The Heat is On

And I don't only mean the surprising summer weather this early spring but the stress level to do the graduation collection is on and increasing by the day.

I've ordered my fabrics and they have arrived with the exception of my wool which I've ordered from Michael's fabrics. They have limited but exceptional fabrics. They carry Armani and Zegna fabrics. They're a bit pricey but you do pay for quality products (I hope. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the wool.) There's also the Fashionfabricsclub and they have more variety. They sell by the yard and not by the meter so essentially, I'm going to lose 10 cm each time. I haven't bought anything from there yet since I found a local wholeseller here. They're in Sydney but hey! it's local to me. =)

Two of my fabrics have been sent for dyeing and while I was told that it usually takes 11 days, I could expect the fabrics by next week.

All I need to do now is buy my threads and stock up on the appropriate needles. I know I should have ordered everything earlier, which I did, when I bought my fabrics in Shenzhen, but it turned out that I needed more. Two of the fabrics were sent for dyeing and the others, I'm using to toile my garments. I've already used up my wool elastane which goes to show that I didn't take everything into account when I did my plan. Well, now that I'm in the thick of things, everything should fall into place nicely.

School Work

Two words that can mean one thing but also two separate things. Words that dominate my life at the moment. Not that I'm complaining.

School started two weeks ago and so far I'm feeling positive about my lecturers. Sure, the rooms are small, much smaller than the previous rooms we have in the other building. The promised "small size" classes weren't really small as there were 19 of us in a room. Not good when everybody's going to be doing their graduation collection.

So far though, our lecturers have been very helpful and very methodical. =)

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Today, I had to redo my bodice blocks to fit the mannequin. Finally, I learned how to properly transfer the calico design onto my block and alter the blocks. I'm slow but I finally get it. My sewing has improved as well though I still need to mark the stitch lines to serve as my guide.

Best thing is, I found a McDonald's outlet that had a McCafe that serves pastries for $1.95! Amazing. Now, I can have my sugar fill whenever I'm at school. Not good for the health but good for my psyche. =)

My Pari-sisal hat

And here is my hat.

Finished it at the end of yesterday.

There was a lot of unpicking done but I'm glad I finished it. 

Happenings

Lots of things happened but I was just too lazy to post. Not good when I'm trying to detail what I do. =P

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First, I finally met my mentor. The school organised a mentoring program with Holeproof, an underwear company owned by Pacific Brands. The program's objective was a bit vague in the beginning since the mentors and mentees were unsure how it was supposed to work. I had a bigger problem since my mentor only started working for the company the day after we visited Holeproof to meet our mentors and to learn about the mentoring program. I didn't have a good feeling about it since I knew that new employees would be very busy with training and orientation and a voluntary mentoring program would be an added work for them. Also, nobody could tell me about the mentor's background, whether he's a fresh graduate (in which case, I wouldn't be learning much) or someone who's had loads of experience in the industry (which would be a great thing). 

After about 3 or 4 weeks and some slightly panicky emails to the program coordinator, I finally met my mentor, F. I was invited to sit it while he gets briefed on the new design range. L, his supervisor, and F were fantastic letting me ask questions and elaborating on the answers. My eyes kinda glazed from all the info but I learned about the process of designing and the amount of work and collaboration that goes with designing and tweaking a range of underwear. F had 4 weeks to change some bits and pieces, to include graphics, to incorporate colour, etc but not tweaking too much with the silhouette all the while consulting with the other team members and the graphic print designer and staying within the price range. 

The briefing went on for an hour and a half. And I wanted to learn more but I had to leave since he had to start working. I did get his email address though so I'll be emailing him some of my questions.

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For Fashion Business, I was surprised and happy to get my very first 100 mark. The highest I got since I started studying Fashion Design was a 97 and that was in Computer Aided Design II which was funny since I got a 67 in Computer Aided Design I. Lol.

I had to do a report on a fashion item, didn't have to be clothes, it could be shoes or bags, and write about the history of the item and how it became well-known. I wanted to do my report on the red high heels but when I found out that a lot of my classmates were doing their reports on shoes, I changed my topic to  the Wrap Dress, as popularised by Diane Von Furstenberg.

My report was a bit long but I'll try to upload it along with my report on Roger Vivier, which I did for Fashion History. Now that one I found very interesting. Not many people know about him but now that they've relaunched Roger Vivier, the label, I'm sure his fans will increase. 

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For Millinery, we had to do a flat pattern hat. It was a hat where you had to do a pattern and cut out fabric and sew them together. I had so much problem doing the skull cap for it. I think I did 5 patterns and did 6 toiles on calico. Finally, I gave up and used sinamay, which was great for holding the shape but the rough edges makes it itchy on the head. Will have to change that I guess.

Photos will follow. 

Officially on Holiday!

Okay, so it should've happened last Friday but since I wasn't able to finish the shirt for textile and had to hand it in this morning at 10.30, my holiday officially starts now! Yey!

I'm taking one month to sort my brain, get some, scratch that, lots of inspiration for next year's signature collection. I bought myself a notebook and some jelly pens from this new stationery store at DFO for a start. Well, not really, it's supposed to be a travel journal but who knows, I might be inspired. =)

Fabric Buying

Spent a lot buying fabrics. I already bought about a metre and a half of black Italian wool but I wasn't sure it would be enough. Also, there were patches where the wool was "damaged" in some way. Since it was a remnant of a private collection and it was being sold dirt cheap, literally, at AUD10.00 per metre, it wasn't a bad bargain. In the end, I got the remaining roll for AUD5.00.

But I was still worried it wouldn't be enough for my tailored jacket so I went with E, V and R to check out this wool place in Richmond. Talk about "Whoah!". The place had so much wool to choose from. And they allow students to purchase even though they were a wholesale business (from what I gathered). Anyway, I bought 3 metres of wool/cashmere (80% wool and 20% cashmere). I wanted the 97% cashmere/ 3% wool combination but at AUD89.00 per metre, it was way out of my budget. Sigh. 

I just love fabric places especially those with lovely natural fibre fabrics. They're just so great to be in. 

Aaarrrrgggghhh

It's supposed to be a two-week break but there's no break for me and those who are still not done with the lingerie/swimwear project. After weeks of draping and correcting patterns, I have not yet perfected a single pattern. I tried to wing it by not doing a sample but that ended in disaster. Lesson learned: don't wing it.

After a private class with V, I think I'm on the right track. I hope to at least finish two things this week so I could concentrate on other things, dyeing for textiles and doing the catalogue for the designs.  Sigh. 

Tomorrow's another day in school. 

On to the next project

After the corset comes the jacket. I've finished the design and I'm liking it. Kind of. If I manage to make it good, I'd probably even enter it into the wool awards. Must look for red wool and red cashmere. 

For the lingerie project, I'm feeling a bit frustrated since I don't think I'm making headways in my bra pattern. Such a tiny thing but it just makes me scream. I've revised the patterns 6 times already and it's still nowhere near fitting as I want it to be. sigh.

Corsets! Corsets! Corsets!

We handed in our corsets today. I was glad to finish my mine, just the binding actually, at 12.45 in the morning. That gave me 5 hours of shut eye. My classmates weren't so fortunate. Due to the intricate designs they've made, some had to keep working at their corsets until past the due time which was at 2 in the afternoon. T, our lecturer, wasn't bothered by it. He was happy at the work done by the class and he was even complimented by M, the principal of the school. She said the works this year was much better than last year. Yey!

So here are the corsets. Forgot to bring my camera so had to do with my mobile phone.

My corset inner layer

My corset with outer layer

Eileen's corset. She stitched all those designs herself, to get the effect she saw at Clegs.

I think this is Kirsty's

Viviana's corset

Feeling the Fool

Not really though 3 weeks into the new school year and I'm having a bit of a self-reflection of what I've gotten myself into. So far, I've learned how to weave (wafting as a classmate calls it. From weft to right) then I've learned how to knit (repeat after me: plain and purl, plain and purl). Seriously, my fingers became stiff after a whole day of knitting. It didn't help that I was knitting the wrong way when I've finished a square piece. =P

I've also learned how easy it is to do lingerie. We've done 2 kinds already, one is a g-string which was really fun to do. The other was a normal pair of undies. Next week, we're finishing the boylet (or was it boyleg) cut. Yep, we're using lace. Amazing how you can do those itsy-bitsy little thingies and how much they charge for them at the department stores.

For styling and couture, we're doing a corset. And we've done it by draping calico over the mannequin, unlike the flat patternmaking we were doing in first year. Unfortunately, I had to redrape because after I took the calico off the mannequin and traced it on cardboard, I made all the curved lines straight. Then after I corrected my pattern, cut out the calico for fitting, sewn the panels together, I thought I might fiddle with my patterns because the panels didn't match perfectly (there were teensy weensy excesses). Of course, once I did that and re-cut the calico, the panels definitely didn't matched so I had to retrace the draped panels onto cardboard. But it's good. I'm learning what I shouldn't do. =P

Will post photos later. =)

Last Day before the Holiday Break

*I didn't know how to import entries from one blog to another so I just copy-pasted this entry. hehehehe Lazy me.

It was our last day of class last Friday. Strangely enough, I enjoyed the entire day. I wasn't itching to go home, though I eventually did go home 15 minutes early because I had to retrieve my dry cleaned leather.

For the Fashion Drawing class, we experimented with different ways to render nettings, lace and sequins . We were told that we could use pencil, fine liner or gouache but we mostly stuck with gouache. We placed gouache / acrylic paint on the lace then placed it gouache / paint down on the paper, applying pressure on the process. It took a bit of trial and error but we eventually got a bit of the pattern on the paper. Vy did the pencil rubbing method and got a better result. She placed the lace under the paper and just rubbed pencil on top of the paper. I tried it but didn't get a good result, I suppose it varied depending on the lace. The ones I got were too thick, I think.

For the sequins, we used random circles representing light, medium and dark on a flat color. The colors I used were white, black and silver on a black flat background. For a red background, I used a combination of white, light and dark red and black. Then to represent light giving the illusion of sparkles, a star with uneven points using white gouache.

In the afternoon, we had a live model pose for us in her bathing suit for our beach wear attire subject. I was feeling confident with my drawing skill and had a much better drawing of the model than I have ever had since I started the Life Illustration class. We also used gouache but this time treating it as a wash rather than a thick paste. Skin color was a bit tricky but Ir, my seatmate, and I were able to mix a decent looking paste to be used for skin color. Ir also had the idea of putting the mixture on the water for us to use as the base, which worked perfectly. It was the darker color for the shadows that was a bit tricky along with reflection of the model's clothes on her skin. I personally think time was too short so I'll probably be doing some more drawings over the holiday season.

Oh. Oh. Before I forget, I got a good score on my 3rd folio. The lecturer gave me just one perfect score among all the other items but it's still good. The denim and print render I made which I thought would give me a perfect score was 2 points off the perfect score. I was told to emphasize the shadows on the folds of the clothes and where two fabrics overlap. Still, I felt good about it.