less than 100 days till spring

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!

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....

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.....

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

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

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.