Son Jung Wan

For NYFW I watched and kept track of all the big names but I think I enjoy the less well known names much better.  Maybe it has to do with my affinity of independence and small businesses.  I think since they are fresher and trying to make an impact they take design in a different approach which I can appreciate.  Sure that is a great pant suit by Ralph Lauren and another beautiful bedazzled dress by Badgley Mischka but how is it that much different then previous years collections?  I think with the bigger houses, design firms they get stuck into what they know and sells instead of presenting something truly innovative.

Anyways below are my favorite selections from Son Jung Wan a Korean Designer that showed at NYFW.  Th things that struck me about her collection was the calm and easy color pallette, the fantastic Knitwear and combination of textures.  Also her mix of proportions that made it appropriate for any women of any style and age.

 

She started the show with this simple but clean piece. A practical wool dress with cropped turtle neck sweater and super fun fur covered platform heels.

A close up for the simple but elegant cropped sweater turtle neck

At first the bustier top caught my eye with all the those chains of beading coming across then I noticed the gorgeous knitwear pants.  That is no easy feat to make a pair of knitwear pants that looks upscale and not casual.  They are also very hard to fit with the stretch usually being so severe.

A Close up of the Bustier and all those rows of Pearls

Even the sexy silk charmeuse dresses were well covered and tasteful.  Sometimes designer can really whore themselves out when it comes to the evening wear dresses especially a designer trying to get attention.  It's like a teenage girl acting out in high school when they do that.

The wonderful knit pants make another appearance in dark brown with a cute fur trimmed jacket

I really like these shorts for being as short as they are it's not hoochie just cute like bloomers.  Paired with those draping layers you hardly notice how short they really are.  The entire ensemble just works so well.

Yes it is a poncho but isn't if fabulous?  using the different lengths of the fur to make it have this chevron pattern and how it dips longer in the back to give it a little more shape and flow as well.

Another great and simple wool dress combined with another cropped turtle neck sweater.

 

Just a detail shot of the how the delicate and mazing the pieces must actually be up close and in person.  The rows of paillettes, beading and fur are just so luscious.

All photos are obviously from Now Fashion

Making Tape

You have probably seen those ultra Cute linen and cotton tapes on Etsy just like I have right? but the shipping from Japan or Korea seems a bit annoying for something as simple as decorative tape. I found that it's really not that complicated to make, but like most things it takes a little bit of patience.

Photo from Wonderland Room

The First thing you need it double sided permanent tape. The low residue photo safe just won't cut it. You need the extra stick to keep the cotton in place.

Then you need some scrap cotton fabric

I measure out the width to match the tape which happened to be 1/2"

Using my rotary cutter and mat I cut them into even strips making sure they are as straight and clean as possible.  It is very important to keep it straight since your tape is straight and you do not want weird string fly aways or bunching, Unless you are trying to go for the ruffled or pleated effect which may or may not be a bad idea ( that maybe a test tutorial later)

I have no pictures of the next party because both my hands were occupied by sticky double sided tape and wax paper.  Yes, Wax paper.  You can either cut the wax paper into slight larger strips to match the fabric or leave a square and put multiple rows onto one sheet.  You first pay down the double sided tape onto the Wax paper in the desired length then carefully press the cotton strip to match the tape.  Do not pull on the cotton to stretch it because once it is laid flat on the tape that will cause ugly buckles.  Once done roll it up and put it into a little snack bag ziplock to keep it dust free for later use.

 

VOILA!

That wasn't so bad now was it?

TiLT

Another week another Thursday and yet another episode of Things I Love.  I am very happy to be a part of this collection of bloggers who participates in it.  It makes me be thoughtful and thankful for the things around me and that I get to witness.  Can you imagine being completely disconnected from the other people world wide if the internet were cut out?  I feel old but I remember when Snail mail was the main course for long distance communication before Chat, AIM, Facebook, Twitter, etc. People may think we haven't made huge leaps into flying cars, hoverboards or time machines but I beg to differ.  As a cultural society we have made leaps and bounds in communication, cultural exploration, revival of past trends and taking care of our health for that matter!

Now onto the TiLT!

1. First up we have Ugly Betty.  I just started to watch this series perhaps in the last week or two.  I'm not sure why I avoided it besides my resistance to watching popular things when they are popular.  I mean for crissake's I didn't watch any Buffy the Vampire Slayer till last year.  Anyways I am such a sucker for anything related around a fashion house or magazine.  This includes Sweet Home Alabama, Devil Wears Prada, The Last Emperor Valentino, Confessions of a Shopaholic, etc etc. Betty just hits the spot for me comically as well as visually.  She keeps me company as I work on hand embroidery and sketching.

2. Helena Bonham Carter.  She is one of my dream to dress Celebrities.  I just love her and the passion she has for her craft makes her that much better.  She is completely fearless to be herself no matter how quirky or strange the public eye views her. 

3. Fostering a kitty. It's been a wonderful experience and it's not much fostering when you decide you are just going to adopt the darn fluff ball.  Fostering is a great opportunity for both you and the shelter.  It gives an animal a temporary sanctuary to heal and recover from surgery, shyness, abuse and perhaps a cold going around the shelter.  For us it was also a good way to temporarily test if our other kitties would get along with having a new comer without any hurt feelings between us and the shelter.  We got our Darling Miss Rambo Fluffington the 1st from Cat Welfare.

4. French Knots. They are just an excellent and satisfying hand embroidery technique that I have been practicing all week. I think they make the perfect little clouds to my rainbows.  You can see a great tutorial here that I learned from Jenny Hart at Sublime Stitching.

5. Jenine Bressner. She is an excellent fiber and Glass Artist I have been crushing on.  Her installations are the things I dreamed about doing when I was in College and sculpture. Check out her Flickr and her Blog.

Wedding Dress - Deux

After my last post with my dress design started I had to stop for a bit due to lack of materials.  You would think that 2 yards would get you something a little more substantial but not when it's a wedding dress.  I easily breezed through those two yards of 55" wide Organza without even getting the full front draped.  I quickly ordered 11 yard bolt from Dharma Trading.  Along with that I got silk threads in natural and white.  Turns out I only needed white.  You would think a huge amount of fabric would be in a big box but not really.  It came in a bubble mailer much smaller then anticipated.  Organza is very thin and squishy! You can see how it came to me when I opened the mailer.

Since I now had the fresh organza I decided to take some of my scraps and practice the embroidery on it to find the best method of stabilizer.  It is sort of strange because people use raw silk organza as a stabilizer on it's own.  So My first test for the colors and onto the organza I did two layers on top of each other in the hoop.  It was a little tricky since they wanted to slide against each other as I was setting it into the hoop.
I'm using this gorgeous Chrysanthemum embroidery design that was actually one of the free designs from Brother right here.

Watching the embroidery machine do it's magic is incredibly mesmerizing.  The constant humming and shifting of the frame and stitches is very soothing as well.  It makes you feel like you are getting a lot of progress even though all you did was set the pattern and push the button with the color changes in the thread.  I have no idea how on earth machine embroidery was possible before these beautiful electronic machines.
 

After I was done I played with positioning against what I already had.  I also found that my bust sash is going to have to be at least half an inch winder then I had originally draped. It's ok that's why we do muslin's and mock up's before we get really hot and heavy into the patterns or sewing things together. 

 

My night didn't end here,  While my wonderful machine was doing the embroidery I was at my other machine the Innovis 80 working on pleats and the hot hot steamy un-sexy iron.  It was very tedious and hot work.  The kitties made it that much worse.  They seem to have taken after their human mom and only prefer the finest of fabrics, thus they always want to get into my silks even though there is some awesome shredded up poly organza laying on the floor for them to mess with. 

Testing out two pleat sizes i decided I needed both and also a third tier at the bottom which will be a ruffle to add some volume to the end of it. In my sketches below there will be embroidery along the top bands and for the main long dress on the strip of fabric coming down the front. The Main dress is going to be mostly white with some hints of pastels.  I think the Second dress I am going to go with really rich deep colors to make it fun.

Yes it looks like a huge mess right now but it's all the process.  I had to take a step back to look at my dress.  it's hard to judge anything when you are up close and in the middle of it.  My suggestion is always to step back across the room or to face it through a mirror.  You really have to get a different perspective

when working on a complicated or personal garment or else your eyes could deceive you into hating it or making hasty unnecessary changes.

Float and the Orchids

I feel pretty lucky here in Columbus to have an extremely rich  inspiration resource close to me in the Franklin Park Conservatory. A conservatory is of course anywhere a great inspiration where else can you see all these wonderful plants that don't necessarily belong to your region year round?  My favorite is how gargantuan some of these plants are.  I day dream a little bit that I am in Bio Dome.  While we were there a orchid exhibit was going and it was glorious!  So many pretty and delicate flowers and other artist renditions of them as well.

 This was a glass Orchid Sculpture that I enjoyed, it was held up with armatures and it seems to be jointed in several areas.  Makes me think of bones.

 There was this gorgeous wall of Orchids where they were sprouting from both sides in the middle of a walkway. Below is a more detailed photo.  

 I loved these photo graphs of dried flowers and how you can see all the veins.  It was very inspiring to think of a wedding dress and floaty layers of silk organza in different colors or hand painted even.

 This was a unique little display.  A fairytale castle and town made completely out of natural materials except the little Disney figure's representing their fairytale.  It was rotating with orchids blooming everywhere and a train around the outer edge.

One of Andy's Favorite things to look at is the Bonsai trees at the conservatory.  Some of them are over 50 years old.  They are so well pruned and gorgeously sculpted.

Here is where the Float Event Started.  There was a band playing and people could buy their Ballons, LED light and make a wish.  The idea of float was to in a modern way celebrate the lunar new year the way some Chinese do where they float the paper lanterns into the sky with a wish attached to them.  Instead they were filling balloons with an LED, Helium and then you tied your wish onto it.  We did not let them go however because that would of been unfriendly to the environment.  They were weighted down by books and left out for everyone to enjoy till the end of the event.  All proceeds went to the Wonderland Studios Project.

 

This was my balloon and my wish.  

I'll never tell what it is.