∞ 8 ∞

10:30AM-1:30PM: website

03:00PM-03:30PM: website
TOTAL HOURS: 3:00+0:30= approx. 3 hours 30 minutes

cinco de mayo!

I had a lot to do to prepare for my AP Art final tomorrow so I worked three and a half hours on my website... getting out all of my sewing equipment seemed to time consuming for the day. The website is coming along well, and it should be done sometime next week. 

day seven

03:00PM-7:00PM: sewing

TOTAL HOURS: 4 hours

Today was basically a repeat of yesterday... I pinned the other half of the zipper on the dress, and I pinned/sewed it to the strong side of the fabric. So I finished, then had to completey redo it all again. thank god my machine didn't break today. I got frustrated with the zipper and all, so once I finished that I finished altering the back of the dress to fit my model. I'm basically done with the dress except for the bottom hem and the halter straps, but can't imagine that the straps with take long. I was really not in the mood to sew anymore so I stopped and I worked more on my website.


I also took the AP Calc test today- AHH it was quite dreadful...

6

10:30AM-1:30PM: sewing

03:30PM-05:00PM: sewing
TOTAL HOURS: 3:00+1:30= approx. 4 hours 30 minutes

Today was one of those frustrating kind of days...

I finally brought home a dress form from school! So I can start my draping as soon as my linings finished (which should be very soon). My friend came over again so that I could fit the back side of the dress to her, then I finally figured out how to attach the special foot pedal to the machine. I sewed one side of the zipper to the dress... but on the wrong side of the dress. -__-;

So I had to rip out all of the seams, I repinned the zipper on the other side of the fabric, and that tried to sew it again.

But then the machine started to malfunction while I was about 1/3 into sewing on the zipper. It took me forever to try and fix it, but I finally got it to work, then I finished the zipper and called it a day.

fivefivefivefivefive

10:30AM-1:30PM: altering patterns

03:00PM-06:30PM: altering patterns
TOTAL HOURS: 3:00+3:30= approx. 6 hours 30 minutes

To be honest, I can't really differentiate between what I accomplished this past weekend, and what I finished today because it's all kind of one big blur of staring at fabric. BUT! what I do know:

Since the last time I posted, I cut out all of my fabric pieces using the patterns, and I finally began sewing! ayayay!

Apparently sewing machine needs a special foot pedal specifically for invisible zippers (which is what I bought), so I went and bought some today. I brought the new pedal attacthments home, and I still haven't figured out how to connect it to the machine. If the machine's too old, I have another- much newer- sewing machine I can borrow, but I'm gonna google it or something tomorrow. I didn't want to deal with that, so I ignored it for now and moved on. 

I sewed a basic dress together and then today, my friend came over after school so that I could fit it onto her. I ended up cutting off a huge chunk of the front portion which sort of means that I spent a lot of unnecessary time with the pattern part of it anyway. On the bright side, I finally have something I can call a dress! But it's actually not a dress.. it's just the inside of it, but its something!! (:

Hopefully my friend can come over tomorrow so that I can alter the back. I should've taken some pictures while it was on her but I was too "in the zone" and didn't even think to take any.
WHEW. Today was kind of a long day...

eek, sorry /:

I just got home to start working on senior project stuff again...
Photos and stuff will make it to my blog by Thursday at the latest.
I'm doing all of my hours of work, I just haven't had the extra time to edit pictures, and work on my blog posts as much as I would like to.
I will revamp up my posts with photos by the end of this week once I'm done with my AP tests.

Oh, and my art instructor comes back this week, so my once he comes back my posts will probably get even less elaborate since I no longer need to prove that I'm actually doing stuff... but I'll continue to show quick snapshots of what the dress looks like once I'm done with it!

part four

12:00PM-2:30PM: altering patterns

03:30PM-05:00PM: altering patterns
TOTAL HOURS: 2:30+1:30= approx. 4 hours

I finally finished altering the pattern pieces, and I’m hoping that it’ll work out.

Because I don’t thoroughly understand how theses pieces will transform itself into a dress, I couldn’t alter the patterns with as much precision as I would have liked to which meant I couldn’t be as economical with my fabric as much as I would have liked. I wasn’t sure if I had purchased enough fabric because I had actually bought the fabric before I bought the pattern... oops.

I laid both the patterns and fabric on the floor and saw that my newly enlarged pattern was about 2 inches too wide to fit on the width of the folded fabric, but then I realized I could cut the front center hem straight down (lobbing off a the flared edge) because I wanted the front hem to fall straight to the ground. I’m hoping this will work. That piece now fits onto the fabric but the other one still does not, which means I’ll have to unfold the fabric and cut out two pieces separately as inefficient and time consuming as that may be.

I exaggerated the v-neck of the front, and I also tried to turn the back into a low back v-neck as well. We’ll see how that works out.

I also steamed half of the lining fabric so that the pattern falls flatter on it. I steamed it and left the cutting for Monday so my hands could have a little rest.

tree

11:00AM-12:30PM: altering patterns

01:30PM-03:00PM: altering patterns, working on sketchbook

TOTAL HOURS: 1:30+1:30= approx. 3 hours

I had a large sheet of paper left over because I’m using one of the simpler variations of the pattern. I cut the left over sheet in half and then pressed them flat. The hem of the dress would normally fall just below the knee, but I want it to be floor-length so I lengthened the dress pattern. I pinned the half sheets to the bottom of both front and back patterns. I stared at the paper for a while trying to picture what would happen to the dress if I cut the edge of the pattern this way or that, but I decided that I wouldn’t try to get too fancy at this point because I’d only confuse myself. So I simply extended the line from the original pattern to keep the general shape of the dress but have it more elongated and exaggerated towards the bottom. I left the bottom edge of the pattern alone so that I could figure out what to do with it another time, and I cut along the new line that I had just drawn.

I wanted to take a break from the pattern so I took the opportunity to start working on my sketchbook. I also knew that if I didn’t force myself to work on it now I wouldn’t do it for a while. I had a bunch of different ideas floating around in my head that I needed to get down onto paper because it was actually keeping me up at night. I decided that I would begin by putting down the different elements I might want the final dress to have, and once I’m done hopefully all of the different ideas will come together rather easily.