The Heather Line

Well, Heather has given permission to show her designs—which is probably a good idea because even though school is out for me I have still been insanely busy, and I don't know how soon I could show them to her in person.

The project was to interview a real, live person, find out a little about their lifestyle, what kind of clothes they like, how much they might spend, etc., and design three outfits for them.  Heather was the first to volunteer, so she got the interview.  :-)

Heather's tastes seem to be very similar to mine (in fact, when she comments on my other designs her favorites are usually mine as well).  She said she was open to anything, which kind of makes it harder to design for her. 

I also had to find out if she had any body issues to work around.  Pretty Heather is six feet tall, slender, and in her early thirties (such a good age to be!); I had a hard time imagining that she would have any body issues.  But we all do and so does she; I will not, however, reveal her hang-up here because it is nobody's business. :-)  I will say that I researched "how to flatter . . ." online, and found some answers.

I was supposed to draw the line, return for a second interview, and make any changes that she would prefer—or even scratch it all and start over again.  But I ran out of time before the assignment was due, so I just turned it in.  Then the teacher had a baby and Heather never got to see these at all—until now.  So she can post her opinions, or maybe some day we can get back together and finish this assignment the right way. :-)

Anyway, here is the original draft of my "Heather" line: 
 

for date night, or for church

First we have an A-line skirt in a slightly heavier/stiffer medium-weight fabric like twill or denim (to help hold it's shape). It has a pleated front, high, wide waist band, and contrasting buttons. The top is a poly-lycra blend with ruching at the bust and the shoulders, and buttons in the center front help draw your eyes right up to Heather's pretty face.  (By the way, it is hard to try to draw the face of someone you actually know.) 



for every day, or a night at the movies

Next is a blouse made of a lightweight cotton in orchid with a white-striped yoke, cinched in lightly with a thin belt.  It is paired with white jeans. (This blouse looks like something my sisters and I might have worn in the late 70's or early 80's—probably in a more earthy color back then.)  I chose colors from this Spring's palette, but wasn't really sure about this whole look for Heather.  So I tried re-coloring it (in Photoshop) and I think it might be a better match for her:

Heather looks really pretty in bright colors, so I changed the blouse to red with another red tone for the stripes in the yoke.  Change the white jeans for khaki pants and the white belt for one in cream, and I like the look better. The real question is, what does Heather think?



for a night on the town



Once a year Heather goes to a semi-formal/formal . . . event —a fireman's benefit or ball or something like that—with her husband, so I designed this outfit with that in mind.  She has a green, asymmetrical top with a half-cowled neck on one side, ruching at the waist on the opposite side.  The top is made of a silky, lightweight, stretch ITY (a knit fabric which doesn't really wrinkle and drapes nicely). The "bling" pieces at the shoulder and side are actually bar pins that can be removed so the top can be worn with jeans or slacks for a less formal occasion.  The skirt is fitted at the waist and hips, straight to the knees with a flare down to the hem.  It's made in a black stretch velvet—or a slightly heavier ITY fabric—for lovely drape, ease of movement, and a very dressy look.

So there you have it.  The Heather line, and the last of my Illustration work for Spring semester; this was a fun assignment to do, but I really would re-do the whole thing at Heather's whim.

In the meantime, I have other big projects going.  I'll tell more about them as they unfold. :-)

Same Missionary Bake Sale, New Rules

I've been debating with myself whether I'd do this sale or not because, frankly, we have a lot going on and I don't know that I'm up for a 48-hour baking marathon.  So I've devised a new plan: 

This bake sale is running from now until Wednesday, June 5.  You can order anything on the list (below) between now and then—for whatever day you want to have it—as long as you give us 24 hours notice to get the ingredients and do the baking.  Then you can pick up on the day that you want it.

I will not bake for you on Sundays, but any other day is open. (If you want something for a Sunday, we can have it ready for you Saturday—with enough notice. :-) )

So, for example, if you want something on Saturday, June 1, (or Sunday, June 2) let me know by Friday morning, May 31.  I will work on it Friday afternoon, and you can pick it up Saturday.  If you want something on a Monday, you will also need to let me know the previous Friday.

Does that make sense?

Here's what we'll have:



Cinnamon Rolls
Slathered with cream cheese icing
$4 per plate

 

Potato (dinner) Rolls
soft and delicious
$3.50 per dozen

Home-Baked Bread
White,
Cracked Wheat and Oatmeal,
or
Honey-Wheat
$3.50 per loaf



Coconut-Cream Pie
for coconut lovers: a smooth, luscious filling made with real
coconut milk, and piled with toasted coconut
$9.50

 

Lemon-Cream Pie
my personal favorite, made with fresh-squeezed lemons for a perfect balance of tangy-sweet deliciousness!
$9.50



Chocolate Mousse Pie
a melt-in-your-mouth chocolate dream:  rich, smooth filling in a chocolate crust, and topped with whipped cream
$13

 

Peanut Butter Pie 
Total decadence!  Uber-rich, creamy filling with just the right amount of peanutty goodness, topped with Reeses crumbles
and freshly-whipped cream.  Yum!
$9.50

   

Banana-Cream Pie
Rich and creamy, studded with perfectly ripe bananas and topped with fresh whipped cream
(Lindsey not included)
$9.50

 

Key Lime Pie 
Tangy lime filling in a graham-cracker crust,
topped with fresh whipped cream
$9.50

  

Fresh Strawberry Pie
Three pounds of red, ripe, juicy strawberries. 
What more can I say? 
Fresh. Strawberry. Pie.
Last time this season!
$13 



Lemon Meringue Pie
Yum!
$13 




Angel-Food Cake
a beautifully white (and virtually fat-free!) cake that goes great with just about anything you can think of (strawberries and cream, or lemon curd are my favorites!)
$7



Pina-Colada Layer Cake

(sorry, no photo.  :-(  )

Rich coconut cake, layered with pineapple filling, frosted with coconut buttercream and coated with toasted coconut.  Beautiful and delicious!

$17

And . . .

Chocolate Eclairs

(sorry, no photo.  :-(  )

As marvelous as you'd expect:
creamy, gooey, chocolatey pastries. Yummy!

$8 per dozen 

Oooh!  I just realized that this is a great time to order your graduation goodies!  If you order by Wednesday morning,
June 5 you can pick up any time Thursday—graduation day!

If you want something for Memorial Day you need to order right now.   Literally,  RIGHT NOW! (Friday morning, Friday morning, May 24) :-)  And you will need to pick-up by 10 a.m. on Mem-Day—we have a family thing at noon.

Thanks for helping to support our missionary!!


p.s.  If you'd like to help Jason out, but you don't want the baked goods (go figure!) we are working on setting up a PayPal account for donations.  I'll post the link here when I have it figured out.
Thank you all so much for your support—you have truly been wonderful! :-)

I can breathe easy . . .

All A's Again! (How alliterative!)

I thought this semester would ruin my GPA . . . thought I might get something terrible like a B . . . and possibly in more than one of my classes.  But all is well. >deep sigh<

Two semesters left. I am not quitting. I will have earned my two degrees of fashion in May of 2014, and I will walk.

Kaylie Turned Twelve Today!

Today was this beautiful girl's birthday. 

She came into the world screaming at us for treating her so rudely (when my mom came to visit us in the hospital, the nurse told her she would find us by following the sound of the very loud baby).

She is bright and clever and sweet and we are so glad to have her around.

Happy Birthday Kaylie!

More Illustration 2

How could I forget this one?

We were supposed to exaggerate any one feature—hips, feet, nose, etc.—within a ten-head croquis framework; I decided to make a pregnant croquis. Here is the first design in my "Barefoot and Pregnant" line:

The teacher (who, you may recall, just had a baby) asked the class if they would wear this dress if they were pregnant and the answer was a unanimous, "NO!" 

I wouldn't either . . . not in hot pink anyway. ;-)

Actually it is a really cute maternity dress design that I copied from one I found online.  I decided to color it in a shade I'd never used in my class yet, so I grabbed the hot pink pencils without thinking it out further.  And that is how I came to draw "Maternity Barbie."  Think Mattel would go for it?

Illustration 2

I feel a little nervous and edgy.  The last few weeks of school were hectic and rough—punctuated by a four-day trip to Phoenix and back.  I really need a break!  But now I am home and I don't know what to do with myself.  Not that there's nothing to do—there is plenty to do: major catch-up on housework, slopers and patterns—and dresses—to make for my girls and myself, a bolero for a friend's daughter, getting ready for camp in two weeks . . .  Yes, there is plenty to do.  But I haven't gotten into the swing of being home yet and I feel uneasy—like something is not right. Maybe in a couple weeks I'll feel better.

Anyway, here are my Illustration 2 projects that I never posted:

The first assignment was to decide what type of designer we are or what type of clothes we like to design.  I have told you that I don't really think of myself as a designer, but that answer was not an option.  I finally decided that I really like dresses—very feminine, girlie stuff.  So here's what I drew:

Hey! That blue one looks familiar!

The next assignment was to go to a public place and spend twenty minutes absorbing the look and feel of the place and sketch what we saw.  Then we had to make a three-piece line based on that place. I was super busy that week and never made it anywhere, so I drew the road construction a couple blocks from home.  This was in the early winter and everything was muted and gray and white, with only one splash of color.

Here is my "Under Construction" line:

Everyone liked the one on the right—they said you wouldn't forget her when the evening was through.

I also had to make a detailed drawing of anything.  I chose my pin cushion:

This might be my favorite. :-)

The next project was to interview someone and design three outfits for them. I haven't showed these designs to my "client" yet, so I can't show you the Heather line—that would hardly be fair.  I'm thinking I might need to re-do some of them anyway.

Then, in the middle of everything, the teacher had a baby.  Part of this class requires that we learn some Photoshop, so while she was gone our sub (her brother) worked on that  with us.  I was kind of excited because I've been wanting to learn some new Photoshop techniques, but we really didn't do much more than I've already figured out by myself over the years.

For our mid-term we were given three choices of projects; I can't remember the others but I chose the "Family Heritage" project.  We were supposed to research our family history and create five designs based on what we learned. Brazil was the no-brainer choice (my mom is from Brazil), and I also did some Portugal designs—not because I know of any ancestors from Portugal, but because I wanted to draw my Rooster of Barcelos dress.

So here are my Family History designs:



Brazil
colored like the flag, with tiered ruffles like Carmen Miranda :-)



Also from Brazil, her dress is designed for the
Baianas my mom often told me about.
Her left hand is in the "figa" position—for good luck.

a Brazil-Portugal crossover
—Carmen Miranda ruffles, Portugal coloring

a take-off from the traditional Portuguese blouse

The Rooster of Barcelos
I really wanted to draw the front of this one too, but I ran out of time.  Maybe over the summer.
Anyway, this dress is made of satin and organza and beaded, embroidered, and bejeweled.

And those are my Illustration 2 projects.  My favorites are the Brazil flag and the Rooster of Barcelos. :-)

And now I anxiously await my grades.  I expect I've gotten an A in three of five classes; I'm actually a little worried about this one because of a very poor sketch that only got half points. :-/  And I have no idea what to expect from Entrepreneurship. Maybe a B?  We'll see . . . we'll see.

Mother's Day

I love my kids!

Outerwear

Well, I am finished with Spring Semester!  Amazingly, some time during the middle of the semester I had this epiphany:  I don't really care if I don't get a 4.0 this semester. 

Well I care, but not as much as usual. 

Anyway, now you are going to be subjected to my projects, beginning with Outerwear.

I signed up for Outerwear—which, by the way, is a 1000 (entry)  level class and has no prerequisites—expecting that I would go in there and make a coat. And I did make a coat.  But before we did any sewing we had to come up with an inspiration board, draw ten different designs, and make our own patterns.  Okay.  I can do that (although I didn't really want to) because I have already taken all the illustration and pattern-making classes. And so, fortunately, did all the other three students in my class. It was a little irritating, but I could roll with it.

We spent eighty percent of the class drafting our patterns.  Seriously.  I only spent two class periods actually sewing—mostly prep stuff—and finished the whole rest of the coat in only three days last week.  That was no fun. That made for a stressful last week of school.

But, from the beginning . . .

First of all there was the whole "mood/inspiration board" thing.  The teacher is basically telling us we have one week to get inspired, and to paste our inspiration to a black foam-core board, and to come back and tell the class our deep and profound, inspirations.  Hmm.  Well.  My inspiration was to make a coat and pass this class that's required for my degree.

I decided to make a coat for Jessica.  Really Bruce needs a coat more than she does, but with the appropriate fabric coming in at $25 per yard a coat for a 6' 5" man was a bit much to swallow.  But Jessica will need a new coat next winter, so that's all good. (As it turned out, I spent about $100 to make this little coat anyway.  And I didn't even buy the "technical" fabric that I would have gotten for Bruce.)

Inspiration . . .  Inspiration . . .

I decided to make a Jessica collage.  She likes soft things—stuffed animals, fuzzy blankets, etc., and she is soft and girlie, has soft coloring herself . . .  and she loves the color blue. So I took some pictures of her favorite things, a picture of her, mounted them on blue paper and then onto the black board.  And I was told that my "inspiration" was unprofessional, and that including a picture of my child was taboo, and the things she liked weren't cohesive.  Maybe, the teacher suggests, I could use the sky as an inspiration.  The sky makes her think of childhood; it has that soft look; it is blue. So, Okay.  I changed my inspiration to the sky.

I found this online and Photoshopped the color because it was really more green than blue.

Next we had to have ten drawings of coats that reflected our inspiration. How many different children's winter coat designs—in blue, with a cloud, sky and/or bubble theme—can you come up with?  I got my ten drawings, but the coats, as you can see, are all pretty similar.



the winning design

We, as a class, voted for the puffy clouds coat.

Then it was pattern-making, pattern-making, pattern-making.  Now the teacher is about half my age . . .
no, really—she is half my age. But I figure she knows what she's doing, and I can learn from anyone, so I ask lots of questions as I go about my work.  I got the pattern drafted, sewed a mock-up and got it fitted.  It was a very good fit—for a shell with no batting or lining in it, and for a person who is not going to possibly get bigger in the next nine months.  While my teacher was praising the fit, I was questioning it. I told her my concerns over and over again, but she said it would be fine; I could add 1/4-inch to the side seams if I was worried about it. I actually added 3/8-inch  to each seam.

Then there was (were?) the sleeves.  When you make a sleeve pattern, the sleeve head should be up to 1-inch bigger than the arm scye (sorry—arm hole). Then you gather the sleeve and it fits in beautifully.  My sleeve was the exact same size as the arm scye. It looked OK, but I asked about this too.  No, she said, it is just fine.

A lot of outerwear has zipper-pockets, but I didn't want zippers in my pockets.  I thought maybe I should put a flap—even a flap that snapped closed—over them, but she said no, it should be fine.  OK.

Finally the coat was finished, just in the nick of time—Friday morning, the day it was due.

with the hood down

with the hood up

I put it on Jessica and guess what . . .  It is too snug.  Too late now!  I had to go to the  . . . my brain keeps wanting to say "inquisition."  I had to go to the critique. (They are both Q words. ;-) )

Here I am, showing off how cute Jessica is, and telling the panel about how inspired I was ;-)

And guess what the judges said?

"Why didn't you put in a zipper or snap closure on the pockets?"
"It's a little tight."
"You should have had more ease in the sleeves."

Aaaaarghhhhh!

(Okay.  Before you ask . . . No. I did not tell them that I had asked the teacher about those things and had followed her advice. It would sound kind of petulant, don't you think?)

They mentioned a few other problems that I had seen for myself when I first put the finished coat on Jessica, and we discussed those. But, overall, the panel really liked my coat—colors, design, construction, detail in the clouds, etc. They used words like "adorable" and "very cute."  They thought it matched "my" inspiration very well, and said that it was well-made.

 Well, I got my A in Outerwear.  And, really, I learned a lot from this class.  Yes, I did. 

I learned that I really should trust my own judgment and instincts more. And now that I see where my mistakes were, I will probably make a slightly bigger—and better—coat for Jessica to wear next winter.