Flashback to Draping

Before and After

     Since Natalia is still in progress and honestly I haven't made any progress on her since the last post and Daphne has yet to reveal her sleeve-ful self to me I thought I would flashback to something I made last semester in Draping Class.  I love the Forties, everything about them minus the war and fabric rationing among other things.  Men who wore suits just to go to the corner store were absolutely dreamy.  I have pictures of my grandma's brothers who are wearing suits in every picture.  Even those who didn't haave a lot of money looked very well put together and so unlike now days where you walk into a certain store on any given day and see at least three people shopping in their pajamas. Ugh the travesty of it all!  One of my favorite styles from the Forties are the super high waisted short.  In Draping one of our class assignments were to make a pair of pants and I found that a great opportunity to create my dream shorts. On one of my visits back home my grandma had a fabric care package waiting for me and this vintage floral was one of the treats inside the package.  I wore them for the first time today even though I made them last year and WOW! They are super high waisted.

Trying to force something into something it's not.

                                       The first time I saw this fabric I knew what it would be. I had been inspired by Dolce & Gabbana's 2012 S/S Ready-to-Wear with the beautiful fruit and vegetable printed fabrics and the pasta inspired jewelry.  I had sketched out "Natalia" many times in my head but never did I commit to anything until now.  Every Spring the Fashion Department holds their annual Spring Fashion Show and students are required to participate. Depending on the class/es you are taking in the Spring determines the type of garment you need to create. This year I am in Pattern 1 which means I have to sketch, illustrate and create technical flats for my design as well as draft the pattern and sew it up.  Finally! Natalia would have her day on the runway! Then came the caveat...it has to have sleeves. (dum dum da dum) Natalia was never intended to have sleeves.

She was to be the epitome of silver haired Italian chic without sleeves.  Since the sleeve sentence was handed down I have had nothing but problems.  Then Tuesday the melt down came. Putting Natalia and the sleeves together were like putting two equal ends of a magnet together, not going to happen.  I put grandma's wisdom to work and I walked away from it. Thankfully I have pneumonia to keep me preoccupied, ok maybe I could do without the lung fungus to occupy me but it's here and well, for a day I let Natalia be.

      The the morning dawned. Ok it was more like a text at 6 am that woke me from a vicodin stuper but nonetheless the sun was shining and I was forced to look at Natalia (who is now in pieces again because I ripped her apart stitch by stitch) and I decided she's not going to have sleeves, she was never meant to have them, I never in my dreams designed her to have them, so plain and simple she is NOT going to have them! That's a weight off my shoulders with an exception, I will be docked points and she's worth 400 of them and I need to keep my sparkling 4.0 GPA. The only solution for this is to create Daphne, the sleeve girl. 

 So back to the sketching, drawing, technical flat illustrating, pattern drafting, fabric selecting drawing board I go. For the record I HATE sleeves!

Oh and one other thing, The fashion show is April 25th and today's the 11th squish in a full time job and as Murphy will have it things will crop up in between like spikes in a gauntlet but I'm alright with stress, it's failure that I can't handle.

First Post For The Tenth Time

The Easter Bunny was busy so I filled in for her.

I have the worst time creating an opening post for a blog. I have had this blog for years and can't ever get past the introduction so I'm fast forwarding the how-do-ya-do's and going  straight to the Cliff notes of who is this crazy moll.

The Top 10

1. I always wanted to be a gangster's moll.

2. Married twice to the same guy. Met him when I was 13 and he's still around.

3. Number of now adult boys that sent my size zero body to no man's land.
4. I have gone to school for Cosmetology, Real Estate, Floral Design and my first major was in Journalism with a minor in Chicano Studies and this is only a partial list.
5. At 45 I decided to go back to school for a degree in Fashion Design.
6. I am a Visual Arts Assistant to an amazing mold-breaking boss.
7. I am a complete grandma's girl and I wouldn't try so hard to succeed if it wasn't for her.
8. I was born and raised in sunny So Cal but traded it for the brown and dusty beauty of  AZ.
9. I have made the commitment to let my hair turn silver.
10. My granddaughter has four legs and a swishy tail and I refer to her as Nana's Nugget. Her name is Blu and I love her so much that I have a geeky magnet on my car that says so.

I hope to keep my posts to the topic of my sewing adventures but being a true Gemini that might be a hard task to follow, besides, who doesn't enjoy a little randomness once in a while, oh and in advance please excuse my penchant for sarcasm.