Manic Pop

 Sometimes I have a hard time deciding on a design for a certain fabric, specifically if it's not scrap fabric - a good time to use Photoshop! Doing this is also how I tested my print in the Cloud Dress the last time and it came out well! I think I know which direction I want to go, but I need your help! This dress will be made out of the amazing psychedelic fabric and yellow buttons that Max's mom gave me as part of my Christmas gift from a vintage shop, hereby naming it the "Judy Dress".  :) Let me know which version is the best!

I wanted to take the time to do a little post of photos my good friend Jane Chu took of me in September 2010. I had just gotten my SLR which she was teaching me how to use and she had an amazing camera at the time. We both met up downtown by the Art Institute and decided to wander around taking cool photos of each other. I think hers ended up amazing as I still love them to this day. The floral dress here is from now-defunct vintage store in Wicker Park called Lenny and Me. It was so funny this day because both of us ended up bringing giant garment bags and wearing things we could easily change in outside! We also brought some props here and there and found these fantastic orange and yellow trees along Lakeshore Drive!  Surprise - I made this top! It's a trapeze top with a diamond cut out back and a repurposed sweater as the collar. Jane Chu now lives in New York City.

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.