Autumn Zebra

When I did the draping class in the fashion design certificate, we obviously had to drape a dress for the assignment. In a way it wasn't much of a class. She just got us to copy a dress she brought in, draping it on a mannequin and basically we just made it up while she supervised. Then she gave as an assignment. Theoretically the brief was a quote (from Vionnet?) about how a dress is beautiful because it is well-cut. This didn't seem like much of a brief to me. Like, it didn't really inspire anything or send my mind off on any ideas... I created a slightly more restricting framework than the one given as it's generally a lot easier to create something within restrictions than within a completely open space (i.e. the frameword given was basically that it had to flatter the body and be well-cut. Not only was this both very open and a completely obvious and expected goal of making clothing anyway, as a beginning draper, I figured we would be lucky if my dress was human-sh...

We went on holiday. We came back. I decided I'll do NaNoWriMo in November. I estimate this will take up 2-3 hours per day. I have to make a Victorian cycling outfit by the 16th of November, and this week I am making a cloak for my brother's birthday. I am doing millinery (hatmaking) at the polytech this term. The process of actually enrolling in and doing a course is still a mess. I want a new job doing... something more fun, maybe my own business but I don't know what I'd actually do, which is a bit of a problem. I got my hair cut. I need to get the downstairs computer working as I finally set up the new computer before the holiday and it didn't work either. We are going to Queenstown in the weekend. I haven't done any gardening and I should. I still haven't thought of a form of exercise I actually like and would be at all convenient/practical which is bad because exercise is good for you. I am still obsessed with fabric but am trying to buy less/none beca...

Using the pattern we used in Industry Skills to make a hat I haven't shown you yet, I decided to make a paddington bear hat for my Mum. I was sure that paddington bear had a yellow hat, but when I looked it up it tended to be red. My family remembers it as yellow however, which is all that matters because it supposed to be like a paddington bear hat to Mum; other people don't matter. To my delight I found the following materials. A cotton with yellow ducks on it, and a water proof (resistant?) yellow material that I was hoping existed, and did, and wasn't that expensive. Then, here is Plucky the duck modelling the hat front and side.

You remember those other black trousers I made, well these are the same pattern but a totally different material, and these are the ones I handed in - I got 87.5%, which is an 'A'. But we don't know what the average or highest marks are or anything so I am unsure what that really means. But it is pretty good though. I thought I had got more than I did for the skirt, but the skirt was also an 'A' at 89%. Dammit, I'm not getting better after all :( However, she did spell my name correctly this time, which is good. Anyway, here are my new ones. The material is a bit like pajama material in that it is rather thick and quite soft. Front, back and 3-quarter views :) See how I skillfully chose where to position the pattern pieces on the material, especially the yoke? They is awesome dude. (The material was the only cheap nice stuff they seemed to have when we were there, and we were sort of in a hurry. They had this material in many different colourways though. I wish ...

Before the wedding and all that, at Polytech we were drafting basic trouser blocks, and then had to make a design and make a pattern for that, and then we have to make up the pattern, to check it works out ok. It seems a lot of people did something a bit like pajama trousers, or actually did do pajama trousers, whereas all the people I know and talk to did something a bit more complicated. I don't have a drawing of my original idea, which was not terribly interesting, so I shall describe it. Taking the basic trouser block, drop the waistline 2cm (from the actual waist) and put a yoke at the top, removing the darts, with a slightly larger yoke at the back than at the front, and make the trousers wider legged - instead of being shaped, the leg goes straight down from the hips. Here is a boring picture of my pattern: And here is 3 pictures of it made up in a one-way stretch knit synthetic crepe. I bought the material off trademe specifically to make trousers, mostly as there is 6m of ...

Ha ha - A Skirt - because it is actually a A-Line skirt. So that's not even slightly funny. Which just makes it funnier. I love not-funny funny things, people get so confused, and that to me is funny. So we had to had in our work to date in the pattern-making course in the last class. This included: our basic skirt block our A-line skirt block our pattern made from one of the blocks the notes we took on some ways you can modify the skirt blocks to make more interesting stuff, as well as our little 1/4 size examples of how you actually do that our skirt made from our patten For those who don't know, which I imagine is many people, a block is a like a pattern, but it doesn't have the seam allowances and other useful information like that. It is basically the pattern without seam allowances and punch holes and stuff, and is what you make first, what you make the the pattern from. You can also trace it out and cut it up and stuff to make new blocks or patterns. So the skirt I m...

On Tuesday evening we had the first class of the Patternmaking course. In this class we drafted a basic skirt block for ourselves. This looks something like this (but the paper would be lying flat. I also drew on the lines in on the computer because the pencil didn't show up): Then we traced around it. We are going to convert it into an A-line skirt block next week. I have to admit that it was rather slow, and not just because I have done pretty much exactly the same thing before. It's just not really that difficult to draw some lines of a certain length at right-angles to other lines, with detailed instructions, after having seen the instructions gone through in each detail. But it was still fun and I was pretty excited. I could have drafted the A-Line block too if I'd had another 5 minutes, but she decided to end the class 20 minutes early to not over-tax anyone. About half the class took twice as long as the other half, and I suppose these were the ones that might be ove...

Yesterday I went to my Certificate in Fashion orientation thingy-whatsit which was a couple of hours where they gave us a handbook of general information and basically went through it, and introduced the teachers of the course. We all went round as well and said our names and what we were hoping to get out of the course, or something, theoretically. Practically everyone said the exact same thing, "Hi, my name is ******, I'm doing the course full-time and I'll probably do the Bachelor's degree next year." So that was pretty exciting as you can well imagine. I said a little more, but this is a more detailed introduction and explanation. It starts with something I more or less actually said. I'm doing this course part-time 2 classes a week while working full-time as well, so it will take me quite a while to finish it, about 2 years. The purpose of doing the course, for me, is to get an idea of whether I like it and whether I want to continue on in this direction;...

It is nearly time to start my Fashioin Certificate course! I got my ID card for the polytech on Monday, and this coming Monday is the orientation morning for the course. Then the first class is on Tuesday evening. There isn't really much more to report at this stage. I didn't actually enrol for the second semester of papers at the beginning of the year, because I wasn't entirely sure how, so I hope I remember to add them in later. I really want to buy this material on Trademe, because it would be great for Victorian dresses, but I shouldn't because of all the rest of everything I have bought recently. We really need some kind of budget so I know how much I have to spend on everything.

Just a quick update on my Polytech course - I have been waiting for this letter, and holidays intervened, but then yesterday - there it was!! After numerous letters congratulating me on getting a place on the course and then urging me to complete yet another form and return it so I don't miss out (first in first served), they have sent me an invoice for the first semester. Apparently I may consider this confirmation of my place. Anyway, I consider this great news as there is nothing more exciting than the prospect of exams! I'm kidding, really. I am doing Observational Drawing and then The Design Process in the morning on Friday and then Patternmaking on one evening. This will be my lot for the first semester, which is about 1/3 of a normal semester worth. Each class is 3 hours. The two on Friday, one is for the first half of the semester and the other for the second. Should be easy? It is only a low-level course, but it is something I haven't really done before, so it shou...

The letter I received today that I just mentioned was dated 11 days ago. What with all this talk of first-in-first-served, I might have liked it earlier. It only had to travel 2km... (at a completely uninformed guess).

Today I received my letter I was waiting for from the Otago Polytech ! Unfortunately it has this to say: "The returned enrolments will be processed in the order that they are received and it is only on receipt of your enrolment that your place on the programme/course is secured." In fact, it says that in bold type . And then it talks about wait lists and such. I feel this contradicts nastily with their first uplifting paragraph: "Thank you for your application to the Certificate in Fashion Studies. I am pleased to offer you a place on this programme which commences....." And, of course, there is that other letter I received that said that I had a place also. Presumably this all means I "have a place (on the list)". Plus, preference is given to those who wish to enrol full-time. :( Applicants are accepted based on order of receipt of this form, but I presume that, since the previous letter said the next letter would be sent by the end of November, I am a bi...

So, this update is not about sewing, but about me. Although, all sewing entries are also generally about me too. And I think it might actually be a bit about sewing anyway. I am currently waiting for more information about my polytech course to arrive, and it might not for days at least, and I might die of expectant waiting by then. I mean, waiting expectantly, not while expecting, of course. Those words, the ones beginning with 'e' back there, have ceased to carry any meaning after I started thinking about them too much, rather like when you say or see a word too many times and it starts to look or sound funny, now I can't work out if the sentence makes sense or not. Anyway, divergence over. I have been waiting, eagerly and expectantly, and if nothing happens on it's own I have to make the excitement by simply talking about it. I enrolled a little while back, for the Certificate in Fashion Studies, as I mentioned. And they said they were full up! But they would contact...

I was hoping to do the Certificate in Fashion Studies at the Otago Polytech next year, but today when I enrolled I found out that the course is already full! But maybe some people will drop out.... I was going to enroll about 2 weeks ago, but had to find my birth certificate and find out my NZQA hook-on number somehow. Then, a couple of days ago I found out that I can just ASK the polytech to tell me my number, and that if it is still "active" (whatever that means, but it was) then I don't need the birth certificate either! Damn, cos if they had put on the guide to enrolment that I could just ask them for that number then I would have already known all that 2 or 3 weeks ago and I would be in or further up the waiting list at any rate. Hopefully, since I want to do it part-time, they will let me do it anyway as I will only be in two classes in the first half of next year, so if there are two classes that are not full or something.... It is only 6 months long normally, so ...