Mohair * my new favorite fiber

Sometimes it seems, finding fabric that matches is the hardest step of making a garment. I found a sweet couple in Texas who had lots of mohair and they had this beautiful green fabric. It took forever to find someone that sold just mohair, a higher percentage than 50%, and I will be forever thankful that we found them. Im pretty sure my mom made a thousand phone calls for me while I was in class so that we could get it as quickly as possible.

The collar took the longest and hopefully if i get it shipped in time I will have a belt made by the time we send it to Dallas.

 These two pictures are from the Fall Couture Line for Christian Dior in 2010. I'm obsessed with every gown and Coat in this line. The idea for my coat came from the neckline of the purple coat and the shaping of the yellow coat.

 

 Its also wonderful that I have great friends who skip class to drive to Dallas on a Monday and pick out my lining for me when I can't go. This is one of the pictures Kaylyn sent me while in Dallas, making sure it looked okay as I check my phone as secretly as I can in class.

 Matching the yarn took me many trips to the stores to find. After multiple muslins and practice runs of the collar, it was a miracle the shape was finally perfect!

 My new serger!!! My room is basically taken over by this project but am so glad I finally have a serger. And its easy to use and serges beautifully!

 Playing around with pins and yarn to see what kind of look we wanted

The collar shape was finally perfected!!!

 I wore this collar around the house for a while, its so warm and fuzzy! My roommates kept wearing it around my room while they would take study breaks in my whirlwind of a room.

 The sleeves and side seams are not sewn but it is starting to look like a coat!!

 just have to hem the sleeves and add the snaps!! The light at the end of the tunnel!

The final garment before pressing! My roommate put it on for me so that I could finally see it on someone! She might kill me if she sees this! :)

"Remind me next time how much I hate making ruffles"

It seems like its been forever since I have posted on here! This fall semester has literally flown by! I know they say it just keeps getting faster and I truly agree. Wish it would slow down already!!

This summer I had to make another tailored jacket to help get my speed up.... and I may have narrowed 200 hours down to 100...maybe! These are just a few pictures from the process. I seriously considered just making it a vest after this point, the sleeves for some reason become my biggest nightmare!

First thing this semester we started working on Ball Gowns, and I must say I was truly out of my element here. I love looking at these huge dresses and sketching them, but actually constructing one is a completely different thing. The process of making my muslin was one full of experiments that by the time I actually made the gown I could barely look at it.

I was glad with the way it turned out but my christmas break will mostly consist with fixing many things on it... if you've ever made your first ball gown in less than 6 days while in school you know! Can't say I got much sleep but I learned so much from this project. Just hope that me and my classmates did well enough on it that they won't change the class criteria back to the old routine.

I would have taken pictures of the gown on my fit model but for some reason it didn't fit her skinny minny self! Reason #59437 why it needs to be fixed. Although I feel like I will never make a garment I want to fix something on, this one really does need some help!

My tub will never be the same again

 None of the tulle or organza I found was the right color so we decided to dye it ourselves!! Hand dyeing it was a great learning moment but so time consuming!!

My blue tulle kinda exploided

My muslin made out of fabric my friends
 like to call "chocolate swirls"

The final product!!

Saving the earth... one fashion show at a time

The girls in my class and I are entering into an extra fashion show this week. Its been a lot more work than we had planned, but after getting together tonight and putting it all together, Im actually extremely excited. We took some pictures of our "progress"... which really meant the hour we took to put it all together and find ways to tie it all into looking like one garment instead of random things in one area. I'm really impressed with how it turned out!

Learning the hard way

So making the shirt took a LOT longer than I thought. I need to find a way out of this bad habit of staying up really late and making myself sick. I finally finished right in time for class, but with my sloppy last minute guessing... I have things to fix. The collar was sewn in way too tight and so it doesn't fully lay right.  The under collar is too wide and pulls up so that is visible when it really needs to be pulled the other way.  So it kinda gives the appearance of a dog cone that they wear to get rid of flees.

But otherwise I'm really happy with the way it turned out. I would love to try this pattern out again with more of a silk fabric and lace. I think it would be so cute and feminine but the only problem with that is that the line element would no longer exist. 

The front of the top, you can see how the collar
curls up even with its just on the hanger.

The back of my shirt :) the zipper ended up working
out great!!

Here are the cake balls that I made instead of sewing my shirt together. I guess I thought it was an okay use of my time to get fat instead of doing homework.....

 This fabric I saw at Joann's last week that gave me some inspiration. Although I have hours of sewing to do. I somehow thought I would have time with everything else going on. This may have to become a new summer project but I am determined to make it at some point!!

"and in the end on dreams we will depend, cause that's what life is made of." -Van Halen

These past couple of weeks have been more fun than should be allowed. With classes coming to an end, there are many of activities going on campus and less and less schoolwork to be doing. Its crazy to think that my sophomore year is almost over. Every time my professors announce that we are covering the last day of new material my first reaction is panic. There is so much I have to do in these next two weeks and all I want to do is hang out with the friends that I have to depart from for a whole 3 months. Summer is exciting but at the same time is extremely bittersweet.

With the shirt still a work in progress, I totally spaced on taking a picture with it in fashion fabric. That will have to be posted at a later date. Oh and the silly guy on the phone from New York sent me the wrong zipper! So now with very little time and not many options with the lovely stores in waco, I will most likely be changing my design in the back. Wont be as fun but that's okay. alll about adapting these days...

We are however starting a new project to be finished very soon. But it should be a lot of fun and it will hopefully be easier because its in half scale.... or as a friend of ours would say... it's for my american girl doll.

Im really kinda excited for this project. I love vintage dresses. I think for inspiration I'll probably have to watch my favorite movie The Notebook. Although its more for enjoyment really than the actual educational portion of it... but thats how most of my life turns out to be


oh and lastly... here are some pictures of the last project we had. I finally got it back from dallas and got some pictures of it!

The Muslins have arrived!!

The first two checkpoints in class, besides the actual pattern making which I think I am becoming slightly better at, were to make a muslin and then make corrections to the muslin. Its still slightly hard to see what the final project is going to look like but here is how it looks so far.

Muslin #1

There is no zipper put in the muslin yet and the bottom ruffles are a little lacking and the second layer hasnt even been put in, but it fit my model pretty well with minor fixes so although it was a successful run through! The shoulders are slightly hidden in the extra wide seam thats being fixed and the shirt literally hugs the pit of the neck, all things that will soon be changed!

Muslin #2

This is a little better than the first. And strangely enough I have more fixes now then I did after the first musin fitting but nothing too major at all. The bottom ruffles will be cut on the bias like they are in the back view, both being cut on the opposite direction bias. Im really excited to make this top and after Tuesday I should have it all cut and the basic construction will be displayed!