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. 

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.

Scheduling

Its that time of the semester again! Time to schedule for next Spring, I have the classes I want lined up and now its all about waiting to get them. If all goes according to plan I'll have Fridays off, which is pretty neat.  I miss those days, I had a schedule like that last spring, it was really nice.
I am planning to take Pattern design with Computer Application, Apparel Design Studio, Management, and Interpersonal Communication.

Love having fresh flowers in the house.

The coming week is set to be pretty stressful, I have three big tests at the end of the week and I probably have to make at least one halloween costume. So I venture to guess you probably won't hear too much from me.  I do have the nail polish of the week lined up for later today, and I did buy a new pair of shoes that I must show off, so at least we have that for this week.

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.

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!

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. 

I LOVE NEW YORK Day 3 &4

Day 3: Bloomingdales, Ralph Pucci, FIT

On day 3 we had to wake up bright and early to go to Bloomingdales in SoHo before it opened, it was really neat we got to take this great tour of the store, which is really beautiful and innovative, so if you get a chance I would definitely take a visit. 

After going to Bloomies we got some free time... When we were walking to Bloomingdales, one of my roommates and I had seen some large spools sitting out back and we were like we def have to go back and take pictures. So we took the opportunity to go back and check it out. 

The spools actually came from the store next door which had just opened All Saints.  The way they were set up was really cool, a lot of old sewing machines and stuff... def my dream land. 

Later,  we got to visit Ralph Pucci where they manufacture Pucci mannequins, which can be seen in stores such as Saks, Nordstrom and Anna Sui!
They also have a showroom of really expensive, nice looking furniture and Art.

It was really cool when we got to see where they actually make the mannequins... it was pretty much an army of them...

And notice in the background... the arms hanging from the ceiling... haha a tad bit creepy.

We got to see where they painted the faces on some of the mannequins... I think some of these were in Nordstrom stores. 

And they had heads for Anna Sui waiting to be painted... which was really cool since we had been in the Anna Sui showroom the day before. 

Then it was off to FIT where we had a quick costume history lesson then got to see their newly opened EcoFriendly exhibit... No pictures where allowed, but it was cool anyways. 

After FIT, we went to this vintage shop, I got this cute purse which I will post a picture of later, and I went shopping in the bookstore at FIT... already getting ready for next fall. 

Day 4: Michael Pallandino, Saks Fifth Avenue, Lynda Johnson

On day 4 we went to LIM to visit with Michael Pallandino, who was the stylist for Henri Bendel's before they reorganized and stopped carrying clothes. He now teaches styling for LIM. He gave a very good and inspirational speech about making it in the fashion industry... never burn bridges and always balance between personal and work life. 

Then we went to Saks Fifth Avenue and had a tour of pretty much the whole store... which is HUGE. After we took a detour to the Anthropologie sale room, which is about as big as the store here. 

Later we went and met with Lynda Johnson who is a journalist and mainly works with children it was interesting to get a different perspective of the fashion industry from her. 
So that was the last of my appointments in New York, I had a great time, and did some damage shopping. I can't wait to get back to NYC. 


This weekend, I have pretty much been reorganizing and doing some late spring cleaning... I found some cool stuff when going through my mother's jewelry box... I think the vintage bug has finally bit me... but I think the need for an all vintage post is coming on. 
Anyways, its Father's day today. I spent a lovely day with the fam. Hung around in the pool with the sisters. Ate an awesome lunch/dinner with the fam and just pretty much hung out watched movies and such. I would have posted this earlier, however my internet went out, but thankfully its back, obviously. 

A Semester in Review

So with the Spring semester coming to an end, I am thoroughly excited and stressed out. I'm currently busy preparing for final exams, the little sister's graduation and my upcoming New York trip.

But I've already turned in my final project, made my last speeches, gone to my last classes, and its pretty much all down hill now.

This semester I took my first college level sewing class, and I loved it! We made some samples, I learned some new techniques... I got to sew on an industrial machine... my classroom is very reminiscent of the work room on Project Runway... complete with harried students rushing around trying to get their labs turned in on time.

But I pretty much aced that class, I love love love to sew, sew it was right up my alley.

This semester I took a public speaking class... which the teacher was cool, but I'm just not destined to be the next great orator of our time.  I took a political science class, which i will never make that mistake again. English was one of my favorite classes, apparently unicorns are indigenous to Alabama.  I also took a theatre class, where I pretty much learned nothing about theatre but I had to go see five shows. Which I figured out how they get people to go to the School productions... they are all graded on it.

But overall it was an ok semester. Even though I had to take more filler classes and less fashion related classes than I would like.

Now I am ready for summer... New York and more fashion.