Out of Date Updates

So my life is a huge bundle of crazy right now. I'm moving out of state in 2 days with almost nothing to my name, starting the new location of my job in 4, gonna crash on my sister's couch until I get on my feet. My old car died, and I have a new one randomly. I'm leaving behind my only source of comfort, because I realize that it's better to leave my cat behind and get her once I have a home for her, rather than force her to live in my car.

And rather than finish packing like I should be, I'm online working on a collaboration with one of my oldest and best friends. It's very hard for us to be online at the same time, as I am on the west coast, and she is in Israel. But I always drop everything when those little moments come as she brings me such joy, and I really dig what we're working on. She's a journalist, just fantastic. And as you know, I'm going back to school to learn to make the clothes I want, and get this website of passion off the ground. I'm really big on supporting your friends in their passions and finding ways to use everyone's different areas of expertise to promote each other. So we're working together to write an article partially about me, but mainly about feminism and fashion; reconciling the two, as many people have a hard time doing so. So we've been collecting articles online and sharing them.

And today, I mentioned Amanda Palmer. And how she would be a fantastic person to include in our list. I consider her my queen in most all things. My friend hadn't heard of her, so I jumped up yelling things across messenger of my love and appreciation. To quote myself: she is amazing, feminist, loving and lovely.

And then I brought up her TED talk and her new book, The Art of Asking. I just (finally) got this book a few days ago, and have yet to start reading it. But it's something that hits very close to home for me lately. I'm moving and have been refusing to ask or even accept help that's offered me when I don't ask. I refuse to ask or accept help in anything I do. And I'm wondering if maybe that's why everything I undertake, fails.

I love the arts, I love being an artist. My family is full of artists, but told me I could never make it as I wasn't as talented as them. That I had to have a real job. I'm finally learning to let myself be passionate. To LET myself do what I want. I'm learning to LET myself sing again. To LET myself learn to play my banjo. To LET myself love fashion, and to make clothes for myself and others. And that doing any of these things doesn't make me less of a person, it doesn't make me flaky or irresponsible, nor does it make me less of a feminist.

And so I can't wait to show you guise the article once we finish it. And I just wanna thank my inspirations for helping me feel okay with being myself for once, and for planting the seed that it's gonna be okay if I ask. Follow through will definitely be an issue...wish me luck

ps, Yes I got my 4.0 in my first semester back at school. Sorry it took me so long to tell you XD

Schoooollllllllllll'ssssssss Out! For! Summer!

Now that school is officially done, I'd like to thank everyone for their support and patience with my lack of sanity the past few weeks. I made so many friends (and clothes!) this semester. It really was fantastic having people with shared interests to help ease this jarring back to school life for and to bounce ideas off of. I'm gonna miss all of them so much.

I was able to finish all of my projects on time. My final project for Clothing I was a shirt. Unfortunately, the sizing my teacher had me do made the shirt look like a tent on me. So I know for sure, I will never ever wear it. My teacher gave me a B+ on it though as she said she knew I could do better work, even though she said it looked very ready to wear. I think she was mainly upset I did everything on the serger rather than the sewing machine hahahaha. Monday was the final for that class, and I think it went pretty well. It was only 25 questions and all common sense.

I got an A on my sleep shorts I made in Serging. I wanted to make tote bags for my final project in that class, but wasn't to get the fabric I needed. I attempted to make a pillow, but that couching I wanted to do for it wouldn't work either. I ended up making a pin cushion at the last second. She gave me an A, while teasing me about slacking off. ;) This wednesday we had the final, every student had to come up with 5 questions and we did a round a bout answering of them. Any repeats were thrown out, so we ended up with only 48 questions. We graded them right then and there, and she accepted most every answer while joking that we were using critical thinking. I got an A on that final as well.

I pulled my Workroom Sketching final project together last minute. Designed a 25 garment collection in 3 weeks and was pretty happy about how it came together. When I brought it in, my teacher told how good I am at following directions and that she'd like to use mine as an example for how to size your drawings down so the concept boards look neat and uncluttered. She took pictures and let us take our projects home.

That actually is one of my favorite parts of the program. We got to take all of our final projects home rather than losing them forever. My inner Hermione loves it.

I stayed up till 5 am the day of my last  day of school doing my glossaries and final stylebooks. We did the lecture in class for 60s-80s. I was the only one who recognized an 8 track, kids these days ;p After the lecture, she let us stay and watch Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf's if we wanted to get our stylebooks back. She graded them while we watched, and I'm immensely pleased to say I got 100% on all of my stylebooks! I took the online final tonight and only missed one question.

All in all, it looks like I'm going to have an A in all my classes this semester. Start strong, finish strong...albeit frazzled. I'm still so excited that I got everything done on time.

A personal style pic for the day.

Here is my shirt all finished. Now you can see the ridiculous of it hahah. 

Trying to get all the sketches done for my Sketching final project.

A look at the finished product!

3.5 hours of sleep, but still showing up to slay at school. 

Funny tidbit, the dean of the program showed up at my work today to buy some eyedrops. She smiled and asked how my classes were and wished me a nice summer...although she'd done nothing but sneer at me all semester. I found it hilarious. 

I did get some things to give myself some projects to do over the summer so I am not leaving you forever. I do, however, plan on moving towards the end of the summer out of state. I'm not dropping out of school, just transferring away to a much bigger and nicer program. I'll update you all when I get the finalized grades for my classes. Thanks for reading and I hope you stay with me! 

Kisses, Hearts, and Poptarts,

Your Fearless Leader

Semester's Almost Over

So the school fashion show was last week. I'm still not sure if I'd do it again. Mainly cuz it was insanely disorganized. However, at least I participated and I got some good feedback from my teachers. I didn't win anything, but everyone seemed to love my skirt. My Clothing I teacher told me my skirt looked more designer than ready to wear for the print and way it flowed. I don't have any pictures however as I couldn't have my phone on me pretty much all day. But still, the compliments were nice. And our wonderful web developer/awesome friend made it out to cheer me on! As did my mom and brother, though he did have to be dragged to it haha. That meant a lot to me. I'm not used to people supporting me in what I do.

There's only 2 weeks left of the semester. I still have a ton of stuff to do, but luckily I have a day off of work coming up so I'm hoping to just plow through everything. I did get another A on a History of Costume test. And hopefully I'll find out today how I did on my most recent one for class.

My serging class is going better and better. I'm starting to use it for everything. I hadn't even cut out my pattern for my shirt in Clothing I this past Monday, but by the end of class I had it almost completed. Now I just have to set in the sleeves and finish up the collar. My sleep shorts for my serging class are turning out fantastically. I accidentally bought the wrong size elastic, so I didn't get to finish them in class last week. I did find a really pretty thread, so I ended up hemming them with a satin stitch instead of couching some yarn as decoration like I had planned. They're so stinkin cute.

I have my story and idea for my collection for Workroom Sketching. I'm really excited to put it all together. It's seeming far less daunting now that I have an idea of what I'm doing and what exactly needs to be in it. It's going to be a fall collection, and I'm going with mustard yellow, a forest green, navy blue, camel, and taupe. The story line I'm thinking of is how more and more people are finding love online or abroad, i.e. my cousin, and so you spend more time traveling to meet or see these people, so you want a wardrobe that is gonna kick ass, but also travel well. I'm still fleshing out a name, but I think it'll be easy to come up with 25 garments for it, with that idea in mind.

Here are my short pre-waistband and pre-hem. An heck yeah, they have pockets.

My lovely carpool buddy looking like a hobbit while she works on her cape dealy.

I thought our poster for the fashion show was crazy cute. One of my friends in the production class is gonna give me one of those posters!

Here's a close up of the hem on my shorts. That thread looks so great on the fabric!!

And I really dug my outfit. I got this dress for myself for my birthday but hadn't worn it yet. 

Till next time! Cheers. 

Edit: I got my first 3 stylebooks back today and got 100% on all 3!!! I also finished my shorts and got a 95% on those! Annnddddddd I finished my sample book in the nick of time. I think I'm only gonna get a B on that one though.

Sorry for the Hiatus

We hit Spring Break and between work and school, things got crazy hectic and when you're too busy to sleep you kinda forget to blog it up. My sincerest apologies on leaving you dolls hanging. But let's get back to business! Over the past few weeks I have been busting ass on my skirt for the fashion show next week. It's finally done and I'm beyond happy with it. It was my first time making mitered pockets as well as altering a pattern. The original called for a stiffer fabric and wanted zippers all over the place. I chose to use a very light rayon and I took all of the zippers out. Considering how much I just guessed on everything, I'm so pleased with it. Here's some pics of construction to the final.

Here are the pockets when I finished them. 

The front of the skirt pinned together for the first time to see how it's looking. 

The seams are stitched up and hem done, just waiting for the serger to finish the seams and do the waistband.

100% done!! Now to just pick out a black top and some shoes for the show next week. I will be modeling it myself!! 

My Serging class hasn't done much as our last class was canceled. So tonight I get to hurriedly learn how to do couching and piece together my sleep shorts. They will be totally adorable though. I chose a grey polka dot flannel and will be doing some couching with a variegated yarn. 

My Careers in Fashion is unfortunately and luckily over. It was only an 8 week course, and I'm pleased to announce that I received an A for my final grade in the class!! 

My History of Costume class is steam rolling ahead, we've now made into the Industrial Revolution. I have since received another A on a test for this class, am waiting for the most recent's grade to come in and I have another next week so fingers crossed for me. 

My Workroom Sketching class is going really well. We finished active wear, knits, denim, and accessories. So we had our first bigger project, we had to create a mini denim line and create a board for it. 

Here's my final illustration for knits. 

And here are my illustrations for use of argyle and cable knits.

Here is the overall view for my denim project board.

And here is a close up of my illustration for it. 

Over spring break my cousin and her husband flew over from England and we got to have a Disneyland day together which was so fab, and I miss her like crazy already. I also took off for a Ren Faire day, and will be spending this whole weekend there as well for our annual full weekend we do every year all together for Bog Fest. 

Disneyland with my favorite cousin ever. I need more of her in my life, always.

A quick Ren Faire day with the bestie. This weekend will be all of the besties together and for more than a quick afternoon. I can't wait. It'll be nice to let loose and have fun for once instead of feeling like a cog in the machine. 

I'm now heading into the final few weeks of school and am slightly panicking over the amount of homework left to do for my classes. I really think I took on too much to do. However, I know I can do it, I'll just not be sleeping for a while. 

In the next few weeks I have to complete a shirt, my shorts, another garment of my choice, a movie review, 2 glossaries, 4 stylebooks, a couple more tests, the illustrations for the accessories, and I have to design and created the concept boards and final drawings for a 25 garment collection. While also working full time. So yeah....I'm gonna be super cranky and distracted for a while. I will def need a vacation once this semester ends! Don't worry, I already have some plans in the works for that! ;) 

Also, please don't worry on what will happen to this blog once the semester ends. A couple Joann's near me are combining and therefore have clearanced their entire stock out. So I have picked up several patterns for just $1.99 each and will have plenty to do over the summer to keep us both entertained. Wish me luck, and stay tuned!

Time Turners, Lavender Milk Tea, and Anastasia

This week blazed on through in school. I am definitely ready for spring break. Although it will be spent working mainly. But hopefully I can fit some sewing done.

It was the last meeting for my Careers in Fashion class on Monday. Slightly sad as it was fun, however I have the same teacher for my History of Costume class and so I still get to see her. I finished the final projects early and finished the final in 10 minutes...at a loss of what to do until my next class 4 hours later, I went home and took a nap.  I finally remembered to bring in my pattern for the skirt in Clothing I; last week I only remembered the fabric -__- So I was able to full cut out the fabric. I'm really excited to get started on sewing my skirt, specially since I'll be wearing it down the runway for the spring fashion show.

Here you see my constant inability to share a table with anyone. I always take up double the actual desk space, cuz...deal with it.

I was sorely tempted to ditch my workroom sketching class, but womaned up and went. I'm so glad I did cuz we learned how to draw knits; cable, argyle, etc. My friend and I got called out in class for being at a level to draw our illustrations with shading in them. It's always awkward when a sentence starts with, "Ok so none of you need to do this, but oh! Tara and Tanya, you both should look into doing this for your sketches. You're ready." And when she went over our homework, my watercolors I did in a couple hours the night before she claimed were perfect and I should consider putting them into my permanent portfolio. I often wonder if these people are egging me on, but when she mainly chit chats with me and compliments my work, but goes to the next person and sits for a half hour giving suggestions and some critiques...it does make me wonder if I really am good at this and not being shined on.

My half-assed watercolors that turned out far better than I allotted time for and really feel I could do better but were well-liked anyways.

On Tuesday, I picked two of my besties from LAX as they were just getting back from their belated honeymoon in Ireland. It was so fantastic to see them again and I loved hearing their stories. One of my souvenirs they got was was a freaking time turner!!! Of course, I was elated and elected to wear it to class today as my modern adaptation. ;)

My friend Alex and I are now carpool buddies on Wednesdays so today was just a ball of fun. We both chose edgy lipsticks and the same silhouette for our outfits today. How serendipitous. We learned the Rococo styling in History of Costume and made lame jokes the whole time. Puns are our true nature. Then we walked to a boba place for our break as I've never had boba. I tried the lavender milk tea and it was quite lovely. I may have finally found a slight change from my beloved chai. We took selfies and had tumblr talks and I crashed more than one snap chat. She tried to talk me into getting one and we discovered my phone doesn't have it in the app store. (not gonna lie, pretty happy it wasn't).

Serging class started well and then went downhill fast. I was able to put my reconstructed shirt together pretty fast, specially with some help from my new Vanna, Alex. However, hemming it took the rest of the class period. It was on a different grain line where the hems were needed so of course it just wanted to roll up on itself and refused to keep a press. We ended up somewhat cheating on it. We just hemmed it all with a blanket stitch and then rolled the neck and sleeves under with a basic stitch on a single needle. The bottom hem, we just left in a blanket stitch as it technically is a finished edge XD But 3 hours of arguing and it refusing to stay pressed so we could do a pretty looking hem...we kinda gave up and lapsed into jokes. All the poses for pics for this blog ended into silly poses and non stop laughter.

The pattern in school is easily definable. Optimism, underestimating, frustration, near tears, full steam ahead, non stop laughter.

On our way to boba, I felt the need to take a quick photo op underneath this glorious archway.

A picture of today's outfit as I love it, yet hadn't worn it since my trip to England two years ago.

The backside of my finished reconstructed shirt.

The neckline stretched out greatly while hemming so we made a lot of Flashdance jokes. And somehow the shirt managed to look like a conscious choice in my outfit, not randomly thrown on top of it. Go me.

And ended with, "Grandmother! It's me, Anastasia!!" 

(not pictured, the numerous takes in between the first attempt where I managed to not laugh, until this one. All in between I was laughing like a loon"

Hot Mess to Grade A's

Another hell week down. I managed to get everything done just in the nick of time. And I also got some grades back from my Clothing 101 class. You all remember those pants? The ones that nearly drove me to tears in 3 jammed machines, broken needles, and a hot mess of a waistband before I pulled it together last minute? I got an A. And lots of comments on how ready-to-wear they look. :D I also got back our first test in the same class. I got an A on that as well.

My teacher then proceed to talk to the class about the upcoming fashion show. I've been going back and forth on entering. Somehow by the end of class....I entered into the fashion show. All of my teachers have been bugging me to enter. And now I'm freaking out. I have about a month to to make my skirt, turn it in as my second project for class....then turn it in and model it for the show....thas right....I'm entering an item....AND modeling. Oi....what have I done to myself.

I also sent my teacher for Careers in Fashion and History of Costume (same teacher) the link to my new website for some feedback. I got her email back right as I was walking into class with her, and so right as I was reading it, I got some verbal as well. She was amazed with how talented my photographer is. And loves the name for it. Here's a pic of the email (personal info cropped out):

It's kind of amazing feeling so supported by all of the faculty in the program. All of my teachers approve and encourage my goals. I haven't received anything less than an A in any class or project so far. And they push me to tackle more complicated projects than I feel ready for, and yet I accomplish them and they even look good after. Not a hot mess. 

In other related news, my grandmother recently (as in Saturday) sold her house. And is gifting me with her sewing machine and sewing table. I've been looking for a sewing table that will fit in my room for months, and suddenly this lands in my lap. I can't really believe it and am so grateful to her. It's the perfect height and size for my tiny room and the top folds out into a cutting table. I can't wait to bring it home and get my area set up. It'll be so nice to get things done at home instead of only in class. 

Wish me luck in getting my reconstructed shirt done in time for next week. Spent the entire class period yesterday trying to get a serger to work. The beginning of class had my teacher fighting for the title of being Murphy's Law incarnate, the end of class she ceded the title to me. The first machine we couldn't get a balanced stitch no matter what we tried. So I moved to an older model, spent forever threading it, only to find out the light turns on, but not the actual machine. Luckily, we traded the pedal out and got it to work with a perfectly balanced stitch from the get go. Which left me only 10 minutes to try and bust some work out. I got the seam on my sleeves and center back done. Then I hid the machine in the far back of the cabinet with a note begging to not change the threads or tensions. XD

Another Week in the Life

Proud to announce that after a lot of hard work, the website is almost totally up and running! I can't wait to share it all with you. Since we were last all here, I had the chance to do the first of what will be many photo shoots for the site. And I had so much fun. My photographer is a friend from school and church and we hadn't had a chance to really talk or catch up in years. So we just wandered around Downtown Fullerton, joking around and getting to know each better. 

When two up and coming professionals work together for the first time, it often feels like a first date. We get to know each other personally and professionally. And at the end, someone asks the awkward question of getting together again. Everything went fantastically, we work together really well. And when you guise see how wonderful the photographs look, trust me. More shall be happening. Her link is already up on my website. Support local artists and businesses. I can never emphasize that more. We have the passion, the talent and skills, and we're far more ethical. 

Putting together the site with my web developer/lady love has been entertaining. She lives in Vegas now and works graveyards, so trying to find time to work on it or even just talk on the phone to go over the knitty gritty....hilarious. So lots of late nights and early mornings for us both. But she's doing a fantastic job and is learning that working with me means having lots of things be more difficult than they should be. But she's a trooper, and honestly gets all the credit for the site. Right off the bat it was better than I had hoped it would be. 

I'm still putting that nose to the grindstone and churning out the good grades. It's a lot of work, but I love it all and wouldn't give it up for anything. I finally got my reconstructed pattern finished and can cut it out and get the shirt started. 

I really hope it turns out well, cuz I loved the shirt it came from. And I've never made a pattern before, so it was nice to get a better idea on how they work to get what you want. Obviously in basic terms and not very complicated....but still. 

Last Wednesday I, as usual, dressed up for class. It obviously was an attention grabbing outfit as everywhere I walked on campus I had people staring at me. But I looked good and knew it. So I just stared everyone right in the eye until they looked away. They all knew they couldn't have me, and were jelly of my confidence. I'm over not wearing things I want to because I'm afraid of getting attention or that it's too dressy for something. I'm just so over jeans and t shirts. I like to walk the line between adorable and risque. Just enough cuteness that no one can call me a hoe. ;) 

I also went on a nice, long walk between classes and snapped this pic. It was gloriously overcast that day and everything looked so pretty. 

And on that note, I have to leave you dolls again. No rest for the weary, and there's a pile of homework to do. Luckily, I did get an email stating one project's due date was pushed back a week....after I had finished it. XD Until next time. :)