I moved!

I didn't die or stop blogging or anything like that. On the contrary: I moved to tumblr! Come on over and see all the adventures I've been having. My new home is Light, Sharpness, and Song.

In which I am not deaf or stressed, actually.

As the good and almighty internet advised me, my ear was healed of its own accord within the span of a month. Unfortunately, this healing time encompassed finals week and half of summer break. The other half was dedicated to completing my finals, which were successfully submitted two days before the beginning of this term.

Lest it sound as though my life has been naught but sorrow and tribulation of late, I will reveal to you my newly rediscovered sense of relaxation, brought on by the necessity of convalescence and the decision to reduce my course load from fifteen to nine credits, both for the sake of my mental state and my educational fund, which has been placed in a money market account for the duration of the recession. It is safe, but not earning interest. Logic tells us that by not using up my resources as quickly as I have been I will have more remaining to re-invest once the stock market takes a turn for the less horrifying. Other benefits of this decision include fingernails-a detail directly indicative of my stress level-and the ability to dedicate plenty of time to my tutoring job, as well as small commission knitting projects, all of which make my bank account less frightened.

I've made more things.



Actually, this is sketchbook, not projects. For the sake of my portfolio class I have been scanning in many of my projects.









Those are much neater if you see the theme/mood collages that inspired them, but I felt that scanning them was less important.

Next, my two final projects from last term. I had more than two, obviously, but you are very much not interested in seeing technical flats or spec packages.





Apparently I don't have the second project with me, but I swear it will uploaded sometime within the next few months.

I Want My Ear Back

Last Sunday I woke up with labyrinthitis. I'm getting better at compensating for the vertigo, but it would be really nice if my hearing came back sometime before the next term starts.

Seriously, Pi. I have better stuff.

I was trying to break out of my autumnal comfort zone. The fabrics chosen for this collection were all natural fibers and easy care.


Concept board and mini-collection based on an assigned theme.



Concept board with illustrations, technical flats, and material swatches. This was my final project for a digital apparel presentation course.




Final collection for a concept and development class. This project was inspired by my brother's girlfriend.


I'm in a digital print design course right now, so I have lots of prints. This one is meant to be inspired by Lotta Jansdotter.



This started out by making one of those fold-and-cut paper snowflake things. I then had to develop a color story from an image of my choice and design 3 companion prints.



This collection of prints is inspired by Orla Kiely. I'm told my little tree motif looks quite a bit like an alien, but her designs are abstract, so I'm claiming that mine is as well.

There's quite a bit more, including things I'd have to scan in, but I have to go to class now (wheee outsourcing 353 >_<). I'll post the rest when I get back. Also, I apologize for the janky formatting. Blogger wants to hate on my face today, it seems.

I Should Be Sketching

I'm procrastinating instead. On the upside, my Pandora stations are becoming very well-groomed. I'd vow once more to document and post my projects, but we all know how useful such a promise is when there are less than two weeks left in the term.

In Which I Offer Proof that I Have, in Fact, Been Making Things.

BEHOLD! My ridiculously expensive education is actually doing something!


This is from last term. It's a digital rendition of a small art piece I did way back in high school. I think the assignment was something to do with showing depth by using the principles of design.

Also from last term. One of my assignments was to design a logo and matching set of collateral for a fictional business. Please note that my instructor, not I, selected the company name.


This is less impressive unless you've seen my first attempts at fashion figures. I'll scan the whole sorry progression in for you, but it will have to wait until I can bring myself to go back to school. My scanner has taken a turn for the craptacular.

I went from a layout of 3 basic croquis (those alone took me 8 weeks to learn how to draw) to creating a customer profile to designing a line of 10 swimsuits for said customer to creating a stylesheet from the 6 best swimsuit designs. For my final I then had to select one of my designs (or create an entirely different one for that same consumer, but why bother?), draw it in 3 different views on the aforementioned croquis, accessorize it, ink the line drawings and accompanying flats, add a cohesive grounding device, accurately shade and colour the figures, and enlarge the whole shebang onto a nice, clean sheet of bristol board. Mine actually turned out really nicely, despite the fact that it wasn't nearly as colourful as those produced by my classmates. If you're interested, the inspiration for this was an ad I found at the beginning of the term featuring Cate Blanchette in a leather aviator cap.

I got an A on both my final and for the whole class, despite the instructor's first session speech about not expecting to get an A. She also made it very clear that she didn't think hard work was enough to net us a decent grade and that she only gave out As to students who produced work of which she was envious.

This teacher made me cry on 4 separate occasions. However, I miraculously managed to produce work that was to her standards, if not quite up to mine and consistently earn As on my weekly assignments. I'm still not sure how this happened, but I refuse to question it any further.


A print ad I designed as part of my Intro to Apparel Design final project. Basically, my partner and I had to go through the entire pre-production half of the apparel design process, creating a series of presentation boards to illustrate our progress. I could take pictures of all our boards, but, well, they currently reside at school. My partner and I were unsure as to what we would do with them were they to end up at either of our homes, so we left them behind as an example.


Line drawing and finished version of the mini-collection we had to design for the aforementioned large final project. I officially want to produce about 2/3 of that collection, especially the dress. You can't see it at this resolution, but that's a faux wrap dress in bias-cut pinstripe suiting, fully lined in cranberry cotton/silk sateen. It also has a line of tiny black shank buttons running from the top of the faux wrap to the hem. It is completely machine-washable. I want it.

Speaking of wanting my designs, this is becoming something of a problem. I'm finding that each week I design, at the very least, one thing that I desperately want to fabricate. This is fantastic in the sense that I apparently never run out of salable design ideas, but completely frustrating in that I don't have the time or depth of skill required to make most of them. One of my goals for this month-long break is to create at least one or two of my designs, if only to supplement my own wardrobe, but necessity dictates that they be simpler than the ones I like most. When I have a chance to totally exploit the scanner at school I'll be sure to scan in large portions of my sketchbook so you can see exactly which ones I'm referring to.

Speaking of supplementing my wardrobe (I am segue master), I've actually made a few things that served dual purposes of fulfilling apparel construction project requirements and beefing up my wardrobe. My favourite by far is a pair of cropped trousers that are, well, I'll take a picture of them for you, along with my pajama pants, skirt, and apron. The apron I never actually use, but it's still awesome. I gave it lapels. ^_^

I've been knitting a little bit too, so again: I'll take pictures. I think this was enough of an image dose for the time being, but you have my solemn vow that one of my other summer break goals is to upload images of all the relevant work I've done since I got back into school.

In Which I Point Out That I Made Something Pink Several Months Ago

For my small sister.







For x-mas. I am master of punctual posting.

In Which I Demonstrate the Fallacy of Being Photogenic

I frequently receive compliments on my appearance. I'm not feeling self-centered enough to talk about this too much today, but take my word for it that I'm attractive. Now, the really interesting thing here is that I'm simultaneously very photogenic



and totally hideous



on camera. Which one of those descriptions applies to any given shot of me depends almost entirely on the photographer. For example, that first one was taken by my best friend, whereas the second one was taken by my mother, the ultimate grand master of bad pictures. Of me. Seriously, if you don't believe me:







Yeah. Like that. The really sick thing is that she only takes terrible pictures of me. That first one (with the spa hair) is so comparatively good that she had it printed and framed. And placed on the fireplace mantle. >_<

let us never speak of this again. In fact, skip right to the next most recent entry, which features both something I have made and someone who is far more consistently photogenic than I.