Jellyfish skirt

This is a REALLY rought sketch, but it's based off of some white linen and blue Indian tie-dye material. I thought it might be fun to make over the summer if I don't get time during my project, since I don't think it will be too difficult.

Chinese Shirt Flatsketch

This is my flatsketch for my Chinese Shirt. It's not very complex, so I didn't add too much detail, since I couldn't think of anything else to add...

Chinese Shirt

This is my design for my Chinese inspired shirt. The pants will be abandoned. The decoration will be handpainted.

Cowl Revisited

I revisited the cowl as well. I didn't want to make it on the diagonal, since that would waste a lot of fabric, and we might not have enough, so I came up with a cowl that would sling across the neckline, and be separate from the actual garment.

Necklace Design

This is a necklace that I designed for my owl dress. It's based off of a necklace in the Hardware episode of Project Runway Season 7. Maybe Chelsea can make this for me...? If not, that's okay. It was fun to think about.

Jacket Revisited

I was having some trouble picturing my jacket myself (this is the yellow jacket from my second sketch), so I revisited, trying to put more detail into just one view

Gold Finch- Flat Sketch 3/15

I realized that I had not done a flat sketch of the jacket for this outfit, so I did it in the background, since I was running out of room on the adjacent page. Unfortunately, the sketch make it look more like a windbreaker than a fahsionable jacket though...

White Rooster 3/17

This dress was actually, legitimately inspired by a bird, unlike the other ones, where I sketched them, and was then like, oh, this looks sort of like this bird... Anway, I was looking for pictures of roosters (I have no idea why, though I am born in the year of the rooster, so maybe that's why), and I saw pictures of white roosters (see below) that I thought would be fabulous as a dress!

http://www.claybiddle.com/Chickens___Roosters_tiles.html

Then, for some reason I was looking up flapper dresses, and I found the perfect style for the dress. The dresses are completely different, but they have the same style. It's hard to explain, you'll just have to look at the picture below, and see the similarity. It's inspiration.

http://plushpaparazzi-embassy.blogspot.com/2009/01/1920s-style-icon-louise-brooks.html

The dress is full of pleats, and would be very difficult to make, once again, but who cares? It's cool from head to toe (oops I forgot to add the shoes!). The pleating on the top is much like my prom dress as well, so once again, I have something too look at for inspiration.

Jasmine dress 3/15

Carly had been talking at lunch about her prom dress, and how she wanted to dress up as Jasmine. Fooling around, I decided to do a "consultation" with her for her dress, but she got bored, and I got carried away, and ended up sketching this! I like the skirt, and it's very Indian, which makes me think that Shonali or my aunt may like it, since it's fusion. The top is more western, and the skirt cut is western too, but the actual dress is very eastern. I like how the skirt is like petals. I would also wear this dress in a heartbeat, but not to prom. I would probably wear it to a wedding instead! I can get this made very easily in India. Maybe when the time comes when I need a dress for a special occasion I will get this made in India. It would be fun, and they would know mroe about how to make the skirt fall just right then even most Western seamstresses, since it requires a fall, much like a traditional lehenga or sharara (described at the following site: http://www.iloveindia.com/indian-clothing/dhoti-kurta.html The first one is hindu while the second is muslim. They're both very similar in style to the one I designed, but with short sleaves).

Swallow 3/15

I was trying to make the Nest dress more bird-like (before I settled on making it a nest), when I ended up designing something completely different. I had started out making collar with a zip, which would be a turtle neck that had a protruding portion (think soccer jackets zipped all the way up), that was orange on the inside like a beak. I then made the sillouette the same as the Nest dress, and added some chinese brush painted swallows. Before I knew it, it was completely different, but it may be very useful, since I can use the same pattern for this dress as the Nest dress, just altered slightly. I would make this dress out of a light blue knit material, so that it stretches around the body, and makes those large pleats at the bottom.

Nest- Flat Sketches 3/15

These are the flat sketches for the Nest dress. I drew in darts for the dress (though I didn't know their name until later), and changed the pleating to the front to prevent bulges at the sides. I also decided to have the back straight with, once again, a zipper down the back. Sorry if the sketch is a little distorted. I'm taking pictures of my sketchbook with my camera, and the page keeps on flipping over!

Nest 3/1

This is the sketch that Ms. Lasher and I were talking about during our Mentor Meeting on 3/14. It was inspired by a Project Runway Season 7 episode, where the designers were asked to make a formal party dress out of potato sacks, or burlap. I was curious to try out the challenge myself, and came up with a dress made not of burlap, but of muslin. I really want to make this dress, especially since if successful, I know I would wear it, and it would also be really cheap to make, since it only uses muslin and a bit of tulle. It would be difficult, but the pleating looks very similar to my prom dress, so I would have an example to work off of. Also, I found out that the pleating along the front is different in the sketch than on my prom dress. On my dress, the pleats go up the center, but in the sketch, they go up the sides (see my flat sketches for this dress to see how they look on the prom dress). I may change them to go up the center so that it does not make the model look wider than she actually is.

Peacock- Flat Sketch 3/17

This is the flat sketch for the peacock dress. As you can see, it is a half wrap around. I think I simplified it a lot more in the flat sketch than it would actually be in real life. there would prbably be some gathering at the hip on the right side of the dress, and a lot more stitching at the skirt to make it full and flowy. It would probably require an underskirt as well to make it fuller. But I don't know how to show all of that! The flat sketches look like sun dresses, not the formal gown in my 3D sketch!

Peacock 3/16

This was initially inspired by a peacock, though looking at it now, it doesn't resemble one at all. The curvy cut out along the skirt was like a peacock's tail, and the skirt is supposed to fall in a long, curvy train. It will be made of very light, swishy materail. At first, it was just a skirt, and it was going to be orange, with a fuscia cut out. Now I'm thinking that it will be black, and the cut out and sash will be a yellow or lime green. It could also be a royal purple. I don't know, we'll see. It's going to be really, really hard to drape, since this is pretty much a red carpet look. I probably won't be sewing this :(. Maybe over summer! The back of this dress is my favorite, since I have a thing for seams down the back and a low slung back. In order to make it look fitted, but still be able to be taken on and off, I was thinking that the the back seam could be a zipper, perhaps even of the same color as the sash, or that perhaps the swishy material would have a little bit of stretch as well. The only ting though would be that the skirt needs to remain really light and soft.
I wish I could make this! I would wear it to prom in a heart beat! (but I already have a dress! Haha)

Michael Jackson Inspired 3/3

I sketched this pretty late, after listening to a lot of Michael Jackson. Go figure. I played around with different kinds of collars, with zips and studs. The point was to have big collars. I was thinking perhaps I would change my theme from birds to high and low collars, or better yet, maybe I'll just make up a theme based on what I've already drawn, like I'm doing right now! Anyway, I've been coming back to this sketch, adding a belt, or the shoulder pads. It's really the one on the right that I care about, not the one on the left. The collar could have a zipper, which would make it transform from the view above the head, to the view on the model. The shirt/uniform is worn with pleated pants, though I'm worried it might get too bulky around the waist if it's worn that way, so I might just pair it with leather leggings. The belt buckle should be big and jeweled.

This shirt would be really hard to make, I feel, since it has a lot of detail and needs to fit perfectly, much like a fitted shirt. The belt would probably make it a little easier to fudge, but I don't want any bulging around the belt, so that would be complicated. I wouldn't even know where to start. Maybe I would start with the pattern for a fitted collared shirt, and work from there. Also, the zipper is off-centered, so that would be a little different too!

Owl- Flat Sketch 3/8

This is the flat sketch for my owl sketch. Autumn had said that this would probably be the easiest dress, and that we would start with this design, however, as I was drawing it, I realized that the draping will need some skill. I hope to make this out of a light, drapy material, which will definately make the fall more natural, and easier to achieve. I was thinking of using light cotton, but I could also use a more sheer material. I might have to go with the cheapest in the end though.
The sketch might look very simple, but it was actually a lot harder to draw than I thought it would be. Perhaps I was too tired, or too picky, or bother, but I ended up having to earase it a lot, and redraw the lines, because for some reason, it just was not looking right. Even now, I think the back view is a lot more acurate and better than the front view. Really, I was debating how long the dress should be, where the bottom of the sleaves should be, etc. It ended up being a lot longer than the original sketch (the first sketch was a mini-skirt, while the flat sketch goes down to the knees). I did this because I found that it had a slimming effect (or at least I think it will, I haven't made it yet!), seeing how loose it will fall on the hips, and then lightly flare out. The mini version hugged the hips too much, and I wanted it more like a flowy summer dress.

Gold Finch- Flat Sketch 3/8

This is my first flat sketch. It was actually a lot of fun. I hadn't expected it to go so well, infact it became harder to imagine the dresses as flat than the pants. I still ended up having traces of a body in the sketches, but for the most part, they're flat. It will take some practice, and looking at how clothes lay flat. I liked drawing the pants flat because I was able to put a lot of detail in the seam, which was something I had difficulty expressing in the modeled sketch. Now the viewers can see the detail I had meant to add in the actual design, and see that it actually sticks out of the pant leg.

Blue Jay 1/24

This sketch I hadn't posted before because I hadn't thought it was very good, but a lot of people like it. I hope you guys like it too! It's inspired by a blue jay, and the scarf is actually connected in the back, like a PhD sash. It's a lot more frivolous than the other outfits, but it would be a lot of fun to make, and I might try to make the skirt on my own... We'll see! It would take a lot of work, since each piece would have to be cut out and then stitched in a curve. I don't know if I would want to spend that much time on this particular outfit. I would rather make my yellow jacket...

Note to viewers...

Sorry that I'm taking so long to post pictures of my sketches. It actually takes a lot of time, in fact, about as much time as making two fresh sketches! I have to photograph the sketches, sometimes multiple times to get a clear photo, and then upload them with footnotes. That's one thing I'm regretting about having a blog, but reading my journal just wouldn't be fun without the pictures! I hope you enjoy them.

Oh, also, I just noticed that all of the posting times are 3 hours off! I wonder how I can fix that... They all read 3 hours early (so it's 10:01 now, not 7:01)

Mentor Meeting 3/15

Since we had been told to bring in something from our project to share in class on Tuesday, I decided to have our mentor meeting on Tuesday instead. Besides, last week it was on a Monday, so we're a little off, and that's okay. Sometimes we talk about the project outside of our meetings too, so I guess we have an ongoing series of newsflashes.
Anyway, today I showed her my sketchbook for the first time. I really like how Ms. Lasher boosts my confidence, and convinces me that I'm not doing a bad job, and that I'm on track. Sometimes I need that when I'm being really critical. We looked at the sketches so far (I'm sorry I haven't shown you the flat sketches so far, they're coming!), and I talked to her about my newer designs (also coming).
One design, (that's not up yet) was something inspired by Project Runway. It's made of muslin (like the episode when they had to design a dress made from a potato sack), and it's ultra cheap, but ultra mod and almost a prom dress. It's really awesome, but I was having trouble connecting it to the theme that I chose of Birds of a Feather (I just came up with that title. I like it!!). It is in the natural color of muslin (of white/tan), and is really natural looking, with a really modern cut, and champagne tulle (I've been spelling it wrong) that makes it suddenly a lot more sophisticated. At first I tried to alter the neckline, and make it a zip up neck that looks like a beak, but I think that that design will have to be for a different dress. Then, Ms Lasher gave me the awesome idea that it's the Bird's Nest, and I added that the model would wear a chunky turquoise necklace for the robins eggs! It was PERFECT. I had been so set on this dress, I would have been really disappointed to drop it just because of it not fitting with the theme, so I was really excited to be able to use this design. Ms Lasher also voiced a concern that if it's not sewn correctly, the pleating might make the model look pregnant, so when I went home, I looked at my prom dress, to see how it had been pleated, and copied the sewing technique onto my flat sketches. Finally, we thought that perhaps the tulle could be replaced with frayed burlap, making it even more green and cheap, but edgier at the same time.
I love Ms. Lasher. She gives me such good ideas!