Manic Pop

So lately, I have been having a TON of fun with online custom print clothing shop called Kin Custom . I guess in a way it's a bit like drop ship print sites like Society6 or Zazzle or RedBubble, but I think it appeals to the designer in me since they have a bunch of different styles to customize.  People have always been hounding me -- "When are you going to release your line/collection(s)?!" for like the past 10 years. Many of us who have been in or exposed to the industry for real know that starting your own line, manufacturing, and getting that rolling is prohibitively expensive. To make it even worse, most of the time when no one knows who you are, it's much harder to sell product to nearly anyone! And who wants to spend about $10k on your 1st clothing line when no one knows who you are, you are not guaranteed to sell it? What do you do when you create a line no one likes and no one buys? Well.....enter in Kin Custom ! No startup fees. You design ...

Ta daaaaa! I cannot remember the last time I did a mini fashion collection, illustrated it, and "released" it. Generally, I have an inspiration board for these types of things but this time I just went with fabric inspiration first and played with sketching silhouettes, using the same color palette throughout. The fabric on the right here is my "soundwave" repeat that I drew out with Prismacolor marker initially and then played with a repeat. I used this print in the "collection" here.  And below are the flats (no, I did not draw out the back - haha) and colorways of the collection. I like how it came out! I realize that technically, I should use Illustrator for all my flats, but I tend to be a rebel. I am Illustrator capable (and have posted flats with Illustrator prior) but I have much more fun when I can draw, ink, and then scan them in for coloring in Photoshop. But nearly 10 years out of fashion design school, I hav...

Recently, I went on a tech-sketch binge. Believe it or not, this is my favorite part of the process in fashion design; it's where ideas come to life, colors, patterns, textures look more like real-life, and when you move forward with an idea or not. Yes, it's nice to have a finished garment from your mind right in front of you, but I love front and back technical sketches so much. All done in Illustrator and Photoshop by me. All are fictional garments except for one... see if you can spot which one!

It's about time I posted something that I designed myself! I made this skirt 9 weeks ago (so January 5th or so) but am only now getting a chance to post it. Behold, the Sport Skirt! (I don't know why that name popped into my head whenever I thought about it, it just did.) Now, if this skirt and the colors look familiar, that's because it is! Way back in 2012, I made a dress that I called the Mix n Match Dress and the skirt looked exactly like the Sport Skirt. See below: I also had leftover ponte knit fabric from my Kwik Sew dress from mid-to-late last year and wanted to get more into stretch knit pattern making (see below). So, those two together..... TA DA!  I did have to adapt my old pattern to a stretch knit pattern. I actually didn't even use my old pattern but adapted my blocks to a stretch knit pencil skirt shape and used my old pocket pieces as a reference for how I would make the pockets.  As with most stretch knits,...

Sometimes I like to make life difficult for myself and this dress experiment is no exception. This is one of those designs that came to me one day and I just had to get working on it. The process I used to make it is much like the Trafalgar Dress. I created a silhouette I wanted and then went ahead and traced the lines I wanted onto the muslin. I had also recently seen this tutorial on sewing opposing curves without pins and wanted to try it for myself. Lately, I have been cranking through the fabric I have and I have a TON of little teeny scraps. Needless to say, I used the scraps for the colorblocking on this dress.  The dress isn't 110% perfect as the opposing curves even though clipped and pressed (a ton) still don't lay entirely flat, but I am mostly pleased with the design detailing of it. The dress is also fully lined! I needed a way to encase all of the clipping that was going on, so I just went for a full lining.  Here are some photos of...

So I had this dress I like to call "The Space Dress" hanging around in my closet upstairs and I thought, "Why don't I ever wear that thing?" Then I realized it was the sleeves. So I took them off! I made this dress sometime back in 2012 and apparently a few things have changed about my body since I last wore it. I can't even believe 2012 is 3 years ago. Observe how the exact same dress fit me back then. I always have my measurements saved in my pattern making book somwhere and around then, the measured at 33" but in 2015.... I have gained nearly 2 inches on my hips! Thus, less movement and more....bunchiness. Whoops. My bust size has also increased an inch and my waist is only about a 1/2" bigger so... yeah. I guess I have a more womanly body at almost 30 years old now. Either that, or it's a combo of winter weight as well as living in Michigan and driving all the time. Or maybe I've had time to relax and actually not be stres...