Friday, November 27, 2009

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


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!

Friday, November 20, 2009

FML

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

Friday, November 13, 2009

so simple. and yet....


....so eternally frustrating

Thursday, October 22, 2009

holy crap, awesome!


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

Monday, October 19, 2009

better words than I haven't

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....

Sunday, October 11, 2009

this winter is a little impatient

.....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.

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Jettison Quarterly Release



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.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

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

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.
























Tuesday, May 19, 2009

yay i gots the learnin!


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.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

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











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.

Monday, March 16, 2009

shorty shorts with tights is my new uniform


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.