Wednesday, November 14, 2007

a slight moment of peace....

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.

Friday, November 09, 2007

shit shit shit!

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

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

6 more weeks

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

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

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

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

Friday, October 19, 2007

so i said i was miserable at upkeeping these things

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

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

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....

Friday, July 27, 2007

eh...

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.

Friday, July 20, 2007

i'm really bad at keeping up with this thing

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!

Saturday, June 30, 2007

like i said, i'm no good at this

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

Thursday, June 07, 2007

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

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

gpa

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.

Sunday, May 20, 2007

new...er....vintage bike

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

Thursday, May 17, 2007

back

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