First off, I have to say how much I love the sewing blog community. Without you guys, I'd never see cool stuff happening with sewing. It's truly inspiring. And today I found a super awesome independent pattern maker (Something I want to be someday) and she is AMAZING. I bought one of her patterns right away, and I can't wait to make it. Seriously, check out Victory Patterns now if you know what's good for you. (I got ANOUK, and I'm eying HAZEL). I love how simple and complicated the designs are (at the same time! it's fantastic). I know I usually never see such unique designs in the big four pattern company's catalog. (for shame)

And now to something else new! I finished my midterm for my Computer Graphics (Kaledo) class yesterday, and presented it this morning. I don't think I did too bad. Our assignment was to pick an artist and design something inspired by their paintings. So of course I chose Mat Barber Kennedy (who else?) So Kaledo is this big program for fashiony people and it helps you create prints in repeat, and other cool stuff I haven't learned yet. And you can make these prints in multiple colors n such. It's pretty cool, but if you're used to the way Adobe does things (Photoshop/Illustrator) it takes some getting used to (very frustratingly so). So here's my 2 prints. One is a border print (as modeled by my croquis), and the other is a normal print repeat. Fun stuff.

 

I promise that soon I'll post pictures of non computer related stuff I've been making too. Sometime soon. Yes. Oh, and quite possibly some history of costume stuff I did. :)

Black and White Photography

So during the fall, I was in a B+W photography class. I got to learn how a darkroom works, and using a film camera was pretty awesome. I thought that only having 36 exposures on a roll would be too little, since usually I can take my digital somewhere and come home with anywhere between 100-500 pictures. But I was wrong. All that did was make me really think about what I was shooting and take the time to figure out the perfect shot. It made me careful and thoughtful. And I came up with some pretty awesome prints. Well I think it was the process of making them that was the cool part. There's something about dunking a piece of paper in chemicals and watching an image emerge. Anyway, here's a few images from the class...

 B+W Film

Hand Spinning and other yarn related things

Hey! I hope everyone's holiday has been fabulous. I know mine has. :) I spent the week before Christmas knitting my pretty little fingers off so that (almost) everyone in the family could have a hat to keep warm. It was really fun to knit for the girls, but a little harder for the guys. I kept asking my husband, "Is this too girly of a pattern to use?" lol, as it turns out I didn't use any fancy stitch patterns for the guys. I figured it was too risky. :)
Anyway I have a few photos of the hats for the women in my life:

Pamplemousse for mom

'Quick Cable Slouch Hat' - Andrew made this one!

'New Sweetie Pie' hat for sis-in-law

'Thistle Cap' I modified the brim too - for my moh

 I didn't actually get any pics of the hats for the guys. They aren't super inclined to model anyway.

This year for Christmas, hubby made me a drop spindle and got me some hand carders, which are actually dog brushes, but same difference. He pulled a fast one on me and changed the packaging so it'd actually look like hand carders. He was pretty pleased with himself.

I took the brush out, but you can see what he changed.

I'm not sure this is what a real one looks like,
but it gets the job done.

Anyway, I had an idea a while back about deconstructing yarn scraps and possibly fabric scraps back to the original fibers then re-spinning them into a new yarn. The original plan was to get rich off making and selling lots of yarn, but after trying it out I can see that it's going to be a very long process. It might actually be a few years before I even complete one ball. If I had to guess I'd say that I had maybe 3 yards? and that might be pushing it...

Other stuff I've been making for myself is Purl Soho's Big Herringbone cowl. It. Is. Amazing. It's super addicting to knit, that it's hard to put down. At first, I was a little wary of my yarn choice (pattern calls for Aran weight, a bulky yarn, and I bought DK, a light-medium yarn) but so far with sizing the needles down, it's been no big deal. And I find it quite easy to knit, though a lot of fellow Ravelers thought it was a tad difficult. I suppose it just depends on the knitter.

Herringbone Cowl

I also just finished my Shipyard Mittens today! It was a nice feeling to actually finish a pair of something for once. I've started many sock and mitten projects where the furthest I got was knitting up one and stopping. I'm super pleased with how they turned out too. I also bought smaller yarn for this project too. I guess my recent ability to gauge projects properly is paying off. haha :)

Shipyard Mitts

I'm also doing the Earth & Sky shawl that was a mystery KAL earlier last year. It's very interesting, and I'm loving the color blocking technique called intarsia. It's my first shawl, and I'm in love with the Madeline Tosh yarn I found when I was in Chicago. :) Love Loopy Yarns.

Earth & Sky

 Last but not least, I'm knitting up yet another Pamplemousse for my Aunt. She saw the one I made for my mom for Christmas and said that she has to get her hats custom made because hats are usually too small for her. Of course I'm all too happy to accommodate. I added 2 repeats in the ribbing for the brim, and I'm adding at least one more repeat in the main pattern, and I'll see from there if I need more, though I doubt I will. This pattern is already a loose fitting hat. And is a fantastic knit, any excuse to knit it again and I would jump on it. :) Oh I also made one for myself back in November. It was my first exposure to Manos Del Uruguay Silk Blend, and I fell in love. I used the same yarn for the shipyard mitts.

Pamplemousse take 3

Phew! and that was only 2 1/2 months of knitting! Oh.. and I started a pair of socks today, but I wont get into that just yet. ;)

So if any Ravelry people want to know more about my projects - what yarn I used etc., check out my project journal here.

Happy knitting!
~Kate

Off Switch Magazine Launch

Amazing! Fantastic! Lovely! <--words that describe Katie of Off Swtich's new magazine. I'm very proud to say that I'm a contributor of this magazine. Katie had approached me and asked if I'd illustrate an article for her, and it's just a lovely magazine. Feast for the eyes. I strongly encourage you to check it out and spread the word :) Oh, and my drawings start on pg 41. ;) p.s., the mag is free to view online, but if you want to order a print copy, just $15. I think it's worth it.

http://www.offswitchmagazine.com/magazine/

End of the Semester

Hello! Guess what?! I'm done with school! (almost) All I have left is to turn in some final projects next week. One I still have to write up a little essay for, and I'm set :) It's been a nice school semester. It was pretty easy since a lot of it was review, but that's not to say I didn't learn anything. Also, it was a heap of work near the end. During the semester it was super slow and I had hardly any homework over the weekend then BAM finals. haha. Anyway, I can show you the project I put together. It was pretty fun working on it. I had to design a group of 6 outfits and draw flats to go with it.

This is the 'moodboard' or 'concept board' I'm not sure if I really need one to even design a line since I designed the clothes, then created a moodboard to go with that, lol. They just said I needed to have one, not that I had to make it first. :)
 I don't know where the images all came from, but the images in the collage aren't originally mine, but everything else is.

All the illustrations were done with Watercolor and Ink. The flats are done with Illustrator. I designed the chevron pattern myself with Illustrator. It was pretty fun putting this all together. I hope you like it :)

Fashion School

Sorry for the little hiatus I've been on. Since going to school, I haven't wanted to do too much extra stuff since my schoolwork has been on the heavy side. I have one teacher that just recently let up on his 5 assignments a week thing. I think after he spent an entire Sunday grading all of our work, he got sick of it, lol. Anyway, I've been wanting to show the drawing/painting I've been doing. There is a whole lot of work, but it's not all blog worthy, most of the stuff he's had us do is copying... which I'm not a huge fan of, and I see them more as assignments than actual creative work that I'd show people. So This week I'll be posting some paintings (Fashion illustrations!) and some of my black and white photography if I can scan it in. A lot of that is hanging up in the hallway at school still.

This painting was our first assignment. He said "I want you to draw me something." He's so specific, yes? Well I thought since it's a fashion drawing class, I'd try and just paint my version of a dress I saw in the Banana Republic ad showcasing their Mad Men line. This dress is my favorite. And of course, I wanted to show off that I knew what I was doing with watercolors. So of course it's not perfect in terms of a fashion illustration, but it wasn't too bad for my first attempt.















The next few I have to show you are the 3 illustrations I did for the fur assignment. We had to design and paint 3 different fur outfits (in 2 days) for this competition that's held internationally. If you win, you get to go to Milan and watch your design walk the runway and afterwards you get to keep it and get $8,000 scholarship money. The fact that he gave us such short notice for this assignment plus the fact that I had to stay up late finishing it (and I was NOT slacking at all) made me a little upset.






































These are definitely more "fashion" proportioned, but my teacher really does give me a lot of crap for giving my ladies curves. I'm not referring to these specifically, but any kind of hip action and my drawing needs to "lose 20 pounds" Definitely the down side to this industry... all the focus on stick thin being beauty... Anyway enough about that. I wanted to show my base croquis, The basic drawing that I get right once, then trace new outfits over before transferring. You can see the ridiculous proportion better here, though I tend to make my girls look at least healthy. Look at those looong legs... haha :)

















So there's a taste of some of the drawing/painting I've been doing in fashion school. I also have a lot of flats I've been doing, and some random sketches I've done in my awesome Fashionary sketchbook.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
Thanks for stopping by :)

How To Freeze Wedding Cake

So, 10 days ago was our first wedding anniversary.

And you know what we got to eat finally??? Our CAKE! I'll admit I'm still a little miffed about it, but the hall we rented out never served the head table any cake... so the only bit we got to eat was that bit that we shove into each others mouth... so in other words, not too much...











Anyway, my mom froze it for us, and my Aunt Sharon is the one that told her how:

1. Take the top layer of your cake and wrap it with plastic wrap (directly on that frosting). One sheet goes one way around, the other sheet goes across it, like an x.

2. Take some aluminum foil and wrap the same way as plastic wrap. (2 sheets)

3. Put it back in that little cardboard box, and put a box of open baking soda next to the cake.. inside the box.

4. Seal the exterior box with more tape on the edges that would let air into the box.

5. (IMPORTANT STEP!!) Keep your box of cake in a freezer that does NOT circulate air. An easy way to check, if you arent sure what this means, is to see if there is frost in your freezer. If there is, then you're good to go. If not, find a friend or relative that does have frost in their freezer and ask to borrow a square foot for a year. If they're nice, they'll let you have it rent free ;)

At the wedding

One year later...

Alright, so it's lost some color, and looks a tad squished... but honestly, it tasted pretty fresh. I kept hearing all kinds of horrorible reviews of 1st anniversary wedding cake, but ours was good!

Sorry there's no pics of the packaging. The hubby surprised me by dropping it off at the restaurant before we ate, so they brought it out after our meal. It was pretty much a perfect ending do a delish meal. <3


Here's a peek of the inside. Marble cake with a mocha filling.