Friday, May 30th, 2008
B I G simple summer stripe bag -summer prints COLLECTION
In honor of the last day of my making a garment a day project, I am going to give away one of these B I G bags. Just leave a comment by Sunday, June 1st if you’d like to be eligible to win. I’ll put all the names in a hat and choose one over the weekend and announce the winner here on Monday. You can see more images of the bag here.
Thanks again for all of your encouragement about this project over the past month. I couldn’t have been as productive without it!
One more garment today -update at 4:30pm in my shop.
Thursday, May 29th, 2008
Tomorrow is the last day of my little experiment in making a garment a day for my summer prints Collection. So far I’ve made 19 pieces of clothing and accessories. You call see the whole collection here. Seeing all the stripes, I think I should have called it the summer stripes COLLECTION.
It’s been an interesting challenge to me, in that I usually plan more and rework things multiple times. The time constraint has forced me to not think as much and work more directly with each garment. I do miss having the time to reflect on something mid-process though and I consider the things I’ve made to be almost like sketches. They all contain ideas that I will continue to work on.
I guess what I want to take away from this experiment is the immediacy and quickness of making and apply that to my regular process. Going back and forth between making quickly and reflecting seems like a perfect way for me to work.
The update for todays garment (using that grey stripe and buttons above) will be at 4:30 CST and then tomorrow is the last day! In honor of the end of the project, I’ll have a little surprise - so stop back here tomorrow.
Thanks again for all your comments, support and encouragement. It’s made it much more fun than it could have been otherwise.
Oh -and if you’ve possibly managed to miss this news -Jenny Gordy from Wiksten has a beautiful new collection debuting in her shop Saturday, May 31st at noon. She also has a new website and there you can view the incredibly stunning photos of her line photographed by Hannah Huffman.
Monday, May 26th, 2008
Thank you all for the nice comments about the ties. I have been eying up every piece of fabric I own thinking “oh, that would make a good tie”. I need to stop or else start peddling ties door to door.
I can’t believe it is Memorial Day weekend already. It’s early this year I know, but it seems like the snow just melted. I also can’t believe there is just one more week in May and one more week of making one garment a day. It went fast.
There won’t be an update today (Memorial Day) but I will have some women’s things on the other days this week. I’ve found that it’s much easier to make a children’s garment or an accessory in a day than a woman’s dress, but I have a few ideas for some woman’s things so we will see how it goes.
I also ran out of garment labels and didn’t have any ink to print more. The ink just arrived so if you’ve been waiting for an item it will be on it’s way in the next day or two. By the way, that’s my gocco screen for printing my labels above. I love seeing the used screen with all of the various grey shades of ink I’ve used over time. One of these days I will order some woven labels, but I do enjoy the process of printing my own.
A few very random things:
I’ve added a few links on my sidebar. These are sites that I like and I think I will just keep rotating them rather than put up a huge list. Eventually I’ll make a separate link page.
My friend Liz from Minneapolis just started a business selling gift bags for children’s parties. Gimme Bags come all assembled in a display box and there are tons of cute themes.
We went to Walker on the Green at the Walker Art Center on Friday night. If you’re in Minneapolis sometime this summer check it out -mini golf for the design minded. One of these days I’ll do a “why I love Minneapolis” post -the Walker is right at the top of the list.
Thursday, May 22nd, 2008
summer print ties, UNIFORM Studio, summer prints COLLECTION
Apparently I like to make ties. I made one and then immediately had to make 2 more. I’ve never made ties before and while I wouldn’t say they are easy to make, they sure are fun.
I was thinking about the upcoming summer (wishing that we would just have some spring here actually) and how there always seems to be a graduation party, anniversary or wedding to go to. And how cute little boys are in ties. The prints I’ve been working with seemed perfect for some little ties. These are lined in a light grey cotton stripe and they’re hand stitched down the back. That’s probably my favorite part.
We have a big milestone birthday party (of a good friend) - weekend trip coming up at the end of the summer and I think a couple of these with some crisp white shirts will be perfect.
Thursday, May 15th, 2008
This is what it looks like about 2 weeks in to my one a day project. Thank you all for your support, encouragement and kind words. It means so much to me.
I’ll be gone for a few days, so there won’t be an update tomorrow or Monday (May 16th & 19th). I’ll be back here on Tuesday the 20th.
Have a great weekend!
Wednesday, May 14th, 2008
front edge dress, UNIFORM Studio, summer prints COLLECTION
I have been working on and off on the ugly dress and finally had a realization the other day: It’s not actually ugly. It’s actually quite pretty. It’s just not me. I don’t mean it’s something I wouldn’t wear, but more that it’s something that just doesn’t feel right for me to design. I think the combination of the check and the gathers just put it over the top. Things that I am interested in exploring are usually more simple. I think it would be stunning in a solid fabric, and maybe I will try that in the future. I also feel that the fabric (again, for me) is better suited to a childs dress. I think that’s what it will become.
In the meantime, I started working with this wonderful, crisp, stretch cotton. A very simple shape with a bit of architectural detail seemed to fit this fabric. The front edges close face to face with snaps, causing the edge to stand out and the contrast facing to show.
I am so much happier with this one. I had a hard time putting it in the shop and am secretly hoping it doesn’t sell:) More images of the dress here.
Thursday, May 8th, 2008
So I had this (what I thought) perfect idea for a dress. I made some modifications to one of my old patterns and started in using this amazing lightweight cotton fabric in a grey check. This fabric just calls out for gathers. The dress started out great, and on first fitting on the dressform it looked good. Then the further in I got the worse it got.
I made modifications and it looked good again. I kept going and it got bad again. Forward and back. Right now it’s on the total reject pile. I’m not sure if I will resurrect it or not. We’ll see how I feel tomorrow. This image shows how wonderfully it gathers and how nice it is paired with a light grey cotton with fine white lines. The actual dress is atrocious.
And speaking of tomorrow, there will not be a new garment tomorrow either. I actually have two things ready to go, but no time to photograph them and I’ll be at school all day. I have to say that so far the most challenging thing (other than the grey dress) has been finding time during daylight hours to photograph.
Wednesday, May 7th, 2008
It’s only been three days in to my “one a day” garment making exercise, but I’m already pretty excited and feel re-energized. In architecture, working with a new or unfamiliar material or using a familiar one in new ways often proves interesting and unexpected results. I feel my process is somewhat similar for the summer prints COLLECTION. I’m not used to working with prints, or working with primarily prints, and it has been fun to let the print direct the design.
I’m especially excited about combining the prints, and so it has been hard to limit myself to one thing a day -I want to make combinations of printed garments. The enforced quickness is also addicting. But I have lots of other work I need to be doing too, so I need to restrain myself.
Thank you for all the wonderful comments and emails so far and a big thank you to those of you who purchased the first items from the summer prints COLLECTION. For those of you who asked, there will be some women’s items coming soon and possibly some accessories as well. I might also repeat a few things, with modifications. I feel like these are all samples and I want to continue to refine them.
And speaking of process, the final review for my architecture studio was today. The studio was focused on a subtractive design process and the students work was amazing. It was a long day and now it’s late and I’m afraid I’m not going to have my garment for tomorrow. Only three days in and already I’ve caved. But I did have two items for today and two yesterday….so technically I’m still ahead right?
Sunday, May 4th, 2008
Tomorrow, May 5th, I will start my one-a-day making marathon for my spring prints COLLECTION. As this week is my last week of teaching for the semester, and that’s always a hectic week, I actually started making a few garments over the weekend so I’d be a few days ahead.
This is how it will work: I’ll post some photos to flicker and then update the shop with the item of the day. Originally I said the update would be in the evening, but I’m going to change that to 12pm (noon) central time. If the time changes I’ll let you know ahead of time.
I plan on making a variety of garments for girls, boys and big girls too, in a variety of sizes. I think I’ll keep it pretty much of a surprise until the update, other than a glimpse here and there.
So far this has been really fun and just the spark I needed to get remotivated after our long grey winter. I can see that the quickness of this is going to be interesting. Already I have ideas for changes to the first garment I made -so I think this process is definitely going to be iterative.
Thursday, May 1st, 2008
For some reason I’ve been buying quite a bit of printed fabric lately. Not a large quantity of any one print, but smaller pieces of different ones. As I’ve been piling them up I realized I like how they’re all starting to go together. This is something completely new to me -I don’t usually use prints.
I’m still working on filling orders for fall and finishing up some special orders but I am longing to make some new things. Quick, fun, summer things that I can slip in between the production work to stay motivated. I read that Lisa at Le Bouton is making a new skirt every day until the end of May and I really like that idea -one a day.
So armed with my new prints, I’m going to give it a try. Realistically I probably won’t make something every day, but I’m going to try to make something almost every week day, starting next Monday, May 5th. Each garment will then go into the shop that evening. I’ll try to post photos to flickr prior to the update.
This is going to be fun.