Manic Pop

I don't do many music posts anymore, but when I do you'd better listen up! Slight background: My more or less apathy toward music these days can be attributed to me being a music consumer since I was... ok, born but I seriously got into contemporary music ("modern rock") when I was 8 years old and begged my dad to buy Weezer's blue album because I was obsessed with Buddy Holly . I also liked Alanis Morrisette, Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, and Stone Temple Pilots but that's beside the point. My dad was a huge influence seeing as how he was (and sometimes is) in bands, mostly progressive rock/metal in nature but my favorite album as a kid was the Beatles Past Masters album, volume 2 with "The Ballad of John and Yoko"on it, not the one with "She Loves You" on it. Help! was one of my first favorite movies because it was so colorful and odd. Over the years I have progressed away from "modern rock" and more so back to the ...

I came up with this sort of collage-thing after not finding anything I liked online and took to Photoshop like I always do. Though this blog wasn't technically started a year ago (a little more, actually) it is a whole year from when I decided to make it a regular thing - a New Year's Resolution of sorts to make more things than I had before. I highly recommend this to any designer who is stuck in a rut. For me, I would make things and then have no way to share, get feedback, or overall display it besides Deviant Art but DA isn't really known for people finding fun fashion-related things. This was a much easier route. It's easy to post to Facebook, easy to make a FB page for, and I can direct people here to see work. My personal life this year was full of ups and downs: From losing my cat Arthur to cancer, to getting new cats Percy and Beatrix, to re-finding my current boyfriend Max, to breaking up from a 3-year relationship, and taking on more financial respo...

Here it is! The 2nd iteration of my Mix n Match dress, yet again from all recycled fabrics. Mainly, these were just pieces of fabric that I had chilling in my fabric closet. Now that I think about it, I think the dark blue is from a jacket from computer patternmaking (the hem still needs to be done, 5 years later.) The red grid fabric is from... who knows where. I definitely didn't buy it, but it's cute!   The back is actually sewn flat/well but given that there is zero stretch in this fabric... it's not super-close to the body. I'm totally fine with it. Here's the thing: much of the vintage fashion I see/wear/own etc. doesn't fit like today's clothing. Why would you expect it to? Like I mentioned before, things will not "fit like a glove" or super-close to the body unless they are tailored that way . This dress has so few seam lines that it's not going to fit like a fabric with 50% stretch. It's not jersey knit, it's a woven! ...

Ta da! I am finally finished with a collection of boards, this one for faux-collection called "Blueprint". The collection consists of clothing designed basically after some really cool furniture I found scrounging around online. See the inspiration board here. I actually didn't even expect this to get done today, but I am a zipper and hem away from finishing a new dress as well! The next set of design boards I plan on working on is a set of knitwear designs. We'll see how that one works out as I have never thrown a knitwear design board into Photoshop. I also was thinking: the beginning of this year when I started my blog, my goal this whole year was to re-teach myself knitting again. Looking back, I re-taught myself knitting by making the knitted the cuffs, collar, and waistband of this jacket and then ended up making my own pattern to design and then make my knit hood ! So, it's been a successful learning year. In fashion design, there is always ...

It's been a moment...  I can assure you I am busy working on projects but also working at a store there are many holiday things that are happening. I am currently working on a fun little mod colorblock shift dress (see crappy camera phone photo below!):  (This one is getting a peter pan collar on it!) But for now, I am posting some old jacket design boards from the end of 2011! I still really like these, particularly the peter pan collar one with the lime green, orange, and blue psych-pattern. Flats board.                               Inspiration board. Croquis board.

So 2 days ago, while walking direct-route at about 8:15pm on a Sunday night I was robbed at gunpoint. Yes, at GUNPOINT. This was right by the same park that me and Max took these photos. That neighborhood is generally a very safe neighborhood to be in, but during this time of year crime spikes everywhere. For the record, I was not in the park , but walking direct-route past it and it is very well-lit and a very residential neighborhood. I guess I was just in the right place at the right time. Even sitting in the police car afterward, there were people milling about - walking their dogs, just walking, etc. So weird. Needless to say, I was without my phone for 2 days as well as had to re-collecting any cards I had, my CTA card and... wallet. This is where my craftiness comes in. I searched the internet and stores all over town for a wallet that was worthy enough to top the old wallet I had which has been an amazing design for about 5 years... but no luck. Not to sound picky, but ...

Yesterday while wandering around, running errands I stopped as a last-ditch effort to find what I was looking for (didn't find it) at the Salvation Army in Uptown. Sitting on the bookshelf, grabbing my attention was this book with "KNITTING" printed on the side. I have a number of knitting books, but still I lacked a knitting book that showed me how to do almost everything. No longer - this book has EVERYTHING in it. (There's a point to this post, trust me.) I am not nearly an expert knitter by any means - I'm really still figuring things out and it's likely a seasoned knitter will find problems in my knit design pattern I posted. (I'm pretty great at sewing now however and making my own sewing patterns.) I already see the error in my knitting  of how I used a decrease that makes my stitch pattern swing to directions I would prefer it not - however, that's the beauty of learning things. This book answers practically every knitting question I ever h...

So I was excited to get to spend this past Thanksgiving out in Michigan to visit my step-dad Jerry! We drove out on Tuesday and ended up having Thanksgiving on Wednesday because both me and Max unfortunately had to work Black Friday. This is the place I grew up in since I was 11 after moving from Connecticut - surrounded by the woods. This is also the same town we went to earlier this year for Memorial Day for the big town parade.  Here's the chicken coop again where we actually used to keep chickens! The fencing is long gone around it and it's more of a scenic thing with a garden around it.  Of course, I had to go outside with my knitting even though it was just a little too cold. Definitely wasn't a normal November/Thanksgiving day sort of weather. But it was nice enough to be fine in this heavy cardigan. I got it long ago from Urban Outfitters on wayyy sale for about $10. Only recently have I been pairing it with things.  I normally don...

Part of my winter project is to update my fashion design portfolio because as we all know, fashion fades (style is eternal?). My goal is to have 3 mini "collections", 3 boards a piece - a total of 9 boards in all! I'm currently hitting all of my self-imposed due dates, the last one being March 20th, and should have the croquis board done for this mini collection by December 3rd. Next up after this is hopefully a whole mini-line of fun knitwear designs, but we'll see if I get a different inspiration. Who knows!    I probably should wait to "unveil" all this boards at once, but I'm not one to do things like I "should".  This one also finally has a name, inspired by odd and/or retro furniture: BLUEPRINT.        It's been fun doing these and much less tedious since when I was in school. I still don't do my flats in Illustrator, but I like the way they look better this way.  Side note: I think I might...

I finally got around to taking some photos of my knit hood which is an original pattern of mine! I've been wearing it around a lot this past week and it's been getting a lot of attention. A co-worker wanted to steal it and my sister wants one (I started knitting a deep red one for her!)  This is pretty big for me - I had no idea I could make a pattern again for a knitwear garment. I also don't think I truly learned how to increase and decrease (at least didn't retain how to correctly), and truthfully, I don't know a whole lot about knitting! I was inspired by a photo in a 60s teen magazine (I didn't end up buying) which made me want to try to create a pattern and knit one myself. I was actually looking online for a version of a knit hood, but when I couldn't find one, I resorted to what I always have to do anyway - make one yourself! This is obviously the whole reason I went to school for fashion design, haha.  One day while riding the bus, I wa...