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

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

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

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

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