Monday, February 25, 2008

hey look its biological christmas!



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

Saturday, February 09, 2008

in soviet russia, clothes wear you

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!

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

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

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!

Monday, February 04, 2008

a good excuse to call an ex....

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