I’ve been written up twice in a local Vietnamese fashion magazine called Potunia.
Diana Souza and Ava Carmichael came over to take some photos of my fashions and of me hanging out and looking sewy in my old studio at the Continental Gin building. I’ve posted a gallery of the photoshoot here:
http://www.nordahlia.com/?page_id=688
As I work on rearranging, organizing, and decorating my studio, here is a shot of what it looked like before there was anything in it but me.
Here are the Winnie the Pooh plants finalized.
We got to test the lights under the angel, which you can see in some of her pictures, though it’s probably a lot more impressive at night.
Also, we took a video of dressing them which will be posted as soon as we finish editing it.
I want this grandpa:
Full article here:
Today I hosted Craft Day, as I do once a month, through www.meetup.com/weirdery so I finished up all the machine sewing the night before and saved all the non-machine-related finishing stuff for today. I’ve used my sewing machines during Craft Days before, but it’s always a lot of work to haul them out of my studio, it takes up a lot of space on the table, and it’s too loud to easily join in the chatting, which is the whole point of hosting a public Craft Day.
Here are all the faces drying on the catch-all table I keep swearing I’m going to straighten up:
So today was about sewing the snaps onto Eyore’s chin, rubbing glue into everyone’s eyes and smiles, and styling the angel’s and Christopher Robin’s hair. For that part, I used FrayCheck, since it had worked so well on Eyore’s mane.
I put Angel’s face over the back of a chair and a pillow to get it to stand up while I was working on it. For Chris Robin, I found a cooler option:
Now I want to make another one that I can keep!
When I look at fashion sites or cut up old magazines, I often get ideas for some sort of pocket detail or a clever use of buttons, or just inspiration like “hey, that chiffon skirt looks great blowing in the wind . . . oh yeah, I like chiffon!” But there is also a lot of crap out there.
It just occurred to me that I have posted two complaints about fashion in fairly rapid succession. So that I don’t wind up looking like a grouch or a bully or Joan Rivers, I thought I’d go in search of some inspiring fashion.
Here is a lovely grey, double-breasted pea coat, similar to what I was envisioning for D.’s winter coat when I finally get a chance to make it–though I’m debating a Nehru or Nehru-like collar and/or a hood.
So I’m scanning the fluff fashion sites in search of something really awful or something really awesome and I come across Lucky Magazine’s “cute girl of the day.” Just as I’m expecting to find something targeting either men, lesbians, or any other inadvertent user of the Male Gaze, it switches to the title “cute *outfit* of the day.”
None of them seemed all that cute; they were largely inoffensive, but unexciting. This is the breaking fashion news? Stuff someone might put together halfway through their laundry timeline?
But this one–I’m still checking it over for some hint that she’s a troll inspired by the Man Repeller. All it needs is a skirt to make it the final shot in a monochrome-themed “Lesson in Layering.”
I did a second fitting for Owl this morning on the way to Thanksgiving dinner/lunch. I had planned to take a picture of the whole guy, but forgot and wound up just taking pictures of the problem areas.
Here’s me measuring the gap with my finger (each finger segment is about an inch).
When I’m bored or waiting for someone and have just finished reading my mail and signed out, I flip through the yahoo articles. A headline of “tacky dress” caught my eye.
The problem the author had was that her belly button ring showed. I have no problem with cutouts to display tattoos or jewelry (as long as it’s not nipple rings), but it just doesn’t flow well that there’s already a gem there, AND there’s a belly ring competing for that diamond. Plus, the bellybutton ring apparently only showed when she moved, which is sloppy and obviously accidental. One of the first rules of creative design in EVERY field is to make sure it’s apparent that it’s on purpose.
I have a novel I’m working on about which an agent said, “I can’t tell if it’s the character who is awkward and uncertain or if it’s the writing.” It’s supposed to be the character, a nerdy homebody who is drawn out of his shell just a little bit by the end of the intentionally low-curved story arc. If that’s not apparent, I’m not doing my job as a writer and it does need a rewrite.
My biggest problem with this dress, however, is that the designer used unsupported charmeuse for a bodice that needs complete stabilization. These cutouts look sloppy. They look like fashion undergrads at the Art Institute trying to demonstrate that they took and understood the pattern-making class. I freaking hate bubbling along charmeuse seams. I’m aware that it’s nearly impossible to sew on that stuff without some bubbling, but this bodice is just covered with it; it looks like projects I’ve thrown away in failure.
I went to Joann’s for some brown burlap, only to discover that there IS an online coupon for a single item, as well as a current total-order coupon in my wallet (those usually expire and I finally throw them away a couple months out of date), AND apparently the one fabric Joann’s carries for cheaper than Hancock’s is burlap. On top of all that, the girl who wound up cutting my fabric and ringing me up and making sure I got the maximum coupon benefit was knowledgeable and exactly the kind of clerk you hope for in a fabric store.
So I’m driving out to the location starting to feel pretty good about having to start over on Owl, or at least as good as can be felt. I look over at the animals as I pull up, hoping to see a glimpse of a white bag . . . and there is Owl, fully dressed. I never pulled his wrapping off when I packed up the last time I was there. To be fair, I had 7 large trash bags, it was dark, and so was owl. So here’s me, the biggest, but happiest spaz in the world.
On the plus side of this whole extra trip, Angel and Pooh got second fittings, which they might not have done, given the tight deadline. I haven’t finished the angel’s head yet, but I tested what I’ve got and had a chance to see the burlap art I decorated her dress with. Here is a burlap interpretation of a Sacred Heart.
Up the side of her dress:
I need to move the heart at the top; while working on the pieces separately, it wasn’t readily apparent where the overlap was.
These appliques are winding up getting made out of the loosest weave burlap, so they crumble as I put them on, and I noticed on Tigger, they were already starting to shred their way off. Stitching them on more securely would take forever as well as warp the fabric. So now all the appliques will be covered with ground-in school glue:
