Tag Archives: cotton inc.

To change and re-arrange

There really are not word to describe the past few days, but here we go.

I got back from my spring break on a red eye flight early Monday. Class was at 9am and needless to say this is the part where making choices has to be done. To get the maximum out put of time and the absolute necessities done, mind you this does not include food and bathing, sad I know. This meaning, missing class, sleep 3 hours and get right back into working on garments. Jet-lagged and hitting the end of my rope at 2am, the following had been completed: 1 yrd of pleating. Yup that is right I am still pleating materialization for my cotton gown.

Awaking the next morning to find that I had slept through my alarm, I once again chose to keep working on my gown. Oh but wait, French 2 midterm. Crap! Sometimes I forget that there is anything else in my world. More so then anything, except perhaps engaging in my social life, I really just want to sleep. With that out of my way , there was a final meeting with the critic to look forward to today.

For the meeting this morning I magaged to pin all the pleating that I have to the base of my gown. Both the professor and the critic liked my work and that was a huge boost of energy. Okay I got what I needed to do the final push.

Pleating on skirt base (for cotton dress)

Detailed shot of pleating

Back at the fort, i’ve ordered 3 pizzas and have locked myself in here for the WED – SUN, finish all 3 dresses push! Here we go kids 5 days and counting (I know I said don’t remind me hehe

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Pintucks, Petticoats, and a Probable Meltdown

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“Christina, don’t tell me we only have a week to finish our garments, I thought it was two weeks!!” my friend says as I approach my home away from home, C714. Sorry dear friend, I would like another week too, but that is not going to happen. Monday April 12th critic picks the award winner and Wednesday April 14th is judgement day.

Looking back on last weeks postings, I see all my fellow bloggers were fast at work during their “spring break”. I however needed some r&r. I went home (after my usual saturday session in the draping lab) and spent some time with my family. Copious amounts of beads, layers of chiffon, and the looming deadline of a second ensemble were all put on a temporary hiatus. I know that this was not the smartest decision that I could have made, but spending time with loved ones during the Easter holiday seemed like the priority of the moment.

Monday, sigh. After my train was cancelled on sunday, I was up at 3:30 AM to catch the super early train back to the city so I could make it in time for class in the afternoon. Straight from Penn Station I was back into fashion show mode and on a mission in the garment district to buy my second ensemble (cotton Inc.) fabric. $150 later, mission accomplished ( haha, no this does not include the trim that I will be running back for later.) I did succumb to buying some antique lace at Lace Star to complete my vintage look.

$150 spent, 45 minutes- new record

The drape of my cotton ensemble is near completion. I still need to do the panty, which will not take up my time, but the dear pintucking I’ve decided to do will. Had I planned this better, I would have got my pintucks sent out to be done. Yes this is a legal practice and not cheating. It is very hard to get these devils to be the correct size and spaced evenly, so its A LOT easier to get them sent out, but, VERY expensive. The one yard I wanted to get pintucked professionally was going to be around $98. WAS, is the keyword. I decided to try them out for myself, and after a few sample, I got it perfect, I will have to start charging my own rate!

"new" antique lace and my attempt at pintucking

pintuck close-up sample

I am also doing a cotton tulle petticoat, it is all draped and patterned, all I need to do is cut it out and sew it. I am off to Lace Star, again, because of a change made to the hemline, I will applique (applique means to cut out the motif of the lace and zig zag stitch it onto the body fabric) the “new” antique lace to the hem, sounds like a good friday night activity.

So I am going to be a busy bee this week. I have to pintuck the rest of the fabric for the bustier and yoke of the skirt, and then make it all, in time for monday. Remember first ensemble? Well I still need to change the sleeves and do some residual beading for monday too, no sweat! (kidding!) I am sure I will not be sleeping this week, so be sure to look for update posts all week long to show you how I will miraculously meet the deadlines! Wish me luck!

if you want to destroy my sweater, pull this thread as i walk a-wayyy.

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9 am knitting lab.

I’ve never been so relieved for a week to end. Did I mention that this week was Spring Break?

Honestly though, I think I need a week long break, from Spring Break.

I spent the whole entire week at school, except for Friday which I spent at my internship (the knitlab was closed anyhow). The above photo is from Thursday morning… a little after 9am. This was the first morning of the week that I got there right at 9 only to find out (through various responses to frantic text messages) that the lab was actually opening at 10 am this fine morning. Fancy that! I had plenty of handwork to get done, luckily, and an extra hour of sleep would simply be a luxury at this point. Regardless, I managed to accomplish a hell of a lot this week… here’s a glance at some of my seams and finishing… (click the image to see a better quality view on my Flickr, then click “all sizes”).

tubular finishing on lapels.

back panel.

sleeve.

Cotton Inc. swatch.

(This is a bit of a humorous one as this is pretty much as far as I’ve gotten with my Cotton Inc. garment which is to be displayed on the dress form on Wednesday as well. HA, is what I say).

Below is a video of where I was with my garment on Thursday afternoon. Since then, I’ve completed almost all of my seams. I still have to hand sew-in the hem and sew in the vinyl. But the end is certainly in sight!!

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And this is my dear friend Danielle B, showing us how we use the linking machine to sew together seams. Most people choose to do this step by hand because the linker is in high demand.

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*ALSO: check out my personal blog which is more of an outlet for all things that inspire me slash strike my fancy (art/music/clothing/movies and the odd post about some of my own work and photos of my own personal fashions): www.dani-d.com

“i just find it hard to believe that you’re spending all this time knitting”

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The above quote was said to my friend by her suspicious boyfriend. It’s extremely humorous to me because one should find it hard to believe, because one shouldn’t be spending so much time knitting. It’s simply not natural.

Currently I am starting to knit my first look’s motorcycle jacket. It’s Jade Green, and has sewn-in clear vinyl inserts. Hard to wrap your head around that, but you’ll see! So the 15 pieces of my jacket are knit in an all-needle technique (which means it’s knit on both beds… which means it’s a double knit… which means it’s not Jersey. Sorry, just trying to avoid confusing knitwear jargon!), called a Milano Stitch. I’ve decided to make each piece fully-fashioned (not cut-and-sew). Initially, I was informed that while this would be time-consuming and would require a lot of patience, it was possible. Yesterday I was informed that this was not the case. After I had already done allll of my knitting plans. Wahoo! I was told that I should just cut-and-sew the whole thing but I refused, knowing that it would not look nearly as beautiful as if I fashioned each piece to be the exact right size (ew! Merrowed/serged edges!). With a lot of thought and planning with Professor Ames (hey, Ames! Thanks for reading the blog!), I realized that I simply had to look at each piece alone and conquer each edge depending on it’s own needs (let’s personify our garments from now on), even if it meant knitting some pieces from bottom to top. Success! I’ve done a few practice runs, and only had to make minor adjustments!

knit down is longer than pattern = disappointment.

knitdown is longer than pattern = disappointment pt II.

First and second practice knit downs – this is the type of yarn I am using but not the right colour as I want to save as much yarn as I can so that I don’t run out!

pattern piece = knitted piece = sigh of relief.

perfect knit!

knitting plan for side-panel.

Here’s an example of one-of-eight different knitting plans/graphs that I’ve created and will have to follow!

knitting graph close-up.

tubular finished edge.

This is one technique I’ve decided to use in response to not being able to shape the piece. I will have to cut and sew this edge and then bind it with a self-tubular.

possible bodysuit fabric.

This was my first mock-up of my Cotton Inc. garment. The fabric would be for a body suit with the bottom being 100% Cotton and the top being 50% Cotton and 50% Angora. My professor suggested that I not use the angora but opt for a wool of some sort because the angora is so clearly not cotton because of it’s furriness.