Walking the Runway!

Tonight, was the first time I had a dress I designed walk the runway! My final pattern making project walked in Hemline's fashion show and it won 1st place out of the Junior class designs! 

I have a video, and a few more pictures, but they're on a different camera so they'll get up another time. I'm  currently getting ready for the move to NYC! 

Refresh

Challenge: 5 easy pieces, that coordinate to be worn on a weekend trip. Pieces must be able to easily convert from day to night and be suitable for your destination.

The Result...

Sorry for the poor quality picture, its from my phone.

News!

After a couple of weeks of waiting, I got some really awesome news Friday night! I was offered an internship with a high end designer in New York this summer! I am super excited and cannot wait to move up to NYC for the summer and be able to blog from  New York all summer long! 

The family got me my fav flowers. 

Schooling

Currently, I'm in my second pattern making course and I am super excited because as our final project we get to design and make a dress. Even though the end of the semester is in May, we are already starting to get our designs finalized.

This is my working sketch, I'm still tweaking things, playing with armholes and things like that. 

I found this fabric at Mood which I really really really want to use, but its $14 a yard, and on top of an underlay, lining and notions... it would make the dress really expensive. So I'm going to have to really think, maybe look around for something cheaper, and start saving. 

It Lifts and Separates

 I may have mentioned, I've been consumed with school lately continuously working on projects. Well, this week as the semester draws to an end, so do my projects.

I think my favorite, but most intense class this semester has been pattern making. I spent many nights and countless hours in the classroom working hard on my patterns. My pattern work, wasn't as good as I would have liked. So when given the chance to challenge myself I went for it.

Our final project was to make a bustier foundation garment. We had to make a bustier with princess seams, or we could make a bustier with bra cups, which was a bit harder.

After my first sew up, I was starting to regret my decision. As you can see, the muslin was HUGE on Betty.

But it really wasn't that bad, it only had to be taken in... a lot. I did two complete muslin sew ups,  then the canvas/final sew up. I then had to replace a whole piece of the canvas, because apparently Betty is lopsided. I added a bra (a padded fabric, which we had to make ourselves) and some boning.... 

I am so incredibly happy with how it turned out! While I'm happy to have some free time, I already can't wait to get back to pattern making in the Spring!

MIA

I know, I know... I have been missing around here for a while. School, is the culprit... just project after project. Don't believe me?
Exhibit A: I'm writing this at 3 a.m. (I just finished a project, and thought I'd check in.)
Exhibit B : 140 unread emails in my inbox this morning.... I am usually super on top of going through my emails.

Well, I have my big Bustier final due on Friday, and finals the week after... then freedom... and more regular updates on the blog!

My final project bustier, in muslin before the first fitting. 

Crazy Times!

When I say the last week has been full of crazy, I mean it! There were obviously no posts from me last week, I was busy putting together my Visual Merchandising project, which took up all of my time.
But I will now attempt to do a quick recap of things you might have missed:
First, we missed Halloween, where I made a costume for the little sister. She went as Super Glue. I did not dress up...

Next, I went to Voodoo fest and saw Muse and Weezer. It was an interesting trip getting there but once there, it was AWESOME!

The next big thing that over took my life, the Visual Merchandising project. Where we created our own window displays.

We spent many long hours working... 

Obviously, we didn't go with my design, but my group and I were very happy with the end results.  The writing on the window says:

 LBD

A Sure Bet

Oh and my nails have been naked for over a week, hopefully I will get some time tomorrow to finally paint them so we can have a Nail Polish of the Week this week.  I am between redoing Envy from Ulta or finding a completely different color from something I've already done.  Let me know what you think in the comments! 

Block Party

It feels like I have been working on my block for forever! But really its just been a couple of weeks. Last night, making copies of my pattern, I was amazed at  how far its come in a few short (very stressful) weeks.

We started out draping the muslin on the dress form, and came out with a fabric pattern piece.

Then we transfered the markings from the fabric to paper, from there we made corrections added seam allowances and cut and made our first sew up.

After the sew up, we did fittings. A few tweaks to the pattern later and we produced our block!

Now I can make tons of copies!

My block consists of five pieces: bodice front, bodice back, skirt front, skirt back and a sleeve. I am just displaying the bodice front piece though.

Practice Makes Perfect

As I mentioned in my last post, I have numerous projects going on right now. 

One of which is the Window Display Project.  We are given windows and must come up with a display idea and construct it. In my group, we all decided to come up with sketches and then from there we would decide on our two favorite to submit to the teacher and from there we would pick which display to do our project on. 

I came up with two sketches. In the first, the drape should be more of a lilac color although it didn't come out right in the picture. 

The second, features fashion sketches scattered throughout the background with crumpled sketches on either side littering the floor. The idea is that "Practice Makes Perfect", us designers work hard coming up with tons of different concepts and ideas and then we finally have the perfect finished product. 

My group liked both sketches, but we chose the second to go forward and get reviewed by our teacher. The other design that got chosen by the group was really good too,  of course I'd love for us to go with mine, but I have a good feeling about our display either way. 

Bleh

So there is nothing else to say really, other than bleh. The past week, thats what it has really been, just bleh. Even though my midterm tests were all the week before, this week has just been jammed packed with STRESS. But I guess that just means I'm getting into the bulk of my fashion curriculum.

First, we were given 2 new projects to start working on. One of which we have about 1/2 page instruction for this huge assignment (the teacher really doesn't care about the class, but grades hard anyways). Both projects are group projects, and I have pretty much the same group for both. Hopefully the group thing will end up to be a positive.

Next, we had muslin fittings this week for our pattern... it just hurts me to talk about it. I worked so long and hard on my pattern and in the end you just want your pattern to be perfection. However, mine of course had its flaws. Which I guess I should just accept since its my first time doing this. I was crestfallen. Sewing is the one thing I think I am good at, and to have errors just blows.

This week, my hours have been so bleh. Tuesday I was at school from 8 am until 9:45 pm, we ordered pizza to our building. I hear the hours we keep just get worse, which is delightful to hear. As downtrodden as I feel this week though, I have a feeling that in the future I will look back and wish that this amount of stress was all that I had to deal with.

Oh, if you were interested in my projects?

For Product Development, we have to create a "company" and do target market research, create a line, do spec sheets and cost sheets and stuff like that. Its a big project with a lot of work and the teacher doesn't really care to give us to much info on it.

The second project is for Visual Merchandising. We get to create window displays! I am equally excited and petrified of this project. We have a lot to live up to from last semester, and I don't know where to start with it. But I am excited to get to work on it and see the end product.

Anyways, I don't know when my schedule will finally calm down, but until then, Ill try to enjoy the ride.

Betty

The other day I had to go into class after hours to finish up some work on my pattern. It finally gave me the chance to take some pictures!
So first, we have Betty with the muslin pieces draped on her.

From the markings on the muslin, we are then able to create the basic block pattern. We also used measurements to draft a sleeve, which can be seen to the right.

 Going into the building and room late at night is super creepy. especially with the 20+ mannequins just creeping out in the back... and then you have this one... super creepy little kid just hanging around.

That Vintage Thing

Yesterday for my Visual Merchandising class we did a little project. There is a Vintage Sale every year to support the costume museum on campus, and in groups we set up displays with the clothing going on sale.  Behold my group's creation...

We found this awesome 1960's boatneck dress, in pink dupioni silk and paired it with a hat, white leather gloves and a gold belt. 

I thought the hat was the coolest thing! it was completely covered in feathers! 

And the gloves were the softest real leather, so pretty. 

My group was one of the first scheduled to set up displays, so I didn't get to see many of the others. Although there were some really cute ones already completed. 

I would have stuck around and looked through more clothes, but I had to get to work. I did however get a couple of pictures of some cool clothes that were going to be for sale. 

In the area? Check out the sale this Sunday!

WHEN: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 3.
WHERE: LSU 4-H Mini Barn, near the Parker Coliseum.
ADMISSION: $5 adults, $2 students with IDs.

Shrouds of Muslin

Today I draped for the first time. We draped the front of the bodice to our dress forms today.  Betty, my dress form, was lookin' special.  I so wish I had a picture of me doing this and getting all frustrated when I didn't get it correct the first time. My biggest problem was that my muslin wasn't grain perfect when I started, so there was a point when I had to take everything down and just realign the grain to fix it.

This is similar to Betty, but not her.

It is slow going now, I cannot wait for the day when making a pattern becomes more second nature and quicker.

I'm Sorry, Do You Have an Issue?

In class the other day we spent at least 2 hours talking about fit, and how to go about tweaking a pattern to compensate for fit issues...

Set wrinkles, from the shirt fitting a little too tightly.

Well now all I can think about is what sort of fit issue people are having. I was reading a blog (I won't say which) but she had all sorts of fit issues going on with her top. I know I have fit issues, hell everyone has them. But its all i can think about now. I look at clothes and just see the set wrinkles pointing out these issues!

Nail Polish of the Week: Lapis of Luxury and School Updates!

I am at an odd place right now. I am was having a hard time deciding what nail color to go with, it was slightly distressing. So this week my color reasoning: it was right there in front of me. I usually have a reasoning behind why I choose a certain color and this week there simply was none. I guess with the start of school and all that I don't feel particularly inspired.

But the color for the week is Essie's Lapis of Luxury, I really do like this color it is such a pretty shade of blue and I got a few compliments on it today.

Tomorrow, I have to bring in all the supplies for my pattern making class. When you are going to school, you never realize how truly expensive it will be until you have to buy supplies. If you can see in the picture that pack of T-pins was $26! Its unbelievable how much things cost and THANK GOD my parents help me out, I couldn't do this with out them.

A small portion of my supply list. 

So pictured above is just mainly my sewing supplies, I have this huge roll of butcher paper and a bag packed with about 5 yards of fabric, a tape dispenser, a ream of paper, 10 poster boards and huge sheets of carbon paper to bring in as well. I have no clue how I am going to walk all of this across campus.

But other than that school has been going well. Parking is a pain, I spent over 30 minutes trying to find a spot and made it to class just as it was starting. Hopefully that nightmare won't happen again.

My classes?
I am finding my Product development class, 3032 and Marketing to be oddly similar. Marketing being more general and 3032 just focusing on the clothes.
Pattern Making or 3037, we have just taken notes in. I think tomorrow we will get to the meat of things and start draping (fingers crossed)!
Visual merchandising and Promotion strategies or 3045, we have just been taking notes and nothing new to report. 
Intro to Fine Arts got canceled today, after I walked without an umbrella in the rain to get to it, but that just means I got to go home early and bring packages to the post office. I sent some FabFlower love to Memphis, Tn!


But how is your fall shaping up?

School is Back

When I first started this blog, I intended it to chronicle my journey through design school. However, I started in the summer and then started to get lazy when school kicked in, so it never got to that point. Now, with the new semester starting I have a fresh chance to try again.

With the first three days of school down, I have been to all my classes and I feel like its going to be a good semester. I am deep in the middle of my design classes, with 3 of my 5 classes being completely devoted to my major. My other two classes are closely related to my major, Fine Arts and Marketing.

What other classes am I taking?

Huec 3032- Product Development, Huec 3037 Intermediate Apparel Product Design and Huec 3045 Visual merchandising and Promotion strategies.
(Huec is for Human Ecology, my major is in the school of Human Ecology.)

So in these classes I have projects, in 3032 we are going to have to develop a clothing line and "sell" it to the class.  For 3037, its basically my introductory pattern-making class, and we will finish the class off by making bustiers. 3045 seems really fun, one project we get to set up displays for a charity vintage clothing sale and for the final project we get to set up a window display.

So now I am a Junior, halfway through college. At the start of my college career, I felt so alone on a huge campus. But now its so odd now, I actually know people other than my friends from high school. The campus doesn't seem so big anymore. This semester will be intense, and will challenge me and my lack of time management skills... but I can't wait.

Interested in the books we are using?*
I thought so...

• Patternmaking for Fashion Design (5th Edition) Helen Joseph Armstrong
• Beyond Design: The Synergy of Apparel Product Development (2nd Edition)Sandra J. Keiser, Myrna B. h. Garner 
• 
  

  Visual Merchandising & Display (5th Edition) 

  Martin M. Pegler

*I find it interesting what books are being used in design classes, before I got to college, I would go on amazon and just look at all of the design books... 

How am I transporting these books? A few months ago, I got myself a new Vera Bradley Messanger! 

I had been using one in Yellow Bird since freshman year, but it was time for a change! I got Make Me Blush! I love it the inside is adorable!

Seams Like the Very First Time

It feels like forever since I last did a sewing project. When really, last major thing I sewed was my final project from my sewing class in May. I have sewn on a button here or there and hemmed a few things since then. But I have decided to embark on my next great project...

Vogue 1174

This makes me extremely nervous. I mean I know I can do it, but for some reason this pattern just makes me nervous, I haven't made anything this intensive since my prom dress in high school, like two years ago.

But I will try to start the muslin this weekend and cross my fingers have it done by Monday, if I can get to the fabric store for some supplies. Then I'll embark on the real thing. And if you follow me on twitter @theFASHIONgirl I shall be sure to put updates on how this little project is going.

I also want to make like a cosmetic bag, because I can never find the perfect one... I've never made my own pattern, but I think I know enough about sewing to try. I mean I will be taking pattern making in the fall, might as well start now.
So any readers, care to share any new projects you are embarking on?

Final Projects

During my long hiatus from blogging, I was taking my first design class. Which was also my first class where I was actually drawing anything. 

For the final project we had to design a mini collection. I had planned on posting it on the blog, but with the end of school, finals and Christmas, I was too busy to ever post it. 

Then I was going through pictures trying to tidy up my desktop and I ran into the scans from the final project. So here they are... 

The inspiration

The clothing

I was actually inspired by Lily Allen's music video for The Fear (seen here.) What I tried to achieve in the collection were nice and comfortable day looks. And I LOVE ruffles... so I just had to include them in whatever I was doing. 

I think some of my other sketches I did on this project came out way better than the final but, I'm a perfectionist so it took me forever to do and towards the end of it I was so sleep deprived I just wanted to be done. 

And the scanner kind of messed up the colors, they are more blown out then they should be, but you get the idea.  I ended up with a high A on the project, so I did pretty well.