I have enough plans to keep me content in the short term, but my long term is like a leaf in the wind, dreams and hopes light in the air, nothing concrete. And i'm happy with it that way.

iliacus on the runway

2009-05-20T11:33:00.002-05:00

yay i gots the learnin!

2009-05-19T21:12:00.003-05:00

so.... I graduated

To be honest, its a strange feeling. I've ALWAYS been in school, like I am that classic overachiever who went to summer school every year. As in I haven't had a summer without summer school in a decade. And as I don't exactly have a job lined up right now.....I'm sorta lost without something to do. I mean its not like I will go the way of TAs before me and never sew again....its just that not having homework or a set schedule is sort of messing with me. I have been applying to jobs, but then again I did just graduate into the worst economy since the great depression.

To gradschool I will go!

But those applications aren't until January, and obviously I cannot leech, mooch, or golddig my way till then, I just wouldn't feel quite right in any of that. I am the workaholic one of course. I do have some things lined up which I am looking forward to. Al and I are making our line, which we are finally going to get around to, we're going to be at the Andersonville fest in a few weekends selling things, and then maybe doing the renegade craft fair in the fall, and Greg and I have pieces to do together, several photographers from my fashion styling class want to work with me over the summer, dennis and I are going to rebuild my portfolio full of illustration work that I had neglected while I was making over 10 garment bags filled to bursting in one year, there's several competitions coming up over the summer that hopefully will show some results, and John wants to work on pieces which I will admit is what I'm looking forward to the most. Not to say that everything else isn't interesting, I just need to completely immerse myself in work that will make my brain hurt and leave me sleepless, and everything else is a comfortable disconect from my physical habits. Oh and I'll be doing some dressing for shows over the summer, nothing paid but it can't hurt to show up, work hard, and wear a funny looking hat.

I'm not so sure about that post ceral stuff....

2009-04-19T13:39:00.005-05:00

Ok so basically forget everything I've ever made before. I put together a spring summer collection based on the muscle structure of the female form in relation to cycling, and I still can't believe that this stuff sifted its way out of my head one day.

The photos are for my Fashion Styling class's 3rd assignment, which is a catalog. None of the photos have any post work done on them, but as you can see they are already wonderful, thanks in part to the great photography skills of mr. Jullian Woods.

experimentation in regards to the ease of tight pants

2009-03-21T16:21:00.005-05:00

shorty shorts with tights is my new uniform

2009-03-16T12:46:00.004-05:00

Well I finished my thesis. And promptly the next week I got the flu and was dead to the world for like 2 weeks. Despite a whole week of on a diet of cigarettes, coffee, and no sleep, I completed everything and our photo shoot turned out spectacularly.

So yeah, this has been my baby for the past....uh.....Well I guess I sketched this up in the beginning of June during my digital photo class. It doesn't look too much like the early sketches, but I am happy with it. There is also a gown that was the bane of my existence for about a month, but we shot that in the second shoot which was this past saturday. Hopefully I can get my hands on the unedited photos this week and then I won't have the photos with the post work done until April. We shot all of my menswear in that shoot, which Fred graciously modeled for me, and everything came out perfect. I was telling him that sitting back and watching these shoots makes me feel like a mom sending her kid off to the first day of kindergarten.

So what's next? I have to have 2 collections done by April 11th (that weekend has become an apocalypse of sorts for me). One will be unisex urban cycling wear, which will be for my 3rd shoot in fashion styling. I'm going to base it off of the evolutionary path of the Proboscidea order, which is all the screwed up looking ancestors of modern day elephants. Possibly throw in my fav in the mix, megaloceros. But the second collection will be for the Hand&Lock competition this summer, but I also have to have it done by april 13th(awww my lil' bro's 18th bday) in order to enter for the Driehouse competition. So while I thought I was going to have a nice spring break of riding my bike and getting a tan and drinking some pbr, I will be spending it furiously sewing and embroidering.

Speaking of biking, Emelia died a bit ago. A winter of hard riding when she already wasn't the best suit ran her into the ground. I got a new bike, a Mercier Kilo TT Pro, which I named Barneby H Scotte. When I've got some cash, I'm going to have him powder coated, because the french grey he's got going right now isn't doing it for me. The weather is warming up and getting spectacular. Tomorrow is supposed to be 70 degrees, the first time we've seen that temp since Obama got elected. Needless to say I'm excited for the vitamin D boost.

Oh and the Andersonville Galleria opened after construction. I dropped off 7 of my hats there Saturday, so go check out my work and buy some stuff. I try to use all repurposed materials to keep the price down, since in this economy nobody wants to shell out $150 for a hat, but at $60 its a much better sale, and people feel good about recycling.

the ferral abyss

2009-02-02T09:56:00.002-06:00

here's the creature in its natural environment, hipster art parties.

that's not to say that i've been partying. quite the opposite. I think this weekend was the first time i went out since like new years. I went over to the BC/AD show at Tandem, then the whole gang went to Dustin's bday show at BarbaraandBarabara. Good times, and good people.

so guess what i have been working on? yeup, that's right, thesis! I have to have it all done by feb 21st for my fashion styling class. EEP. especially now that i'm working on the knits part, i don't have enough roving, so I need to get my butt all the way out to Margengo in the next week or so. Definitely not a bike-able distance.

I trashed the kitchen with colored things while fred was out.

these dyes are fantastic. they do both silk and wool at the same time, which has definitely saved me money and time. it looks like sea salts when you open the jar up. my only problem was that the black reacted funny to my silk charmuse and now i have these orange spots on my linings. oh well, make it work.

as for what else i have going on, been busy busy busy. Its rare that i have more than 10 minutes to do nothing (hence why i've been gone for a while). We're in the last leg of winter and i'm pullin through for sure. the more days we have in the 30's, the easier it is to hop on the pony and ride. I've got a bunch of shows this weekend (and hopefully i'll be lining up a show of my own soon!) so i'll be riding about to those. and that saturday morning photo class. this past week i thought it might be a bad idea, but i sat through the class and realized it may be the best class i ever take in college.

and its still sinking in that in 14 weeks i will GRADUATE. defintely stickin around for a while here, but things are sorta fallin into place to stay here. It was reluctantly at first that i made the decision to stay, but now i'm glad i made the choice.

ugh, ok so what to do after thesis is done? another collection of course. I'm going to do menswear to go with my thesis, and fred's gonna model it for me. i totally want to have my dad's beautiful yellow lab in the photos for some reason. menswear can be so boring sometimes. and after that? another collection, this time unisex cycling/urban clothing. and after that? another collection. Hopefully me and alister will be doing a show sometime soon, we gotta talk it out with eman on thursday at his show, but i've become consumed with the architecture of bridges on goose island as of late. as the snow melts on my runs, the rust patterns on the metal is leeching into the ice and I've got a bolt of this wool voile that would make a perfect mini-spring collection. and i'd like to do several hats that are more art pieces to expand upon the idea. and all of that could be my final photo set for my styling class.

and did i mention on top of this that i'm planning the school fashion show? and i'm in a super intesnse history class as well?

AND BROKE

yeah, i need to sell some stuff, but there's some drama around that with a certain store in pilsen. grrrrr....more on that later

ur supermodels photos

2009-01-09T13:25:00.003-06:00

Here's the photos, finally. So we had to go waaaaaay the hell out into the suburbs to shoot these, but i'm happy with how they turned out. all of the girls just had like prom dresses on and i had to build onto those with basically a lot of tulle and poly chiffon. i was a bit hesitant about it, but now that i see the final product, i'm pleased.
So this was one of the final shots, and as you can see, its the current ad campaign for them. i was standing just out of frame holding a reflector for hours shooting these since it was in an alley and there was no electricity

this is one of the pictures in Fashion Chicago Magazine currently

this was before a storm rolled in. It looks like a norman rockwell painting to me.

and here's the photo before it was made into an ad.

stylin

2009-01-07T16:44:00.002-06:00

While I wouldn't say styling is my calling in life, its kinda fun. Its interesting to see another aspect of the whole industry, because without stylists, the public would never see those kooky photo spreads in the back of obscure fashion magazines from the UK. Lately, I've been doing some styling for UR Super Models and I finally got to see a few photos that we shot a while back. So go check out Fashion Chicago Magazine to see them. I helped out with the photo on page 12, as well as the ad on the last page. I'm slightly irked that they spelled my last name wrong, but that's ok, it happens sometimes. Certainly I've been guilty of mispronouncing names in the past. We shot again with the most amazing model this past weekend, and those photos will be up in the next issue of the magazine.

The shoot was in the The Fine Arts Building on Michigan Ave. I've heard stories about this place, mostly in my nerdy binges of Chicago history on WTTW 11, but I'd never been in there before. I...was....speechless. It was the most beautiful building I have ever seen. I've been to San Francisco, I've been to London, I've been to Paris, but this, omg I want a studio here. Give me a broom closet if you have to, I'll be giddy like none other. I wandered around for ages. Plus I got to shoot with like the best photographer in the city, Robert Beczarski. He's so fun to work with!

I've got some of the photos from my first shoot, but there's trouble with uploading the pics. So I'll try again later, since they're pretty cool.

And in other news, starting in February, I'll be selling my millinery work with the Andersonville Galleria with Nouvelle Atelier. The store is closing for a few weeks to expand their space (dude this place is huge, and equally amazing), but there'll prolly be a grand reopening around Valentines day (i can't believe that that's already coming up). I'm really excited, its a great group of people to work with. I was really hesitant about staying in Chicago after graduation, but I think that the combo of seeing my designs being sold in stores and biking a hacked fixed gear through the winter have really reminded me how much I love my home and that I should let it nuture me for at least one more year. Plus the quality of Chicago fashion week has exploded in the past 4 years, to the point where it went from a novelty when I was a freshman, to this past year where it had a full spread in WWD. The opportunities in this city just keep getting better and better.

I'm really optomistic about my carreer in the next year, my personal life on the other side seems to be one clumsy setback after another. At least I have my two best friends.

two weeks into the era of my brain turning to mush

2009-01-02T15:24:00.003-06:00

yeah I have 4 more weeks till school starts back up. It also doesn't help that in order to try to keep my room warm, I covered up my window with fabric before Fred put up that shrink wrap stuff, so my brain doesn't recognize that its daytime, so my sleep schedule is waaaaaay off. I just don't do well without school or a job. Also it doesn't help that I was sick for christmas. that sucked too.

so, as far as new years resolutions are concerned, I didn't go with the whole, oh I want to loose a certain ammount of weight kind of thing. Well, sorta. Its been almost a year since I started riding a bike in the city, and I've pretty much changed my whole way of life around it. I feel a lot better than I did a year ago, both physically and mentally. Its brought me a lot of self confidence, and a lot of fun. So my new years resolution is to compete (well just complete) in the chicago triathlon at the end of august. That gives me 8 months to train, which is more than ample time. I'm not worried in the least bit. And its not like I sit on my ass all the time and not get any exercise whatsoever. I can already do the required 25 miles biking no problem, on a fixed gear bike no less. And swimming, I was on a swim team when i was younger and worked as a lifeguard and swim instructor as high school jobs, so that's just about getting my endurance back up, because I know I can already swim a mile, its just about cutting down the time. The running will be the hard part. I got thrown off a horse when I was 13 and seriously jacked up my left knee. Before that I had been running 3 miles a day at home, which is how I lost a bunch of weight when i was in grade school. I'm just going to have to keep a close watch on how I take care of my knee, but I think that since I'm going to do my training so gradually, I shouldn't have trouble building up the strength. And I'm actually in better shape than I thought I was. All the biking and walking with Fred built up some endurance. I was able to jog/walk almost 4 miles this morning in like 50 minutes. A year ago you couldn't have gotten me to run more than a block at a time and I held myself back when I ran for a half a mile today. I'm really happy about this. I'm almost tempted to do the bike section all on a fixed gear, but we'll see when it gets to be summer and I start doing the swimming training, and how wiped out I get after all of that. It could be an excuse to go get a 10 speed, I've been thinking that would be my next bike purchase, especially since I'm still determined to ride to Milwaukee. By graduation I'd like to be able to do a 6 mile run and 25 mile bike ride together.

Definitely my main reason for doing this is because I've basically been handed a genetic death sentence from my mother's side of the family. Like that list of family medical history that they ask you at the doctors, I just say yes to everything. Its really bad. And my dad's side isn't any better, but I look at the health of my mother and her mother in comparison to that of my dad and his dad, and I realize that I need to take care of myself now in order to not be knocking on death's door at 50. Fred got me cooking a lot of stuff, albeit I still suck at cooking, but its all veggies and healthy stuff. And that's a start. I stopped drinking soda and juice awhile ago, and I stay away from a lot of dairy, aside from a glass of keifer, which is crammed full of good stuff. And I look at my little brother, who, not that long ago, was a little stick twiggy kid, and now he looks like he's gonna bust out of his shirt at any moment. That's definitely an encouragement, that my genetics do support getting lean and healthy. So I'm not looking to loose any certain ammount of weight, or fit into a certain size of clothing, its more of just being able to be strong enough to do this physical challenge. Seriously a year ago, the thought of riding a bike on the city streets, especially one of those awful hipster things, 20 miles, would have been pure fantasy, and yet I did it effortlessly the other day. So yeah, I'm lookin forward to it. I just gotta get money together now for the entry fee, a wet suit, those shoes that triathletes use, maybe a 10 speed bike, a summer bike jersey and shorts....

And as far as fashion stuff is concerned, although I feel like the past 2 weeks have been spent doing like nothing, I'm going to be sold (hopefully) in two boutiques in the Chicago area. One's up in andersonville and I've got an interview about that this weekend, and the other one is for sure in Pilsen and will be opening up in February. So when I find out more about both of those, I'll be sure to be jumping up and down about it. And I have a photoshoot hopefully a week from now for my grad application to the Royal College of Art (not like i'll get in, but its kicking my ass to do shit) so I'll have those photos in a few weeks.

and here's the dumbest cat on earth. she likes to chew electrical wires

less than 100 days till spring

2008-12-15T21:55:00.003-06:00

ok its less than 100 days till spring. less than 70 days till the DTV conversion in chicago (not like i really care). less than 60 days left in my winter break. less than 50 days till obama becomes president. so what am i sayin? that soon it will be time for this:
i can't wait to put away the wool socks, the multiple layers of gloves, the knee high boots, and the thick coats. most of all, i can't wait to not be blown half off the cortland street bridge as i ride back from watching that crazy 3 story tall metal bucket pouring thing in that industrial park. or maybe i just can't wait to have a cycling tan again. its almost gone! arg.

oh god finally done!

2008-12-14T13:11:00.003-06:00

oh holy crap, i finished the semester! and all my muslins fit perfectly. it was freakin great!
bear in mind that this is not my color scheme at all

Here's 3 of my 6 looks (i didn't have time to fit on the other outfits and dennis told me that my fit was fine enough that he was confident that it'd be fine) with the coats and jackets

this is my sweaterdress and leggings. you can't really see the seaming on the leggings but there's a double layer on the inside of the legs through the ass in the back (ideally i'll have enough fabric left over when its all said and done for riding in the spring[less than 100 days!])
this is my sweatervest with the leather skirt. there will be a long sleeved chiffon blouse that will go underneath it.

this is my top with leather pants. again you can't see the seaming but the top will be out of melton wool and chiffon and the pants will be black leather

here's lenny dickin around with another classmate's muslin. he also drunk dialed me asking about plain weaves last night at 5am. awesome

my boss gave me an xmas present (a freakin sweet candle that makes my room not smell like a dirty fixie and sweaty shoes) and the bottom of the bag was full of candy that i gave to fred.

seriously almost there....

2008-12-10T09:48:00.005-06:00

last minute millinery work.....

dinner....

and these would be a fraction of the cats that i had to care for over thanksgiving break. it was more bs than i'd like to go into....

almost there.....

2008-12-07T14:51:00.003-06:00

Just 3 more days and i'll be done with my last fall semester in college. .....spooky. i'm actually not stressed out for once. probably because i failed italian a while ago, and pattern grading was for only half the semester. and aside from a few zippers needing to be put in, i'm pretty much done with the muslins for my thesis. i think the one thing that's stressin me out the most is that my ROyal College of Art application has to be in by january 19th. eep. so i'm going to be on a hat making spree until then.

Ok i thought this was the cutest pic on earth. I helped out a friend for a grant project over the summer. Its called Alphabet soup and everyone made one plush letter. I got the letter A, which you can see is the 3rd letter from the left. All the letters were put in a kiddie pool covered in faux fur with a big vinyl spoon to play with. for the instalation at school, there were drawings that James did of all the letters that each sewer got to keep (i still gotta go get mine). So after the weisman instalation at school, James donated it to a school in the south loop, and this was the picture he took of the kids with the letters. I was really glad to be a part of the project

this was a photo that my roomate took early in november. no staging or anything. i nearly wet myself when i saw this for the first time laughin so hard

and as far as biking goes, ITS EFFFING COLD OUTSIDE! i rode home last night from UIC when lee and i got dinner and i didn't know if i was going to make it. also, i quit smoking. i thought i was having an asthma attack last night

here's lee in his bike room putting on my new pedals. he's so sweet, he does all my bike matinence
and here's my bike with my new pedals and toe clips. ridiculously cute. the clips are great because i've been wearing boots as of late for riding and they keep my feet from slip slidin all over the place

at fred's insistence, if that's even spelled right

2008-11-15T23:59:00.007-06:00

i've had a very very long and stressful week. my mother is in the hospital with cancer, i failed my italian class, i lost the FGI scholarship to some (^#$$*#(^*^$%#&$^&$!!!! pleather crap that looked like something i did back when i was 18 (as in like that's what i did for my prom dress as a joke) when i really really needed that money to pay for my senior thesis (which is actually coming along quite well, its the only thing in my life that's going fine right now), and in general have been relatively depressed, mostly due to my own medical issues lingerging from the summer (i might also have cancer). fred pointed out i'm getting fixated on stuff when things get bad. so i'm just going to get really calloused for a bit to focus on thesis and make it through the semester, and then winter break and then i can think about these things again when i am finished with thesis. its going to suck but i have to have some discipline

but i have made some hats as of late. some of the pics are repeats of what i've put up but much better quality now. i'm thinking about making another one of those apple books with the photos.

ok, i'm definitely absorbed by millinery

2008-11-09T09:58:00.005-06:00

the end is near.....the end of the semester that is. one month to go! i haven't started sewing any muslins.....i really really really want to go on a ride on the lakefront today but i know that i need to get stuff done. i spent too much time this weekend dickin around.

so i was browsin the columbia website randomly when i woke up this morning and i came upon shopcolumbia which is where i have a few of my hats for sale. i scrolled through the images and found they had a photo of some of the hats i have there. sweet! the middle one is sold, i sold a comission of that one, and i got comissioned for another one as well. most of the millinery work i've been doin is more on the high end boutique level, not so much the columbia store, but i've been gettin together some cycling hats made out of some wool remnants (fred loves the one i made him as a test of the pattern, and i wear mine every time i jump on the bike) to take over there and sell for like $30
so friday i rode up to niles. 30 miles in like 100 minutes. pretty good since i wasn't pushing myself or anything and i was kinda putzin around on the way back. i went up to the north branch trail again, i rode a couple miles in. there were a lot of leaves on the path and i was worried my skinny tires would slip out on them. but it was absolutely breathtaking. like my cameraphone comes no where close to capturing how amazing it was. i want to go on a ride so bad this morning but i have to do sewing. grrrrr.....

well yesterday kaelyn and i drove up to the fold to get some roving for our thesis. omg. i ended up settling on 1.5 lbs of merino and cashmere, and .5lbs of silk and camel. and, because i'm so bad, i got 1 oz of vincuna. its like a little handful of heaven. i'm so mad i've got shit on my drop spindle, i'd spin it right now. i want to make like a lacey berret with it. i can't believe i could buy some. it was only $26 and i can make something little and dainty. awesome. and i bought some Socks that rock silk thread again. i'm going to knit it really loose on the knitting machine (or fred will, he loves that thing) and make it into some dresses to go with these crazy hats i'm going to be making.

well i'm having a photoshoot of my milinery today with crystal and fred, so i'll put those photos up when i get them.

happy friday!

2008-11-01T17:13:00.004-05:00

halloween was the last friday of the month, so you know what that means......

Critical Mass!
i haven't gone since may, i've missed it. between getting hit twice, an awful job, and all my medical troubles, i haven't had a chance all summer to go. i had so much fun!

i went with my friend dustin who was st. sebastian. we were both showin some serious skin last night!

i went as joan holloway from mad men. i absolutely adore her character, and i think its freakin awesome that christina hendricks is curvy and has the success that she has had.

also, i'm kinda considering dying my hair this color. i really like it and my hair is starting to go into winter hibernation black mode and i don't feel like looking like a goth this year

so i made the dress out of a wool remnant i had laying around. and i bought a wig at one of the like 5 (i'm dead serious about this) wig shops at the corner of ashland, division, and milwaukee. i styled it into the updo with a can of aquanet and like 30 bobby pins. when we got to a party, i ditched the flats and put on black pumps, but for the pony i had on flats, but they kept falling off when everyone bunched up and i had to walk my bike while i was still in the saddle. i've definitely lost some weight and now all of my shoes fit funny. between critical mass, going to the mca, then the south loop, then back up to lincoln park, then back to wicker park last night, then today walking to lincoln park and back to wicker park and then biking from wicker park to elston and addison (i have no idea what neighborhood that even is), i've gone like 60 miles. i'm going to go pass out and make some more hats tonight.

oooh and i bought a steamer at bed bath and beyond so now i had block hats anytime, not just at school!

hats!

2008-10-26T00:10:00.004-05:00

So this is my recent installation work.....er....me and crystal being dicks to fred and covering his room in AA ads

ugh this one took like 30 hours to make!

i've gotten into this thing with waves as of late....my best selling designs have these waves and pleats going on

i love this

2008-10-24T20:11:00.001-05:00

this is my favorite photo of my work i've ever seen so far

2008-10-09T18:14:00.001-05:00

seriously when i finished this collection, the styling i imagined for it would have a black model. i don't mean that in any offensive way, i just thought that the color scheme would look better on a darker skin tone.

and i'm ecstatic about this one

holy fucking shit batman, its mother fucking midterms

2008-10-09T17:13:00.007-05:00

uh.....

where did the semester go? we just ended week 6, out of 15. these marathons of work are exhausting, particularly this week mostly because comcast sucks and won't come to setup my computer and tv in my room till monday. soooooo i didn't make it through to the finals of chicago fashion focus but i really wasn't too concerned about that. i had other stuff to focus on. uh.....well columbia stole the show at Dress Code for chicago fashion week, and i'd like to think it was a preview of what the senior show will be like in the spring. take that art institute!

uh so on my birthday there was a show that some of my stuff was in. i wasn't able to attend since it was my birthday party, but thankfully one of the seniors was gracious enough to take a few of my garments to be shown. i just yanked the photos off of facebook, and the clothes aren't exactly worn how i intended, but i guess its fair to let other people style my stuff.....comes up with some interesting results

well i decided to make my self a fall coat for bike riding. i don't have any pictures of that, but i do have photos of me in the old lady persian lamb jacket i took apart to trim my coat. i ended up taking the sleeves down to tshirt length and taking off the mink collar to make a hat and putting a ruffle for a collar in. see, recycling at work

HAPPY BDAY TO ME!

2008-09-29T23:08:00.002-05:00

That's right, i turned 22 and it was fantastic. didn't get too drunk, gave myself a real nice present on friday, and then randomly got free tickets to a show yesterday at the metro. i had a great party, and oh yeah i now have a roommate. the hermitage household is gonna be some sitcom shenanigans as soon as we get all this crap organized.

well my neck and back are killing me right now so i'll be brief but go to here to check out my stuff on display. you can even buy somethin (PLEAZE I NEED MONEYS)! I'll be there this saturday so come stop by and heckle me as i try to wear seafoam. And on sunday i'll find out if i get accepted to the second stage of the chicago fashion foundation's anual scholarship. also hopefully by then i'll have my living arrangements better sorted out so i'm not having to go through a minefield of new and exciting stuff which i am trying not to snoop around in to get to my computer

a series of interesting events; or how i got hit by a car again

2008-09-14T22:06:00.005-05:00

yeup, that's right, i got hit by a car. again. i'm really getting sick of it. i'm sick of telling the story since i've told it a million times but basically i'm going to have a decent scar on my left leg. i guess it will balance out the one on my right knee. So RIP Trek Soho S, i barely knew you. i did put over 2000 miles on it in less than 6 months, and for a girl who used to be super girly and frilly 6 months ago, you can certainly see the change. Well so i went and got a hipster doodad, which has actually gotten me some attention. its a 1993 seven21 Miyata, and i switched it from a 10 speed to a fixed gear. its a lot lighter and less clunky than the soho was. oh and i went and got a sweet tattoo after my first accident. i've basically decided my left arm is going to have a full sleeve

ok so i said i was making a collection this summer, and i pretty much did it all in the first week of school since i got really sidetracked by a lot of things. i had this big epiphany about my life about a month or so ago. i was really going down this path of depression and self destruction, not so much with like drugs or anything since i'm not into that, but more so just emotional ruin. i was being a real pain in the you know what to all of my friends. i was basing my self worth over the way people reacted to me and how attracted they were to me and i was just getting more and more angry. it wasn't a good thing. and my work suffered. but basically i realized that what someone once told me who i blew it off at the time, but i can see now that he was right, was that i can't be in a relationship since i'm already in one with my work. i'd be cheating on both parties if i tried to love them both. so i've been really happy as of late. i know that i have a mental issue where i will get depressed but i know what it is and i know i can beat it now. i'm finally happy with myself. like i'm not shitting rainbows or anything but i'm just confident and i think that people see that. i litterally was walking down the street the other day to go "see who i hang with" at neiman marcus and people were stopping me and telling me i was beautiful, and it wasn't like i was super done up or anything. i get handed phone numbers now. its bizarre. i was at the andrew bird concert at millenuim park two weeks ago and seriously like 5 chicks were hitting on me at once. and i'm flattered but i don't let it go to my head because i'm just happy being all grungy and sweaty from bike riding and then i get home and sew.

speaking of sewing, which was what this blog is supposed to be about, my cathardic writing is usually for myspace, i threw together a 5 look collection in about 40 hours of work. thesis can now offically suck my dick. i call it "futuro anarchy". dennis was talking on the first day in thesis about silhouettes in womenswear and when he asked what the silhouette is for this era, i said "its a clusterfuck!" he laughed and said "today's womenswear silhouette is the anarchy of self expression." and i've been kind of thinking that in the next 5-10 years fashion will come back to having a silhouette. i'd like to think it will have a lot to do with the climate crisis and how that is changing our living habits. so my story is that this is the outfit of women in 2013. she lives in a major city and she walks to her job. she's conscious of what she eats and where it comes from and how she needs to stay healthy because she saw what all that processed foods did to her parents' health, so she's slim but not skinny, more toned if anything. i see the color schemes being skewwed in the future as old conventions need to be thrown out, which was where the seafoam color came into play. orriginally the designs were going to be darker grey and navy but when i was at fishmans buying the jersey, those three colors came to me. its a microfiber jersey, and it feels light as air. but that's not always flattering to the figure so all the items except for the body of the leggings are built on top of a power mesh understructure. this means that its slimming, like wearing a body shaper but its part of the dress. its snug but there's still room to move around. and all the white fabric is an organic bamboo voile, which was interesting to work with. i'm definitely going to get good photos taken when i take that photo styling class in the spring. i think that the clothes lend themselves to an interesting photoshoot.

i made it all for chicago fashion week and in about 12 hours i'm going to find out if any of it got accepted. the construction on the inside was a little shoddy since i sewed it so fast. but i still have a 5 look collection put together, so that'll be just fine for when i need something in the next 5 months or so to throw on some models. plus the color scheme is really catching, so i think that might set me apart fro m some people.

fall, where are you?!

2008-08-15T00:21:00.002-05:00

i'm ready for fall. ready for that crisp air, the crunchy leaves (can't wait for wicker park to get even more adorable), the jewel tones, the excess of knitwear. i'm ready to not be sweating my ass off on my bike when i want to ride to the grocery store

so i came across the bastard love child of my two main interests. i'm not sure if i need to run out and buy some of it, be a c*cksucker and rip it off, or run....er hop on my bike in jimmy choo's and ride off into the hills. first of all i'm neither a fan of bianchi or acne jeans (god could you pick a dummer name for your company? i understand its an acronymn but was hemroids or genital warts already taken?) but i'll be curious to see if the fashion or cycling world can come together under such terms. i was toying with the idea of doing a biking collection in the spring for that photo class, but i was going to go a different route, more inspiration coming from tour de france circa 70's.

well i've been busting my concussed ass into gear trying to throw together a whole wack o' shit for this competition on monday. i'm not exactly enthused by what i've done but i guess i'll have to take it. the bonk on the head set me back like 3 weeks on shit and now i'm really suffering from it. photos after the weekend when i'm done with it all.

and omg school starts in like 2 weeks. freakin out!

ooh ooh and i found a new fav store in wicker park. gamma player on division just west of damen is the shit. i haven't come across a store with such amazing designs. i picked up a dress there (yeah shouldn't have blown $100 on a jersey dress) that was just amazing in design. aparantly (and when i told chad about it he was like, oh it was made by people who aren't starving artists) they only make a few of each garment and never remake a run. so my dress is one of like 5 in the whole world. fuckin sweet because its a great dress. so check them out, the store isn't outlandishly pricey, it is expensive but they have stuff like hussien chalayon and crazy designers you've never heard of that are really innovative.

anybody got a job for me?

2008-07-26T09:40:00.003-05:00

ta da...... i rode all the way to skokie on tuesday. i found the elusive North Branch Trail, which i had not been able to find for several years.

so i rode to skokie after having been hit by a car saturday night, which probably wasn't the best idea. i collapsed on wednesday, got to go see some more doctors. i got a concussion, which sucks....i think today is the first day i didn't wake up with a splitting headache and an overwhelming feeling of depression. sucks what one smack to the head will do to your brain chemistry. i forgot a lot of things, like i told the same story like 10 times till the point my family wanted to crack me on the head again. it also sucks that the dude who blew the red light and hit me totally drove off without a care. and that some people are being some real C yoU Next TuesdayS about the whole thing. at least i know who my friends are now
so hey look i clean up pretty well. i went to boystown a few weeks ago and put on heels for the first time in months. not that that's a bad thing, i''ve just been biking so much that i haven't really had an opportunity to wear heels

oh and on another note, all the TA's in the fashion department basically got fired for the rest of the summer. like i still have a job come fall, but for 6 weeks i am out of one. no warning, just dumped on me, especially when i was about ready to faint from the concussion. and i'm not going to be able to do this dog walking thing forever so IF ANYONE KNOWS A DECENT JOB, I AM MORE THAN WILLING TO TAKE IT. please, i need to get through senior thesis!

infected by the hipster disease

2008-07-19T18:21:00.003-05:00

so here's the jacket i'm working on for the dude in product design. its just the shell so far. its chillin in a dye bath over the weekend at school.

and this was a cop convention that chad and i saw when we were at the bob inn a few days ago. there were like 30 cops. and chad's sideboob. and the heron we saw on our bike ride. the chicago nature museum up by the lincoln park zoo looks like a bond villan's lair.

so i went to village discount outlet today. O M G. check out that spread! i got 5 tshirts, one tank top, a pair of shorts, a pair of shoes, an old lady track jacket, a silk handkerchief, and a pair of ralph lauren jeans that had $2 in the pocket. all of that was only $20. SCORE! and all the stuff i picked up is soooo hipster its scary. living in wicker park has finally gotten to me. and i've accepted it. and those jeans look fucking amazing on me!

so i made my first purse this week for brett's leather working class. its pretty cute. everyone thought i was just putting a new lining in an old purse and i was like, hell no! there's some stuff that didn't work out but i'd have to say for a first attempt, i'm rather pleased. plus its lined in charmuse for secret sexy awesomeness

a little bitter

2008-07-17T08:05:00.002-05:00

so apparantly i'm being called a copycat and that i can't design anything despite some people having their heads shoved up you know where so far that they might have discovered a new process of digesting. and i will definitely admit that i'm a bit bitter about it. I'll get over it, but i'm still nursing the wound, especially where it came from. if anything, its making me give the finger to people even more and work harder and harder to prove them wrong. so instead of one 3 outfit collection by the end of summer, i'm going to make two by august 18th. i'd like to see anybody else try to copy me.

ok it doesn't help that i'm still sick over a week after i got a cold and i'm totally pms-y

getting fixed next week

2008-07-08T22:54:00.002-05:00

so on completely unrelated, yet equally important to me, news, i'm going fixie next week. that's right, the girl who would spend 100 hours sewing some avant guarde piece, is just as passionate about cycling as she is about the art of fashion design. so having been riding my road bike since march, and usually clocking 130-150 miles a week, i'm switching to fixed gear at the end of next week. I have spent much time scouring the internet, finding favorites hipsternascar.com and trackosaurusrex.com, getting excited to make the change. i'm going to get new velocity wheels, probably in seafoam. i now want to spend the next 6 months trying to train to compete in the Tour da Chicago. i sat on youtube the past few days watching the most insane videos of this year's stairmaster stage and nearly shit my pants. so trackstands, wheelies, and skids (all in dresses!) here i come!

done with the vespula collection

2008-07-04T17:47:00.007-05:00

ugh, i'm finally done! this is my Vespula collection for Spring/Summer 09 couture. it is ALL HANDSEWN. everything. by hand. with one needle. one cone of thread. all of the materials were fabric and clothes that i owned already. it was definitely a very personal collection considering the time and devotion that i spent on it. i can look back and pick out the pieces of fabric and have stories about where it came from and what i was doing and so forth.

so what's next? i have to work on a jacket commission for a product design instructor that will be on display at Columbia's A+D gallery at 619 S wabash starting in august. After i get that done, i'm going to spend the rest of the summer putting together a small pre-fall collection, The Victorian Cosmonaut, which i'll hopefully take over to Habit in august and get some stuff sold.
I'll probably pick up some more dogwalking hours since the $$$ i'm making this weekend is enough for a new tattoo and my ticket to Lollapalooza. and if i can sell at Habit, then i'll really be making bank. I need to save some since i'm graduating in like 10 MONTHS. OOOOOH SCARY.
Oh so yeah all these photos will be bound into one of those iphoto books. considering i have like $70 to spend for it, i'll probably have like 5 printed and keep those in my portfolio. well....grad school here i come!

random electronic binges

2008-06-30T20:14:00.002-05:00

quite frankly, things have fucking sucked. i can't word it any better. i've been in and out of the hospital a lot lately. lots of tests. still at least one more to go. I got taken off birth control after being on it since i was 16 and now i'm officially insane. i flipped off my favorite teacher today and stormed out of his class only to come skipping back in 5 minutes later. i rode to school in 13 minutes today, a ride that normally takes me at least 20, 25 if i'm lazy. basically i blew through every light and was going about 20mph the whole time. my arm has been jacked for a week now. i finally don't have stabbing pains shooting up and down today, although its just as sore.

as for personal life, that's just as messed up. and it doesn't help that i have about 5 years of pms dumped on me in the past few weeks.....dealing with an ex should go better if it wasn't for me acting so damned erratic. and i would be a total C U Next Tuesday about the other one in my usual style, but shit has hit the fan and i don't know how to touch that.

my computer got erased. that was fun. lost pretty much my whole music library. all 20GB of it.

fuck.

so i've been downloading new music instead of replacing the old. i'm on this big indie eletronica kick for some reason. i guess i would rather enjoy computer made noises and patterns than that of instruments. something about the mathamatical nature of it speaks to me. that and it lends itself to a fashion-ish mindset well. it would be sweet if we got to pick out our own music for senior thesis at fashion columbia like they do at the art institute. i'd find something so absolutely obscure that there'd be one audio freak shitting his pants in the back somewhere.

ugh so tomorrow i have the photo shoot for my DIGITAL PHOTO FOR NON MAJORS class. i get the feeling i'm going to be on my own despite some promises for help. perhaps thats better that way. i'll just fuck it up when i do color correcting. i'd like to think that more than one aspect of my future hangs on what happens exactly tomorrow.

i've been biking a lot, doing all the dog walking. i'm so tired all the time, i think that's why i'm not making any sort of sense.

i'll put up the photos over the weekend. if i get my laptop back soon enough.....

finally found something to connect my camera!

2008-06-10T22:31:00.004-05:00

so.....whats up with me....uh......

OH THAT'S RIGHT, I'M AN FGI FINALIST

oh fuck somebody just set off a fucking firework and it scared me out of my chair!

ok, but back to that, but i'm dancin around since i'm one of 5 people in chicago who got into the senior design competition. but i have to wait till like the week before thanksgiving to find out if i win anything. bastards, not really, but i don't want to wait 6 months.

uh....so....photos, its my red dress at fashion columbia, followed by me and my leather coat on display (not me) at Lumen out in the Fulton market, then the leather coat on the model at fashion columbia, and then my pic of me dickin around with my camera.

so....well dog walking is going well, along with all the biking. i'm pretty sure i've lost like 5 pounds already. i rode 120 miles last week, i'm already at like 60 miles in 3 days. i rode from school (south loop) all the way to humbolt park DURING RUSH HOUR in 30 minutes. it was definitely a test of my mental determination. i have a really awful sunburn, just in goofyness scale.

so....well i'm already into the third week of summer school classes. my photo class is really boring, my math class hasn't started since the bookstore fucked up and the book just came in today, and the leather class is cool. i have my whole senior thesis planned out. i've got shit together for once. my medical problems aren't resolved yet and it does kinda worry me, but then at the same time i just ignore it. not the brightest but whatever. i just keep riding that damn bike

i swear i'm not dead.....

2008-05-28T21:06:00.003-05:00

seriously....i have comitment issues.....amongst other things. had a bit of a medical scare that's not exactly over with but I had an insane last week of school which involved my evil twin coming to visit after the fashion show, then i moved in a sanford in son style crazy move from the south loop to wicker park. then i spent a large chunk of last week in the hospital being poked and prodded, worked at school, and still haven't unpacked. that's just because of my sheer stubornness. ugh....what else.....well i can't find the media card reader so i cant really upload any of the photos i have of me with my stuff at the one year aniversary party for Lumen out in the fulton market, or my shit on the runway at fashion columbia, or my crazy ass new apartment, or my wacky ass hair cut. uh.....well, since text is boring i won't ramble. i started a second job tonight, dog walking for Paws-N-Effect, which i'm super excited about. I'm going to be the ass with a camera for the next two months taking DIGITAL FOTOGRAPHY FOR NON MAJORS.....god....i really see photography as a nessecary evil i must deal with, but i really would rather leave it to the people who know what they're doing. that's why there's fashion photographers and fashion designers. so i have my leather working class tomorrow. oh, in my photo class between the notes on shutter speed and aperture and ISO and all that gibberish i sketched out most of my senior thesis. i want all my collections to tell a story. my current one i'm making is the representation of italio calvino's Invisible cities, and the story is that the collection is for a member of the post apocalyptic bourgeois who turns leftist radical terrorist. yeah....and senior thesis is for the android assistant of a scandanavian evil scientist. and if i have time in the after summer school before fall semester break, i want to do a marketable one so i can head over to habit on division (I love living in wicker park! so much to do!) and try to sell it. and that one will be for a victorian cosmonaut. lots of overdone princess seams and metallics.

also, i was on the teevee! scroll down just a bit between blue man group and the joffery ballet and its the whole thing about fashion columbia. check me and chad out! and my bad ass haircut which i just cut even shorter today since i've been wearing my helmet when riding to and from every place.....i've been keeping track of how much i ride and its already like 60 miles this week, since sunday....

in the fears of thunderstorms, if not just the rain

2008-05-07T22:09:00.003-05:00

well i got this finished after dicking around with it for a week. as usual, it ended up completely different from my original sketch, which slightly concerns me for the collection i plan on doing during the summer because these things tend to get away from me and get overly complicated. and that collection is already complicated and complex. but as for this dress, its completely handsewn. no machine so much as batted an eye at any of this fabric. the green is wool jersey and the black is a little bit of that organic bamboo jersey that i'm in love with that i had leftover from making leggings. the dress has 4 completely different views. its something along the lines of showing someone your best side, depending on the wearer or the mood of the person, a different side could highlight different aspects of a physique or personality. the front is fairly plain and simple, the side with the ruffles can be pulled up to hide the face, the back is a conflict of interests, and the other side is a long cape like extension that opens up and trails behind the body with movement.

busy busy busy

2008-05-05T19:40:00.003-05:00

so its the end of the school year, and just when everything gets crazy, i get sick. granted it was worth it, but a week and a half later i'm dragging. dad brought boxes over yesterday and i started packing already. i'm really excited to move to wicker park, i think it will be very condusive to my creative process. river shitty *ahem* city is really getting on my nerves as i have 10 days to go till i get the keys. yes i will miss the fact that when its a -10 windchill in february i won't be able to walk 4 blocks to school, but i definitely will apriciate a wall and a door being between my sleeping space and my kitchen and trash can. i'm itching to start on my summer collection in the studio space that's bigger than my entire appartment right now. i look forward to sitting out on the porch on those hazy july nights with a beer in hand and a book in the other. i look forward to just being able to get out and about and have things to do. last summer i spent my time like rapunzel sitting on my balcony watching the world but not interacting with it. i sat around waiting for my prince charming to come to me. that may be the case this summer as well as that boy frustrates me to no end, but that'll take a back seat to riding my bike around. i don't know how i'll faire in a neighborhood, i've never really lived in a neighborhood. i lived on a farm for 15 years, then was transplanted to a stepford wives subdivision when i was a little goth girl and stayed inside, and then i ran away to tall glass and cement towers where people refused to look each other in the eye. i've never really known what its like to have neighbors. apparently some cute guys from the art institute will be sharing my porch with me. what i'm not looking forward to is the hike it'll be in the winter to get to school, although carli has promised car rides in exchange for making her go to school. i am looking forward to being a skinny thing by the end of the summer from all the bike riding i'll be doing. i'm also not looking forward to what a pain its going to be to get to vogue fabrics, or textile outlet. i suppose that'll cut me back on that

ok, i really need to get to homework and more packing. i'm amazed at the ammount of crap i've accumulated in 2 years

2008-04-21T10:45:00.005-05:00

and i find out if any of this shit got accepted to fashion columbia as soon as i get my sunburnt ass out of the house

2008-04-20T09:19:00.003-05:00

RIP

2008-04-17T01:35:00.003-05:00

so its 1:30am ...ish....and i have been working on teh shit for fashion columbia submissions since 7am yesterday and they are due at 8:30am tomorrow. freaking out?

perhaps

but in my infinite dicking around and or procrastination and or ADD moment with some skittles (dude these things taste like shit at this hour), i have discovered that Simplicity makes Project Runway patterns. not the designers' works mind you. just liscensing bs.

ew

also on that line of thought, ew to PR going to lifetime network. i'm glad i didn't audition because how lame would that be? i mean i have a total butch look goin on right now, but.....man like no one under 50 watches that channel. bravo finally got straight people to watch their channel and they really bombed on this one....

oh well, RIP project runway, we barely new yee

uhhhhhhhhnnnnnn.......

2008-04-13T22:06:00.002-05:00

.....pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffsssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhht

that was my week, ending with 20 hours of halucinating.

awesome.

also, why do tattoos, years old, itch? i feel like a crack addict sometimes randomnly itching....

sharon, the awesome, got me a hat block.

i've also gotten rid (well jsut pushed to the back of my closet) of all my skirts, dresses, and heels. yes yes i'll look like a dyke but at this point i've become completely apathetic as to the point of trying to get a guy or girl. the only one who loves me is my bike and we'll be together all summer. i told my boss that she'll know i've lost it when she finds me under one of the cutting tables groping a manequin and being jealous of another manequin in the next room a la I Am Legend.

yes, that's me in my prom dress.
thats right, pink pleather.

why they didn't see something was wrong with me then....

dramapalooza to the point of migrains and other pains

2008-04-07T18:33:00.006-05:00

yes, i realize its been a month. i never made any promises that i'd be perfect. that and i have a migraine right now. despite the double shot of tylenol i took. its probably not helping that i'm blasting portishead right now. or was lighting things on fire in my apartment earlier and everything smells weird now. but...a month in review i suppose

on a personal level, my life has been fucked. i can't find a more polite word or better way to put it. it has sucked and its given me this lovely migraine and other people ulcers and other people other things and it just sucks. i think things are getting better, but i can only hope

on the accademic level.....i have my CFDA scholarship due in like 13 hours and i'm nowhere near done. i should be doing it right now, but my head is swimming so i took a break for the moment. i didn't try out for project runway for two reasons: one, virginia would have killed me if i skipped her class again, and two, i knew they weren't going to accept a student.

i have been sewing a lot. the fashion columbia submissions are due next week and i'm just pouring my heart and soul into everything. it helps me ignore all the failures and nuclear explosions going on around me. one of the teachers who i TA for saw me working on a dress and told me "that's so you". i wanted to storm up to him and demand to know what made it be mine, because i sure as hell don't know what my own style is. my millinery teacher wanted me to write an artist's statement and it came out absolutely seething and self depricating. i go through moments where i feel as though i'll end up working at borders or whole foods when i graduate, and then i jump to the feeling that in 13 months i'll be packing my bags for europe to become the bright young thing of fashion design. (on a side note the tynenol [not only am i aware i spelled that wrong, i'm going to type all of this rather than fix it] is kicking in)

i've been thinking about my senior thesis and all that entails and i have most of what i want to do figured out. john always tells me to "keep it sleazy" and it'll have something to do with that. but as a way of keeping myself preoccupied this summer, i'm going to make a pre-senior thesis and make a 5 outfit collection for spring 09, and have my senior thesis be fall 09. i'm going to start sketching it next week and probably start draping in the next few weeks, maybe get some muslins put together for the last of the model fittings before the semester ends. vogue is having a warehouse sale mid may, so i'll buy my fabric then. my color scheme for it will be flat black, powder (that word seems to be spelled really funny) blue, and canary yellow. i'm going to call the collection "vespula" after the genus or whatever that wasps belong to. it has to do with my bike colors.

speaking of my bike....
yes that's me riding around on the fashion design floor

i rode 17.5 miles yesterday in 75 minutes. i also went across the bridge on roosevelt in the street on saturday.

well then this is my "wearable art" project from theory apractice. its based on "the dog" by goya, as i talked about a while back. i finished it a while ago, but just haven't gotten around to putting up the picks. i finished the second project in theory and practice as well but i need to take photos of it still. i kept the pattern for it, which was definitely a stretch of my skillz with the flat patterns in that i eliminated all darts and turned it into kimono sleeves with a surplice bodice. it was crazy and i made the pattern in like an hour. and then i hand dyed all the fabric.

well then there's this goofy thing. its one piece of fabric. the final finished garment has 2 buttons and three seams. so i'm calling it my 3-2-1 dress. it was an interesting and challenging experimentation in geometery and fashion, taking something from the 2D plane and pulling it up into the 3D. i could babble on about math and all that, but honestly the only person who would get it would be my ex and he could easy beat down my work into a pitiful mess if i tried to take him on in that realm.

ok and that lump right there isn't really part of the garment. i just shoved some muslin in there because it was really funny how there was this random bump on the side that i later fixed.

so.....

i have to take photos of shtuff for fashion columbia submissions, so i'll get my photos up here so all 2 people who read this might see it. maybe i'll scan in my ideas for vespula as well. the new portishead album, if you have a chance to listen to it, is very much the mood of my two collections i'll be taking on in the next 8 months

finally a few pictures

2008-03-06T23:37:00.005-06:00

so this is my broken hearted dress. its all a silk georgette that has a small bit of lycra to it, so i basically did away with the back zipper. as you can see, its super short. i started playing with some texture, just something that was not a princess seam dress. i hand dyed all the colors into it to make it look like an actual heart. i was just insensed the day i made it for various reasons that have....somewhat smoothed out, but i'm really proud of the dress. there's a jacket and a slip that go with it, but i'm displaying it in the columbia honors competition so not everyone was going to get it if i put all the components together. i doubt it'll win, but it'll be awesome just to have in a gallery out of the like 500 fashion design students
and this would be my sweater i made on the knitting machine. i made basically 10 yards of fabric and cut it into rectangles and then started pleating them like crazy (its really hard to see untill you get like 2 feet from it). nothing ends up being even and it looks a little sloppy but somehow really well put together. i'm in love with it, i think really because the sleeves sort of come out of the back waist, which is totally not how they were when i started out with just the 4 rectangles

a total mindfuck

2008-03-06T00:42:00.002-06:00

so my boss lynda invited me and chad to acompany the Contemporary Fashion class on a visit to the SAIC's study collection. we both agreed we were embarassed to say we were from columbia. the instant we got off the elevator we were greeted with a display case with about 10 manequins, the first i laid eyes on had the same weaving texture as my broken hearted dress i've been working on/leaving out for everyone to come up and stroke my ego. all the seniors were like, hey kelly its your dress, do you know that designer? i got really defensive but it was just me and chad who seemed genuinely interested in what we were seeing. the other students that were actually from the class seemed bored by it all. it blew my mind, some of the stuff i saw. the head of the collections really made me feel ashamed to even call myself a designer, i'm just a manufacturer. how disgusting....so i went back to school and made my knit top for my theory and practice class that i was going to just piece together some rectangles of fabric i made off the knitting machine, instead i spent about 5 hours hand stitching in curved pleats into this thing. it fits like a mother fucking glove its amazing. sarah pointed out that i've begun to usurp the dress forms and my designs have started breeding, but if i can't put it up in the display case that HAS NOTHING IN IT FOR THE PAST YEAR i might as well have it up in the biggest lab.

i can finally wear my contacts again....

2008-03-02T17:16:00.003-06:00

pardon me for not exactly being coherent, i just walked 8 miles in a skirt and 2" heeled boots. but it was well worth the vitamin D and meditative time. i went and walked south on the lake shore path to mcCormick place and back. i didn't wear any tights and probably about 3" of skin was showing between the tops of my boots and the hem of my skirt, but you would have thought i was wearing fuck me heels and a leather miniskirt the way that i was getting whistled at. chad's been saying at school that people are so used to long sleeves and high necklines that even a little bit of skin seems so risque that its pornographic. i went to walgreens on my way home and picked up some of that lotion that has the sunless tanner in it so by the time its shorts weather, i won't look awkward when i try to go outside
so on my walk to the red line, which i then discovered was rerouted to the elevated tracks for god knows why (i heard a red line caught on fire in the subway a few weeks ago), i discovered this at the southwest corner of van buren and plymouth court. there was an obvious seam on the underside which isn't as entertaining as the people who knit these things with dpns but still to actually find one gave me a bit of a kick.

i went up to the vogue in evanston, which is by far my favorite fabric store in the city. there was a big sale so it was a home crafty clusterfuck in there. i was the only person under 35 in there i think. everyone else was moms and grandmas making easter outfits for their kids or mother of the bride outfits or bad vogue "designer" patterns from 1998. having been looking at all the fall 08 collections coming up online and knowing that i'm in for six months of straight black clothing (seriously, black is the new black, and the new every other color in the spectrum, although black technically isn't a color, its a shade, just like white, but no white this winter) come octoberish, i kinda went nuts in the oposite direction

so i ended up buying just a whole big range of stuff, which i'm off to go drape right now

hey look its biological christmas!

2008-02-25T10:40:00.004-06:00

i have been ill, actually only for the weekend so that's not much of an excuse. i'm only required to be at school 36 hours a week between classes and work but i find myself there more like 60-70 hours, so i haven't had much time for anything outside of the labs beside beer and sleep and the gym at 6am. after about 48 hours of being ill, i'm rather sick of it and ready to go back to being well. this is good considering a year ago i would have been out of commission for a week.

so i went down to pilsen yesterday to check out the Textile Outlet at 2121 21st st. erin lives literally around the corner at the hoyne exit of the damen stop on the pink line and i've traveled there many a time to visit her, but this was the first time i'd made the venture in the day time. my opinion of pilsen had been somewhat positive from what i had grown accustomed to seeing, but the arial view of the CTA revealed that it really truely is the shithole my upper middle class white northern suburban upbringing had lead me to believe. have i mentioned that i really love living in printer's row? as for the textile outlet itself, i was rather overwhelmed by all the STUFF. i had to take several tours around the place to really grasp a sense of what they had. i was pleased as to the crazy deals i got (like $75 for what would have cost $250 at vogue) but i was disapointed in the lack of selection of wools. now that i've mastered the pattern making skills of flats and draping, a lush italian wool makes me tremble. had i gone to this store say 3 years ago when all i worked with was knits, not knitwear but just cheap knits and lycra prints, i would have been estatic, but i couldn't help but feel that vogue in evanston had a better selection. but i suppose i must remember it is pilsen and there's a certain demagraphic they're serving versus that of evanston. but if i ever need the perfect trim or just the right zipper or any sort of chiffon, charmuse, dupioni, or wool crepe, i'll go to the textile outlet. otherwise, its vogue for me.

so last weekend i went all the way out to portage park. and now you may ask, well where the fuck is portage park? its close enough to ohare that you have to cover your ears when a plane soars over, and you can make out the faces of people in the windows. i went and checked out Midwest Discount Yarns. again, kinda pleased, kinda disapointed. yes i got one hell of a deal, but i don't think i would go back. i really wanted to jump into a big project on the knitting machine at school instead of waiting two weeks for a package to come and then another week for the lazy fucks in the dry cleaners to tell me i have a package.

On the way back from that (i think i spent about 6 hours on the blue line that saturday between my errands and then going to chad's that evening) i stopped and checked out the salvation army just off the grand stop on the blue line. holy shit this is my new favorite thrift store. it had sooo much stuff. i also loved that they separated all the old lady sequiny stuff into its own section. i almost bought one just for the shits and giggles of it. What i ended up buying was some sweaters (ralph lauren angora and a 100% cashmere) and a crazy knit dress that somebody made back in the 70's
sorry its hard to see, my camera isn't my biggest fan. but my mother said it looked like something her mother's friends would wear back in the 60's. i'm tempted to wear it today but i feel so blah being sick that it would negate the kitsh and cute factor

i also went into the basement of the salvation army into the "bric a brac" room. wtf is bric a brac ? it looked like a whole lotto junk to me. but i found a section of luggage, and as much as i am not a purse girl (the shoe fetish is enough for my wallet) i found an old samsonite carryon from the 70's. and for $2.06 after tax, its a whole lot of awesome. i know i can beat the crap out of it and it'll be just fine, plus when missy and i get a pug (as john told me last night, we're making it sound like we're getting married, to which i asked if it was making him jealous) the bag is big enough to hold him. i totally want to have a mismatched collection of vintage samsonite now

on another note, i have this crazy awful bolero jacket from the 80's that my mother owned (god knows why) in her late 20's. So i make people try it on just for shits and giggles when they come over to my place, as i have finally learned to have enough patience and self esteem to let people in my work place. chad tried it on and then took it a little too far

i suppose there should be other news but i'm just busting my ass at school working on things, to the point where i almost fainted pressing a collar on saturday. i got into a big argument with my ex, which started off with what was him just acknowledging that i was wearing jeans which my brain somehow warped into, wow you look like shit in jeans. what it basically boiled down to was, well why the fuck don't i call more often, which is what everyone else who knows this whole story has been telling me. i tried to dismantle my phone out of frustration yesterday.

hopefully i'll finish my jilted lover ensemble today and have some pics of it later. i feel like its one of my strongest pieces ever

in soviet russia, clothes wear you

2008-02-09T20:26:00.000-06:00

so as much as i don't like to buy clothes, vintage and thrift store stuff is an exception. or hats. erin, john and i went up to the belmont stop, and if you're thinking what i'm thinking pinky, fuck yeah! that had me floating a good 3 inches off the ground all day. when john and i got off the brown line, i didn't recognize the area of weird crappy stores, sex toy shops with shady clinetelle, and random goth-opotomus that i had known since i first started columbia. instead of the blue light special courtsey of the CPD, i was greated with a jamba juice and a potbelly's in a trendy new apartment complex. families walked down the street with kids, the bars looked like upstanding establishments. i think the last time i went there was to get my last tatoo, and that would have been a year ago. nevertheless, erin and i went shopping on a fashion design student's budget after john couldn't find his credit card and went back to the city to find it (i couldn't find it in my apartment despite the logic that it would have fallen out of his pocket last night ;) . ) and we made out like kings. we went to the new belmont army surplus, having not been in it since it got torn down to make way for the new belmont platform. we tried on a miriad of military hats, with erin settling on buying a compass built onto a watch. i found a military uniform belt from the USSR with a big soviet star and hammer and sicle on it. i then also found a Soviet woman's military uniform. its robin egg blue and made out of a synthetic knit, but its just fascinating the way its put together. it looks great with the belt. its totally cut for someone with a figure like mine, rather than super skinny. then we went over to hollywood mirror and tried on like 8 million hats. its funny how i ignored vintage hats for so long. this one's felt in a sort of pumpkin color with a thick band of pheasant feathers around the browband of it. its got the little combs to hold it in my hair and, this was my fav, its from old school marshall fields and company. now i have 2 hats from marshall fields. i'm still hopin macy's dies and goes to hell and marshall fields can come back to its former glory.

so i'm feelin good with all of that, especially now that i think things are better between me and john. i showed him the muslin i was making as a representation in fabric of goya's the dog

and he couldn't offer any improvement, which really was a fair bit of praise. i'm really excited to make it. i wanted to get fabric this weekend, but then my friday night plans changed quite a bit and its too damn cold to go tomorrow. maybe i'll go before i have to go to work on monday and snag some stuff at fishman's and vogue.

i also think i've lost a few pounds lately. prolly because my diet is composed of tea, fruit, and cigarettes. feels good though. i just in general feel really great, considering i got my ass handed to me on several levels at the beginning of the week . i truely feel that this semester will be the best ever!

things sort of pick up occasionally, only to get bitched out by a stout british woman

2008-02-05T19:44:00.000-06:00

soo.....i didn't call my ex, but had a lengthy conversation during my lunch break between classes with him of cabbage and kings. that left me feelin pretty good as things were on the awkward side for a.....well hell actually since october i'd say when i first started avoiding him. and then i had millenery (don't fucking ask me to spell that [on a side note, erin and i agreed that in some point in conversation i have to use the phrase "lets get to the dickin" and my phone has decided that instead of spelling "fuckin" it will now say "dickin"]) in which we commenced the making of the hats. now i know how to knit a hat, but the tackling of that form with the lines of a cut fabric and how to take on the form in pieces rather than out of a sculptural form. it would be like making a mosaic on a curving surface rather than a clay sculpture. i wracked my mind for a bit with the usual hesitation and anticipation i have when taking on a new topic but then jumped in with the ensuing fervor. our first project was hats constructed only from fabric so i'm making as i would like to call it, the 1 point perspective surrealist berret. you'll see

so, after discovering the cigarettes in my case from my grandfather were stale (never a good thing when you're stressed) i paced nervously in 711 and then got my ass handed to me over the work i'd done for the CFDA scholarship. oh and chad ditched me and erin when we were supposed to go have a beer. just one nice big cold beer, maybe a goose island 312 would be great. maybe i can be all sly and get my ex to come with and then get him drunk enough to come home with me.....if only. nah its just been a long week already. i kind of like that my classes are spaced out by 3 days so i'm still at school every day but i have a good chunk of time between to get work done. i mean its not like i'm doing a whole load of work being a TA...except that damn monday class. its like going on a two hour jog.

i think i'm going to go drape an acid green turban.

ok sorry i have the tv on in the background and its the pbs channel out of milwaukee channel 20 and there's this dude who talks about astronomy and he's soooo creepy. the production is so bad. its called "stargazer" and its produced by the miami museum of astronomy.

this is the creepy guy

ok back to the hats and hoping i can talk to him more tomorrow....he made talk of needing something draped and gave me the suggestive eyebrow with talk of making a facial sculpture. that's promising, not that i want a gigantic maze of copper wire that i put in my mouth....

whatever, on to hats!

a good excuse to call an ex....

2008-02-04T08:50:00.000-06:00

so i must regretfully inform all of those out there who cared that, i did not get accepted to central saint martins. a year ago i would have been utterly crushed, but now i'm just gonna suck it up and finish my degree at columbia. I will reapply next spring to grad school there. which now means that i can avoid talking to my dad about wasting 3 years in chicago. oh chicago, i must deal with thee for 18 more months now. its...alright. I suppose as a consolation prize i have a huge portfolio thanks to the photography skillz of zoe. and as my mother pointed out, there really aren't any other juniors in the school with a reputation like mine. so the plan is to keep on truckin through senior thesis and graduate in spring 09, and then try to get out of chicago. BECAUSE I WILL NOT WORK AT WHOLE FOODS WHEN I GRADUATE. that's a scary thought, graduation.....senior thesis is a scary thought too, now that i think about it. and as much as i was applying to run away from all my troubles, my severely intoxicated friend told me to shut the f**k up about all of it and just call him. so that will be my evening tonight, even if its just a friendly phone call, i've shut him out far too long. and i need some intelligent converstation that pertains to something outside of fashion design, because i do not want to talk about the draping qualities of silk charmuse any more!

so for anyone who had well wishes for my application, i thank you. wish me luck getting out of here next year. as lynda has said, i either have to leave the country or move to LA to work with knitwear. and i don't really see myself as a california girl. but i will get my senior thesis fabrics from there. ugh and i have to get a graduation audit from bob blynn now. damn

painting on the zebra stripes

2008-01-31T22:11:00.000-06:00

So i must say that i have the schedule this semester of....a normal adult. I get up at 6:45ish, go to the gym or sleep in till 7 and just take a shower, watch the news and get ready for the day, then go to school/work until 5ish and then hit the local bar with coworkers. It struck me at some point on tuesday. maybe its because i made a tailored suit last semester. or maybe its because i'd love to just throw it all out the window in an instant and take with me only what i could drag and check at ohare.

i saw the crazy one on the way out to have a smoke the other day. there was a long jaw dropped pause as i walked by, followed by a mumble about chopping hair. that was a good cigarette.

my skinny jeans fit yesterday. i was elated. they got new food in the hokin cafe, its all yuppie healthy, but it makes me feel good. well so do a few trendy beers, and its about the same price. i've been experimenting in new tea flavors in the morning after 2.5 years of english breakfast.

i got my hands on some vintage patterns as of late, with more coming in the mail soon (i need to have something in the mail other than 7 [yes i got 7 in one day i'm serious] credit card applications). i'm really quite interested in the way the patterns were put together back then. the ingenuity of some of the most simple garments simply blows my mind. of course i started with the hardest and worked my way backwards.

I started my hat making course the other day, and its probably the one i'm most exicted about, although my printing and dying teacher seemed like she was going to have a touchy feely aneurism when she found out i'm both in her class and the TA for her fundamentals of textiles course. Our first project will be soft hats, as in no buckram or felting, but straight fabric sewn together. most of the designs i came up with were loose and gauzy turbans. i found some acid green knit wool today at Vogue fabrics that would be perfect.

I've also decided that raw edges= great for students. i made a jacket in all of 45 minutes. take that project runway. of course it wasn't my pattern, but i did alter it quite a bit. and i made a belt. i'm wearing it tomorrow in a sort of victorian equestiran meets the freak i was at 17 affair. if it wasn't going to snow 18" tonight i'd wear it with heels but i nearly landed face down on Polk St tonight, so time to bust out the steel toe knee high boots.

icanhazowls

2008-01-25T09:14:00.001-06:00

so there's owls living in the playground for the school in dearborn park II. they were really puffy because it was so cold.

in other news, i've been working from a whole bunch of vintage patterns that i got my hands on, which is totally awesome. they all have raglan sleeves, and just the construction has been really interesting. i got my hands on a couture pattern from the 30's that i spent a lot of time on.

i finished my first pair of socksthey're regia 6ply. i tried to make the stripes match up and they didn't, so when i gave up on that, they suddenly matched up. but now i understand why soooooooo many knitters make socks. its really rewarding to finish an actual garment in just a few days. i've already figured out what i'm doing for my next pair.

omg!

2008-01-17T16:01:00.000-06:00

i know i haven't had the time to put up my stuff on here and all that jazz, but.....

norah gaughan commented on my stuff on ravelry! omg! even if i don't get into central saint martins, this is totally worth having Zoe take all those pictures. i think the only way that could get any better would be like if alexander mcqueen gave me an internship. that certainly brightened up my day considering i've spent the whole day sitting on my couch having jacked up my knee....somehow. it hasn't hurt this bad in years

a slight moment of peace....

2007-11-14T13:51:00.000-06:00

so my stomach nearly ate itself on sunday with the stress of the shoot. but i want to strangle zoe because her photos turned out so absolutely amazing. seriously i want to just start jumping up and down and squeal. but i can't put any up yet because zoe asked me not to. so....they'll be up in a week or two when she gets them all tweaked in photoshop

as for me, i thought i'd have a moment or two of rest, but alas i am a fashion major and want to shoot myself yet again.

shit shit shit!

2007-11-09T08:05:00.000-06:00

ack! sunday is very quickly aproaching an i feel as if i've gotten nothing done! i blocked my skirt last night and now my apartment smells of wet dog. i think part of my problem is that i like to hand sew everything so that takes centuries worth of time. so i'm going out of my mind workin on this shit. oh and did i mention that i'm working 12 hours today? it really fucks up all my plans. i mean....that's a HUGE chunk of change but really....i wonder if i'll get paid overtime.....unlikely. so yeah, i'm not going to get much in the way of sleep tonight and i plan on pullin an all nighter saturday night.....

so wish me the best of luck and i'll prolly have the photos up here next week

also, we came to the conclusion yesterday that perhaps Bush isn't as stupid as he seems, he might just be dislexic and unable to read a teleprompter

6 more weeks

2007-10-30T22:29:00.000-05:00

so i have six more weeks of ....this

i was feeling lonely, but maureen reassured me that i don't need anyone to make me happy. i had a long chat with matt yesterday. it was nice. he's now a born again christian but he didn't try to cram anything down my throat. and i really did take what he said to heart. and i know he might think i pass off what he said about how he prays for me every night, but knowing that someone out there cares about me like that really makes me want to stop all my bitching about men and all those troubles.

on the i'm gettin the fluck out of here front, i've now got two models for my portfolio shoots and the first one's comin up real soon! i'm really proud of the woman and artist i've become. not in the sense that i'm like nah nah i'm better than you, but just that i'm happy with what is born from my hands and my mind. i'll never need children when i can give birth to these things.

yes, i do still struggle with the depression, yes sometimes things bother me, but i've fouind that the buisier i am, the better i am. i may be exhausted but its still a feeling of accomplishment. i'm glad to have the jobs and education that i do because i'm surrounded by people who care about me. i don't need a man or a woman to confirm anything in my self esteem for me to feel good about myself

taaadaaa, just in time for when i need my energy most, may i present Seasonal Depression!

2007-10-23T09:32:00.000-05:00

i seriously fucking hate this shit. and chicago weather does not help. the next two months will suck, unless somehow prince charming comes out of left field and sweeps me off my feet. yeah i'm glad i'm still good friends with john because it certainly helps to have someone know how my messed up head works. but i totally blew off my tailoring class this morning, actually i've only missed an hour of it so far. if i finish my piped button hole NOW i can be there by 10-10:30 and just get a late arrival instead of an absense....*sigh* i just need to be more strict oon myself with this shit. i need to get over that men are assholes and somehow i always get treated like crap. i just need to focus on my work. i thought about quitting one of my jobs but i could never give up working at loopy and being a TA actually makes me get 10 hours of work done a week as opposed to bumming around my appartment. so yeah if you see me give me a smile because i'm bound to need it from here till december ....12 i think

so i said i was miserable at upkeeping these things

2007-10-19T13:17:00.000-05:00

so yeah, here's a quick low down on what my life has turned into since the lazy and crazy days of summer

i'm taking 4 studio classes, 3 of them being senior level classes, 1 with the head of the department.

i've been very honored to have a job at both Loopy yarns and as a TA in the fashion department for columbia

john moved in with me, then moved out

i turned 21 and didn't have the time to party

i really got ticked off last night by an asshole who had been leading me on

2007-07-31T19:26:00.000-05:00

so i finished sewing my first corset....and its super cute.....i've definitely learned a lot about my sewing skills and patience from all of this. its by no means perfect and i'm sure in a few years i'll look at it and laugh just like i laughed when i found a dress i made when i was 17. it doesn't really reduce my waist at all, which never really was a concern of mine because i already have a bitty waist, it was more about keeping my boobs in place....which it sort of does....that's the part i need to work on better, and i need to make it be tighter in the hips. it certainly is tight on my ribs....and i can see why some corsets go up in the back to cover up the pudge that appears.....i think if i loose some more weight, i should be alright . although i avoided using a busk on this thing, i realize that i do need one as its a bitch to get in and out of without pulling the laces out. now i'md just curious to see if the "corset diet" dustin described works....

eh...

2007-07-27T08:07:00.000-05:00

so, somehow i managed to get commissioned to make a wedding dress for a girl i knew back in gradeschool. i was flattered that she chose me to make it, but then this sort of came at a weird time. i've been going through some serious funk lately, so to suddely have this girl who i knew back when pogs were cool get married, it kinda weirded me out. i mean, we're barely 21, it just strikes me as weird for her to be the first of the 30 or so of us that went to gradeschool together to get married. plus it also kinda felt like a nah nah i'm getting married and you're writhing on the floor in confusion. but i can get over that....i started smoking for no good reason and i'm beginning to think i'm getting addicted....but never fear i can always hop on the metra and "visit" my family and go to the gas station and grab a whole bunch of cheap cigarettes.

but yes, back to the dress. so i was looking at wedding dresses online, and i think i need to go into bridal design because this is a total rippoff. i mean, $3000 for a dress you will wear ONCE. psssht i sit around in my junior prom dress that i shelled out $300 for and use it as pajamas (yes, i'm crazy, i'm well aware of it). i mean, considering it sounds like she just wants an A line strapless princess dress, i shouldn't charge her that much, plus she probably will want like taffeta or satin (*puke*) for the dress so the materials won't be that much either unless it gets into bridal lace.

i'm really bad at keeping up with this thing

2007-07-20T21:45:00.000-05:00

so.....now that i find i have 15 minutes to blow before doctor who comes on and i'm sitting here listening to the same flaming lips song for the past 2 hours, i suppose i'll blab on about something. lets see, in a moment of grace i broke my toe, and the next week i got my bike back together. consequently i found i now have a 24 1/2" waist. i decided to start making a corset. after lollapalooza i'm going to get the rest of my tattoo on my side done so that i won't get any more shit for it. i've been knitting like crazy and sewing a few things too, but mostly knitting. i just haven't gotten around to taking pics of everything. i hope to have my corset done by wednesday so i can wear it to that concert so that i won't have to constantly be going to second base with myself in front of poor gus. in a more realistic sense, i'd like to have it done by friday so that i can wear it on the weekend just to freak out my dad and get a good laugh from my uncle. one thing that i discovered today that really peeves me is urban outfitter's DIY looking shit they're selling. it looks like a 3rd grader put it together, an american 3rd grader. and they're selling sewing patterns too at $15 a pop when i know Joann fabrics sells that same brand at like $1 every so often. and they were shitty patterns too, but i'm free from that toil now.....and i finally got around to making a dress with pockets hidden in the side seams. i've just got to finish putting in the lining and put in a zipper and i'll be super cute. my hair's finally long enough to go in that bun thing i used to always do, so that's been stuck on the back of my head lately, except now i have bangs which i never used to do. and i'm covered in freckles and doctor who is on!

like i said, i'm no good at this

2007-06-30T15:09:00.000-05:00

so my life has been consumed by various forms of insanity, along with my general apathy towards being current with this sort of stuff. my draping 1 teacher has gravely underestmiated me, and instead of turning in one simple dress for the final in two weeks, he's going to get a complicated dress, a bolero jacket, a blouse, a skirt, another dress, and maybe a pair of pants if i get that far. needless to say.....i have a lot of free time and i'm a little shit sometimes. i like challenges though. i started turning bowls on the lathe at work last week and i've made two so far. its funny to see people try to understand why a fashion major who would wear heels and a dress every day if she could would be in a face mask and a canvas apron with a gigantic chisel in hand. my first bowl is this chunky thing with 1" thick walls but i put all my little sewing machine bits that were floating around my apartment in it and its made my life easier. so my second bowl was a little more skilled, even getting a rare aproval from dustin, and i put all my pins in it. i've got about 10 blanks now, so i guess i'll spend my mindless days of august in the fairly unglamourous state of wood turning. so i finally finished that damned knitty pattern too. it looked pretty cute on thursday when i wore it to class but i'm still undecided about the whole elastic band thing the pattern calls for.

so here's some shit i've done recently. i'll hopefully have some pics of my draping exstravaganza soon

here's the first dress i made with annabell, she was most helpful. it was really weird wearing a dress that was essentially strapless considering that's not some thing i have the luxury of finding that will fit me properly
and this is a dress i threw together in all of 20 minutes. its just a simple shift dress made of jersey topstitched with white thread and then pin tucked horizonatlly. i thought about doing two verticle pin tucks, but i ran out of time since i was making it before school
this i think came from being pissed off at american apparel's raised prices. its a knit i bought in london. the sleeves are kimono and gathered at the cuff. there's a big long sash at the waist that can be tied all over the place and the edges are just serged. i think i'm waiting till fall to wear this onethis one's defintely my favorite of the stuff i've made recently. its plaid dupioni silk. the side front and backs are on the bias and there's a red sash around the waist that on closer inspection is a polyester with ginko leaves as the pattern. i've had that red fabric for years and i finally got to use a bit. its super cute and i'm going to wear it tomorrow to the taste of chicago

2007-06-07T18:58:00.001-05:00

yes yes i've been so damned busy...or just apathetic that i haven't really found a reason to write anything. i've actually sewed a few dresses, so once my appartment gets cleaned enough for me to not be mortified to have it as a background for my pics, i'll put up some stuff. i got my dress form today, and i'm really happy to throw that damned adjustable crap from joann's in the closet. i threw on one dress just to check how it looks and i think like anything i make now will look fantastic compared to how it looked on that stupid plastic piece of crap. yeah it was nice....when i was making a prom dress in high school. speaking of prom dresses, i got bored in draping today and drew up a sketch of like the world's ugliest prom dress. its all tight in the bodice and then it gets below the knee and POOF, as in like 5 layers of POOF. and we're talkin taffeta here too. it makes me shudder just to think of it, but now i'm really tempted to make it as my draping final.

as for my knitting work, i'm still working on that damned knitty belle epoch pattern. for the love of god it is taking forever. but two days ago i got Unexpected Knits, and i'm getting that ADD itch to start a new project. i kinda felt like the stereotypical response to a "mindblowing" experience because after reading the book i felt like my entire view of knitting had been drastically altered. i'm thinkin i'll stop by loopy yarns tomorrow and pick up something. what i think i really enjoyed about the book was that the author (i'm too lazy right now to play steeplechase across my appartment to go look up her name) didn't so much give patterns for everything, instead she explained the technique and showed various garments and pieces she had made from said technique. It was more like, i'll show you how to do it and then you have to go the rest of the way yourself, which i definitely love way more than monotonously reading a pattern. speaking of patterns, once i get my appartment cleaned up i'll take some pics of my end of the semester knitting work

gpa

2007-05-23T11:11:00.000-05:00

hmm.....so even though i swore i wasn't going to look at my grades for last semester....i did. i'm....slightly disapointed, and slightly encouraged. i thought it was going to be worse, but i know i could have done better. i got 5 b's and 1 a, and i was expecting a C in there somewhere, but i didn't get one. i'm just disapointed that i've slacked off so much. i mean, in 5th grade i got my first B and bawled all day when i saw it. here i am stuck with a 2.9 gpa because of getting so sick last summer and i could have helped it....i could have but i was so damned lazy last semester. its not going to happen any more. i'm putting my foot down. i only have 8 more days i have to go to my history class, and i'll only meet in draping 8 times, and theres my workshop this weekend too that i can help it along. i'll never graduate with honors, i see that now. actually...i don't think i'm going to graduate from columbia. two more years in chicago makes me want to take a flying leap off my balcony because two more years means a whole lifetime in chicago. i need to get out of this damned place .....now.

new...er....vintage bike

2007-05-20T20:41:00.000-05:00

so something completely unrelated to fashion

i got a bike on saturday. its a good ten years older than me, but its so jacked up looking that i doubt anyone will want to steal it, as was the fate of my last two bikes last summer. i plan on taking some paint markers and other tools from the woodshop to it. of course i made the mistake yesterday of riding a good ten miles without sunscreen or water and was completely exhausted today.

my only problem is how the hell am i going to ride my bike to school and still cary my gigantic patternmaking portfolio and/or garment bags

back

2007-05-17T21:38:00.000-05:00

ok have i mentioned i'm miserable at keeping commitments of things like this? i try writing a novel every winter/spring/summer break i get and always forget about it. I started this blog a year ago and forgot about it by august, so hopefully now that i have some decent work, i'll keep it updated.

so a little about what's recent about me:
i got one garment into fashion columbia. i was pretty excited considering i was a sophomore and i hand knit the whole freakin thing.
that being said, i finished out my sophomore year alright. i still don't know what's the deal with transferring in a year, but i'm sort of not really putting any thought into it. i definitely want to work more with knitting...if i don't kill my poor hands first.

so, onto the pics of the stuff i've done lately

so here's my dress that got in the show. my dad's a dork and only got the back of the dress. but its from vogue knitting from.....i wanna say last fall. i did it with cashmere/merino wool yarn for the black and purple and then metalic yarn for the gold. all in all the simple cost of materials for this was over $200 but is super soft and lovely. the gold was just miserable to work with. i'm glad i didn't use copper colored yarn like they called for in VK. hopefully i'll get a pic of the front of the dress soon
and here's me at the end of the show. just thought i'd throw it up there since i made the dress. its this really cute silk chiffon i bought in london. i'm kinda pissed at how many fabric stores they have in london and i've got to go to evanston to get any sort of assortment. i mean i still love vogue fabrics, but it has nothing on the shops on goldhawk roadand here's the other dress i submitted to the show. its nothing great or anything, but it fits me just lovely. the fabric is so soft and i feel so graceful in it. its all made out of more fabric i bought in london. i'm almost out of all of it so that just means i'll have to go back.

so what am i working on now? i'm working on a slightly altered version of Belle epoch from knitty out of a rayon yarn which has been interesting if not tedious. i'm starting to experment with weaving into my sewing. hopefully i'lll have a pic of the halter dress i've been working on up within the next few days. i'm starting my draping class on thursday so that'll probably mean a whole bunch of stuff to come. oh yeah, and i have this large cone of cotton thread i swiped off of ian (thanks!) that i've got a tedious idea for. i have no patience for things yet i love the ones that take the most time