Senior Collection: Belarus

I finally can share with you my senior collection, Belarus! I will do separate posts to go into detail on all these garments, but I'd like to share the group shots today.

Here you can see the breakdown, piece by piece, of the collection, along with the materials used.

All photos were taken by my brilliant photographer, Ben Hutchins. My insanely fun models, as pictured in the above photo, were Ashley Springstroh, Cassie Sue, Abby Lund, and Magdalena Skalsky. The photoshoot was one of the best days ever -- finally seeing my hard work come together and having the girls all together was magnificent. I'm itching to get back to sewing and knitting, looking at these photos! Thanks for letting me share my collection!!

Design Project: Coats and Sweaters

Well I am doing excellently at this blogging challenge thing! (Oops.) Honestly, I'd rather blog when I have something to actually write about, which I just don't have every day. But I do today, go me! 

This was part of my final portfolio project. It is the lead-in to my senior collection, which you have already seen bits and pieces of. For the most part, I wanted to get the aesthetic down before I worried about specific details on garments. I started out with a ton of hand-sketched croquis, with lots and lots of ideas. However, my sketches just did not seem as sophisticated as my digital drawings, so I re-did them on the computer, and I'm so glad I did. I love the result!

As I mentioned, the my personal goal was to get put a finger on the aesthetic I wanted. I was going for an old world feel, with timeless fabrics (wool, cashmere, tweeds, silk, cabling), intense detail, and some luxury. The kind of garment someone would wear apres-ski, in Aspen or the Alps. Kind of Sundance catalog/Gorsuch feel. Wait til you see my fabric -- I'm certainly inching into that price point, if nothing else!

I've ended up going a different direction with some pieces (for example, the jacquard sweater is now the fairisle sweater), but I definitely expected things to change. I am planning to do two or three coats, and as crazy as it sounds, I actually can't wait to begin slaving over them. There's just something about tailoring and fine wool that gives me butterflies!

Oh, I wanted to mention, I've become more active recently on Ravelry-land. Let's be friends, I love stalking projects! My username is AddieMarie :)

Finally, can we please have some LOLZ about how far I've come in my fashion illustration skills? More laughs here!

Design Project: Jacquard and Intarsia Patterns

This fall semester I took a portfolio class. It was a lot of fun and a lot of work, and I'm really happy with the outcome. We had a variety of projects that I will share, but one of my favorites to work on was this print design project. It was just not like anything I'd ever done before, and that made it exciting!

I settled on a rather weird color palate. Somehow I got really into orange, and just went with it! I decided to build the project around a cut-and-sew hoodie I had made last year, which was out of this awesome geometric double-knit jacquard (pictured below). With that to work from, I did jacquard and intarsia patterns only, with bold geometrics. It was a cool challenge to do knit-only patterns, because it meant limited colors (due to potential cost of multi-color jacquards, which would be astronomical if they were produced) and limitation in shapes (due to the structure of knit fabric). Below is my color palate, the original hoodie, and then a few of my prints photoshopped onto clothing I had made.

Another thing I enjoyed was that I got to play with multiple color combinations and offerings. I made about forty different combinations of colors and prints, hung them all up, and then narrowed them down in a very difficult decision-making process.

All of my croquis are drawn in Adobe Illustrator and colored and shaded in Photoshop. Prints were made in Illustrator. I can't find my absolute up-to-date JPEG files, actually; they are supposed to have slightly pixelated prints (to imitate a knitted chart), and a sweater texture overlay like the first photo. Oops!

The triangle sweater above is my absolute favorite, and I'm actually going to knit something very similar for my senior collection! I'm so stoked to see it come to life.

Capricious

I think I'm finally getting the whole college thing down pat. Maybe I'm just feeling self-satisfied for finishing a project an entire day ahead AND cleaning the house to boot. I also made bread and did laundry. I'll chalk today up as a victory!

A lot of my weekends are not victories, struggling against the ever-looming mass of homework whilst fighting the heavy desire to take a break (or lots of breaks). I have the worst case of senioritis, and as always, an inclination to complain. What an awful habit! But this weekend, I had fun and worked hard and it makes going into my week much easier. Being massively productive is my favorite!

My most recent project for Portfolio was to re-do a past technical project. I chose my knits pages. Above are a couple of my favorite shots from a photoshoot with a friend, and at the top is my cover page for the project. I did the drawings in Illustrator and filled them in Photoshop.

I hope I look back on this time in my life with plenty of fondness. Even if I'm mentally done with school, and even if I get stressed out too often, it's pretty amazing that this is my homework. I'm fairly lucky!

Kohl's Flash Mob + Life Lately

During my internship, some of my fellow interns planned a flashmob for a Friday afternoon at the corporate headquarters. How awesome is this?? It was so much fun to watch... and this video really makes me miss work and this summer. That was the best part about working there: the people were wonderful and fun and it made work an absolute joy!

So I have started my fall classes. Some are exciting, some are not. But it always gives me a rush to know that I get to do what I love and this is actually my homework. I get to sit and sketch and look up inspiration (Pinterest = homework! What?!) and put together color palates and play with fabric swatches. As much work as my major can be, it is so incredible fulfilling.

I've been revisiting old projects for my Portfolio Development class, and it's really invigorating to re-work projects from my sophomore year. I bought some new supplies, including pastels -- which I haven't worked with since elementary school -- and I'm loving the creative freedom. I really enjoy working in Illustrator and drawing in CAD, but it is so exciting to get messy and color by hand.

This is just a quick sketch, and it is by no means very good, but it's a good example of the kind of fun I've been having with charcoal and pastels. To say I'm stoked about this semester would be an understatement!

Fashion Show + Milwaukee Summer

Long overdue post. I put some things in our fashion show at school this year. It wasn't as big a deal and I wasn't as excited. But the stuff turned out pretty neat:

Some of this you've seen before; the jacket and the sweater, specifically. I put in class projects because I was too busy to do both looks entirely outside of classes. At that, it was really a stretch to get any of this finished! This first look is an alpaca cowl, black sparkly knit top, raw silk skirt (dyed ombre, though it's hard to tell because it was light brown to cream) with horsehair braid in the hem, and cut & sew knit moto jacket.



 

Look #2 was my first sweater project from my knits class, and jeans with (faux) leather accents. The jeans were made from a gorgeous denim I ordered from Mood Fabrics. The faux leather was also ordered from Mood, but that's a whole 'nother story. I intended to make a jacket with it, but when it arrived in the mail, it seriously looked like a crumpled up plastic garbage bag. Can you believe it was $14/yd?! I was so disappointed. I scrapped the jacket idea, and instead put in the cut and sew jacket (which was from a class).

 

But I knew I wanted some accents on the jeans, so I was able to sort of salvage the faux leather by spraying it lightly with flat black and dusty gold spray paint. It worked well enough that I could use it for the chevrons on the left leg, and for two painstaking triangle welt pockets in back.

 



In all honesty, the pants are too tight. The fabric has some stretch in it, and I just didn't adjust them enough to fit like real jeans. But this denim is amazing, and I have tons left over, so maybe another pair is in my future!

 

 

Above photo by Claire Kiger, via Facebook.



So that was one adventure. The semester ended in a whirlwind, and after collapsing at home for about a week, I went on to my next adventure: my ten-week internship at Kohl's Corporation in Milwaukee, WI! I don't have a lot of photos to show, but I'll just say, it was magnificent. I was in technical design and I got to learn so many things, work with great people, and help produce REAL product for people to wear. I am so excited to have had the opportunity.

 

Toward the end of July, I did something I've always wanted to do: I ran the color run!

 





 

Before & After!

 

It was a blast! I had never ever been fond of running before this summer. But I signed up for the run five weeks in advance, and decided I had to get out of my couch-potato state and start training. Even if it is just a 5K, going from walking to running 3 miles in five weeks requires a little bit of work!

 

I found a trail in Milwaukee that went alongside the river, totally into the woods, and just fell in love with it. It felt like I wasn't even in the city once I got on that trail! And for the first time ever, I started training the right way. Rather than going all-out, I took baby-steps, trying to not get hurt or sore or anything that would cause me to be un-motivated. I walked a LOT at first because I wasn't used to working those muscles. But slowly I got better, and by the time the race came around, I was leaps and bounds beyond where I'd been at the start! It was so exciting to run my FIRST RACE... and it's not going to be the last. :)

 

The summer was wonderful, and even on its own, the internship was an incredible experience. I grew so much as a professional and learned more than I have in many sixteen-week classes. I am really stoked to share the news that they offered me a full-time position starting after I graduate next summer. I can't wait to work for such a great company!



Aran Cable Sweater

I am so in love with machine knitting.  It is such a marvelous thing. I feel that I have so many possibilities at my fingertips and I can't wait to start the next project!

Let's go over the latest, shall we? This was my final project for my Knit Design & Technology class, which, of course, was everything I wanted and more. The class, that is! This sweater was only lovely once it was finished. Sound familiar, anyone? I decided to do an aran cable pattern on the front, with pointelles on top and bottom and a mix of jersey and reverse-jersey (or stockinette, if you prefer).

Well, I was CRAZY to do so. Here is a sweater progression and an explanation:

In machine knitting, the most basic stitch is a jersey stitch. On a single bed machine, doing anything other than jersey requires un-knitting a stitch, and re-knitting it in the reverse with a hook. So, all ribbing, garter rows, and what have you are done like this. By mixing the two, I had a whole lot of reversing on my hands. But on top of that, aran cables are a continuous transfer of stitches, used to create strong diagonal lines. Which means, every two rows, I had to transfer stitches in multiple places to new needles. What I'm getting at is, the front of this took me 26 hours (ish) to knit. Which is a heckuva lot of time for a machine--and about two weekends of mad knitting for a girl with already too much homework to do!

But with some perseverance and some late late nights, I finished a little early, and was able to get some photos at a bandstand in a park with my friend Lindsay. How great are these white walls?!

 

I am really happy with how it turned out. There are a few issues with fit that I will need to address in future sweaters -- armscye, mainly -- but nothing is so major that it will prevent me from wearing this! The yarn is KnitPick's City Tweed, DK weight, which is a luscious blend of merino, alpaca, and Donegal tweed (acrylic). I snagged it during their alpaca sale for an incredible $2.99 a ball, which prices this sweater at.... under $30. !!! However, I overestimated yarn by, like, a lot, and I have seven left-over balls to use up another time.

Look at all those neps! Never going to get over this yarn. Ever. The rest of the sweater is pretty basic--2x2 rib, crew neck, long sleeves, and so on. I had no creative energy after the front!

 

And here, just for fun, are a few of my portfolio pages for the project. I did an extended line, but since these don't have the swatches on them, I only included the pages with real pictures.

The sketches are done on the computer, printed, hand colored with Prismacolor pencils and brush markers, and then scanned back into the computer. The rest of the elements are done on Photoshop.

All the technical aspects. Charts are fun in theory, awful in reality!

You might have noticed that things look different around here! I revamped a little, just to neaten things up. Um, can you tell where I got my inspiration from, now that you've looked at my most recent portfolio pages? I love this font, okay? And the motif! And distressed lettering!

So that's my biggest news. I still have fashion show clothes to post, as well as some things I've been making since school is out for the summer... I start my internship in less than a week, and I've been making business appropriate shirts to wear! Hope to share them soon, we'll see how it goes with pictures.

What are your big summer plans?! I'm just amped to start working in industry, to meet more creative people, and to figure out what I want to do in life. Plus, summer in the city, festivals, and sunshine!

Sweater Design

It's been a crazy semester, and to be honest, I haven't been doing too well. I am working two jobs, and classes are hard--but they're always hard--and getting things together for our fashion show has been a little overwhelming. Or a lot overwhelming. Breakdown-worthy overwhelming. More than anything, I can't wait until I graduate (a grand fourteen months away). Maybe then, this tight ball of stress will no longer be a permanent fixture in my stomach. Maybe I'll be able to fixate more on family than on homework. Maybe I'll be able to sleep. And breathe.

Gosh, this is a depressing post. Anyway. I designed and made a sweater! I'm taking a Knit Design class, and bought a beautiful knitting machine at the beginning of the semester to make sure I could get everything done without going into lab. It's the best part of my week, being able to go to this class. Feels like playing, seriously. I used Knit Pick's Wool of the Andes sport weight yarn in Mink Heather... of course I had to have wool. What can I say, I was raised to be a bit of a fiber snob! Gimme some protein fibers and I'm a happy camper.

Now I'm working on portfolio pages for the project. Above is my first try at a more organic style sweater flat. Can't wait to pull out the pencils and markers and start coloring away!

P.S. Disregard my angst. It's senioritis come early, coupled with an inclination to take far too much on and an inability to say "no". This is how we learn our limits, I guess!

Mercurial Knitwear Collection

 Hello hello from snowy Minnesota! This is a four-piece knitwear collection I made in my cut & sew knits class this semester. The class was pretty easy, for the most part... I've been sewing knits for years (remember those t-shirt reconstructions?), so I got to find new ways to challenge myself by using interfacing, pairing fabrics with different stretch ratios, and inserting all kinds of pockets. It was all kinds of difficult to find proper fabrics--in fact, it was probably the hardest part of the class. Surprise, there's not much to choose from in the middle of nowhere, Wisconsin!

I did find some gems, though; most notably, this beautiful printed rayon/spandex lofty blend. It is a total dream to wear! These are my portfolio pages, following. We do this in pretty much every class,  and it only makes sense to present the work we've done in a concise fashion. Ignore the empty boxes where my fabric swatches go! These are just the electronic version of the pages... in the actual pages, I cut out the squares and under-mount the swatches.

 
 It is very important for these to clearly be technical pages. Thus, we add pattern corrections, fit alterations, sewing call-outs, and pattern development.

I am crazy about this hoodie and these leggings. Honestly, I wear them ALL THE TIME. More than I should. So comfy, so not sorry.

 I think I am going to put this jacket in the fashion show. I'm not positive, because I don't know what else I'm making, but it's a nice piece and I'm not letting myself wear it, just in case. It was my most difficult garment in the class--getting the zipper in and clean finishing it with the bottom band was near-impossible, rather head-ache inducing, and required a lot of finagling.

Aaaaand sequence of operations, pattern manipulation, call out of using the coverstitch machine, a beautiful fancy industrial machine with an air compression system (!) that just whirred like it couldn't be happier. Can you tell I loved it?

It's been an insanely busy year, and next year is shaping up to be even crazier. I'll have two jobs in the spring, classes like Functional Clothing Design & Knit Design Technology (knitting machine, here I come!), and an incredible summer internship coming up. And after that, I begin my senior year of college. How time flies.

Thank you for checking this stuff out. What do you have planned for the holidays? I'm home as usual, with the family, looking forward to staying cozy by the fire, and perhaps venturing out for some cross-country skiing. Whatever you have planned, have a Merry Christmas!