A comparison of costs.

I’ve been particularly whiny on my other blog lately, so I thought maybe I ought to come on here and whine about the high cost of fabric. WHY!? I’m currently debating whether I should fork out $21 for shorts or if it would just be easier to go out a buy them. Of course then I wouldn’t have the feeling of satisfaction that comes over me when I finish sewing an article of clothing. Maybe the $21 are worth it. I haven’t even factored the cost of the pattern. Ha. That’s another $18. So, $39 shorts. Well, a pair would be let’s say $20. Then the satisfaction is another $19. I want to cry. That’s not even it. The maxi skirt fabric is worse. Much more expensive, and I don’t even want to talk about the huge collection of knits I just ordered because there wouldn’t be any left if I waited until I had more money. Whatever. I’ll just save more money next month.

I swear I’m going to make a post about my summer plans, just as soon as I have time to go to the bank and then plan things out. It’ll happen within the next week. I’m aware that I’ve been wasting time and all, but don’t worry, it’ll be up in no time.

And I’m back.

How have you been? Good? I’ll tell you a little about my latest happenings. Maybe I say that a lot. Sometimes, when I write on here I feel 40. That’s totally unrelated to this post. Completely so. Well, I made a dress in the last two weeks. Actually, I only worked on it during class time, so that’s really just every other day minus weekends. I really made it over the span of five days. Here’s a sneak peek:

Isn’t it dashing? I designed it, you know. I drew it on April 18th. I got the idea in the shower and I drew it in my book with my hair still wet. I didn’t start making it until the 30th, but that’s a story for another day. The point is, I made a dress in record time, at least for me. And it fits like a glove, so that’s A+.

As for other things, my shop has been extraordinarily busy since March. I think part of that has to do with Taylor being on tour, but I’m just going to relish the moment. Thanks guys. We celebrated the 200th sale with crepes, as usual.  Speaking of Etsy, I went to a little Etsy fair today. It was lovely, I wanted everything and then I saw this booth with the most gorgeous screen printed things that I had once liked on the actual website and I didn’t even know she was from here. I would have bought everything, but I went to Anthro this morning and spent more than I should have. So, you know I didn’t want to spend more.

In other news, I’ve been making a quilt lately. It’s for Miss Taylor S. It’s a fan project, really. So that’s been going well. It’ll be done by next week. I promise. I just have to wait for more messages to arrive. A good thing about this is that I’ve been getting letters from my good friends along with their squares. Do you know how sweet it feels to receive a letter in the mail? It’s beautiful. Maybe I’ll send them all Christmas cards in December or get them something pretty for their birthdays, since they made my day and all.

I’ve also been doing a lot of trend researching lately, just because I want to be informed next season. I decided I like finding out about new trends. It makes me feel like I just found hidden treasure. That sounds silly, doesn’t it? I’ll be working on another fashion project this month. I was going to add a second one, and a third, but I decided I better focus on my concert costumes instead. So it’ll just be one this month. And another next month. Maybe I’m over-ambitious.

This post is too long, I’ll just stop here. Check back later this week for my annual Summer plans post. It should be more varied this year. I have some interesting projects lined up. Well, have a nice evening/morning.

The Emerald Feather Gown.

Hi, you’re probably wondering about my latest happenings, and if you’re not then I have no idea why you’re even looking at this. Unless you came here for a specific purpose. Well, today I have a story to tell. A little tiny tale of my last few months.

As you know, I’ve been spending the last 5 months poring over my fashion project, my Fashion Design project, for a competition. It may very well have been the most passionate project I’ve ever worked on. Believe me, I’ve never dedicated myself like I had to this project and to no avail, apparently.

You see, that’s the issue. I went into the competition, I worked all those hours and spent obscene amounts of money on something while only looking at the least possible outcome, only thinking of the prize and what I could achieve from that. I turned into an overambitious, quite conceited person and I let that spoil what could have been the most fulfilling project I have made thus far.

It is, I just can’t see it as something more than a failure.  It’s not even like I failed others, it’s me that I failed. I fooled myself into believing that I was better than everyone else, and that I was going to win. I thought of the seven years that “Go to Nashville” had been the second top thing on my bucket list, only superseded by “Meet Taylor Swift”, and I let that desire take over my mind. So maybe I am crazy, I apologize for that. I can’t even say that I’ve learned my lesson and that I realized now that I wasn’t deserving, but I will tell you that I won’t let ambition get the best of me anymore. At least not like that.

I’ve always been a firm believer that one should always believe the worst possible outcome, so that if the best possible outcome happens, it’ll be spontaneous and something to be celebrated, and if the worst does really come true, it will simply be as you expected and nothing less.

And if I’m really being sincere, I’ll tell you that this is only the second time I’ve let go on that philosophy and let myself think too highly of me, to the point where I would accept compliments on my designs and never return them. So the story concludes with me winning Second place, and another person, whom I had come to know a little, won first along with the trip to Nashville. I heard my name called, after the words, “Second place,” and the world spun for a moment, negative words rang in my ears and I thought to myself that I’ve always had a lack of luck. I smiled through that, congratulated her, laughed even, and then I sank back into my seat and thought I would be sick. I came back to my senses,

and now I just see the dress as a wad of money that will never be returned to me, or worn. It’s a lesson staring me in the face, mocking me. Now that I’m done with my negative, sore-loser spiel, onto the details:

Fabric: Silk Dupioni for the “feathers”, bodice, draping, and belt. Polyester for both of the underskirts, 4 layers of tulle, and rayon lining for the bodice and the blue feathers.

Notions: hook and eye, invisible zipper, thread, etc.

How long did it take me? A little over four months.

I suggest you don’t make a dress of this sort unless you’re actually going to wear it at some point in your life, you know, or if it’s for something big or important. I mean it’s really quite expensive and time consuming.

Thanks for reading!

P.S. I made it onto the BP Fashion Board!

Food Recap.

There’s a lack of food posts here, that’s not because I haven’t been cooking lately. I have. It’s just that my camera was broken for a while and then I got a new one and now my sister has a habit of taking the new one everywhere she goes and never taking a single picture, whereas I need it to take pictures of all sorts of things. SO that’s the explanation for the lack of quality pictures on here lately. Now for the food, I tried out that one “ice cream” recipe that goes around on Pinterest, the one with the pureed bananas and cocoa powder that children supposedly love so much. It’s all a lie. It’s awful, I’m telling you. Hard as a rock and terribly bitter. It tasted like bitter pureed bananas is all, and it was so solid that it successfully broke my blender. I did, however, take a series of (terribly blurry) pictures before I tasted it. I mean it looked like ice cream, so it should have tasted like ice cream, right? Nope. I repeat, don’t waste your time.

Onto the next recipe I tried. It’s not a recipe, it’s a random combination that is actually really common and not really that different from anything else you’d see on some other blog, but it’s a classic and it’s tasty.

Behold the egg and cheddar grilled cheese sandwich. It’s a breakfast sandwich, and it’s fried in butter, therefore being extra fatty. I love it though. It’s a treat, a nice little rare treat that I only make when I really, really want to have a good day and I just need a sandwich of this sort for breakfast.

And there’s another picture, just because it’s that good.

Have a nice day, thanks for reading my little, tiny food recap.

Fashion Project.

Remember when I told you I was working on two fashion projects? Well, I finished a month ago. Woah, that was fast. Time flew. Anyway, so I worked on it for like three weeks and somehow, I got done before the deadline so I sent it off and then on April 1, I got a call in the afternoon regarding the project.

THEY LIKED IT! So now I’m going to Nordstrom for an interview tomorrow afternoon, at 3 (5pm EST), and I’m really, really hoping I do a good job and get in the fashion board. Cross your fingers, wish me luck.

So here’s the fashion project I submitted, a multi-page collage scrapbook:

That blue dress you see in the picture is actually the design of the dress I’m making for my other fashion project. I figured it would be wise to include a picture of one of my designs, but I didn’t really have any colored except for this one, so I put it in. It’s a scan I printed and pasted on, so that’s why it’s all blue instead of teal. I’ll show you a better picture soon!

Page 2 is one of my favorites because, as you know, green is my favorite color and I’m also very fond of the floral background I drew on and my faux calligraphy skills, as well as my real ones. I just didn’t want to waste too much ink so I used fake calligraphy on this page and real calligraphy on the page before.

Oh and keep in my that I took most of these pictures with the pages still in the plastic dividers so they’re not the very best. I’m sorry, it was the first day of the Red tour, like an hour before the show, and I was trying to get done quickly so that I could go liveblog from my room.

One of my favorite pages! I have this love affair with short shorts, especially floral ones. I have a few pairs, but not as many as I would like to have because my mom and sister disapprove. They just had to be included in this book though, and I put the sparkly ones and red ones in because I think Taylor would wear something like that. I also love how I did the lettering.

I have those polka dot pants. Isn’t that neat. Oh and that’s real calligraphy. I didn’t space it out properly, but I guess they didn’t mind. I really like those floral backgrounds, especially the blue liberty print. I’m a huge fan of liberty fabrics, if you didn’t know. I’ve only had the chance to sew with liberty fabrics once in my life, but I have some yardage that I haven’t used that I’m thinking of turning into something pretty.

Black and white is another love of mine, although I must say that this is probably the ugliest page in the entire book. Oh well, I guess they didn’t mind that either.

And some more faux calligraphy. These pictures are awesome. I mean I’m not a huge fan of pictures of myself, but my sister always does a good job. My favorite is that one at the top with the shoes. You know, guys, I’m going to show you guys those pictures one of these days.

That picture doesn’t do this pictures justice. I have to show you them too. Anyway, so I like the background in that page.

And finally…

I had to involve Taylor in this project somehow. How could I not? She really is my style icon.

Anyway, I hope you liked my fashion project. I’ll let you know if I get in the fashion board or not.

Artwork and something that needs to be said.

That there is a mandala that I made out of instagram pictures a while back. It was my Thanksgiving project, so basically I made it in November. The main point behind it is that I made all those little things for different people and then I took pictures of them and turned them into art.

Except, I lied. That letter you see there is actually a very sad letter that I never did send to the recipient. I never intended to send it to him, and It’s actually still hidden away in my old journal. The rest are all things I really did do to make everyone feel better. They were my little way of saying thanks. except for the letter, but I guess we could turn it into a letter of thanks, because he did teach me to stop being so naive and overly hopeful, so I guess I have to thank him for that. Whatever, that was months ago, part of the past; not something I’ve thought about in a few months.

And my not so favorite self-portrait. This is a brutally honest piece. I was going through a phase in which I would include lots of text in my art, and it wasn’t just any text, it was extremely confessional. So there’s that. Those words are excerpts I wrote in my journal from June 2011 to September of 2012, I believe. The picture of me is done with just black and white acrylic paint. The background is done with watercolor. The words are written on with a regular old pen.

I’m not very fond of drawing or painting people, so that’s why it’s terrible. My favorite part however, is the shirt because you can clearly tell that it’s my Taylor shirt from my very first Fearless show. That’s the comfortable aspect of this painting. I mean the words are so very bold, and then there’s that comfy old shirt that I love so much. I painted that in September.

And now for what needs to be said. I believe that paintings are not to be thrown away or destroyed if you simple don’t like them. I just think that’s silly. I mean the only excuse for that is if you were genuinely forced to make whatever it is you threw away. By that I mean you weren’t even given a chance to come up with a creative idea for it. Now you’re probably wondering why I’m saying this, and I’ll tell you why. You will never know if and how much you have improved if you don’t keep your old paintings, that and to be encouraged to get rid of anything you don’t like is also kind of like being encouraged to become self-conscious by telling yourself that you’re not good enough. It’s a stupid thing, my friend. Keep your paintings. You’ll look back at them a year from now and you’ll see how much better you have gotten and then you’ll feel so good about yourself even for just that day. I’m speaking from experience.

Anyway, thanks for reading this.

Fairytale Painting: The Three Little Kittens.

It’s not really a fairytale, I know. It’s a nursery rhyme, but my overly generalizing art teacher assumed that we were all going to do fairytale paintings. Nope. I was the only one who didn’t, but enough about her. I feel like I’ve been complaining about her too much lately.

Basically, we had to pick a story/nursery rhyme and illustrate a scene off of it. I went with the Three Little Kittens, the part where they had just found their mittens. So I painted Meredith, and two other cats and I know, I know it’s illogical. Don’t even point that out to me. I’m definitely aware that a purebred Scottish Fold can not possibly be related to a calico or an orange tabby, but in this imaginary world of my painting, it’s most certainly possible.

It’s all painted with acrylic paint, because I thought of doing watercolor and then messed up so bad that I just had to go with acrylic. The funny thing is that I once thought that watercolors were my favorite medium. Oh how the tides have turned.

There’s a close-up of Meredith. She’s a reoccurring character in almost all of my art. She’s just so darn cute, I mean look at that face. How could I not include her?

And there’s my dear friend, the orange tabby. He/She lacks a name, but it’s the one with the loveliest eyes, which are the product of a happy accident. I messed up a ton on the eyes until by some miracle, I did something to make them lovely.

I should probably mention, at this point, that these cats are not intended to look realistic. I figured since it’s supposed to be a children’s book illustration I didn’t have to spend too much time making the cats look perfect and instead, I sort of made them cartoony. The calico was just my attempt at trying something new and experimenting.

Thank you for reading this post!

So,

I’m trying to finish this one painting. I’ve been working on it for like two weeks, and I finally came to the realization that it needs to be done asap, so I’ve spent the last two days working on it non-stop.

and I’m making progress.

I’m almost done. I’m painting cat #3’s head right now. I’ll be done by tonight.

Oh and then I have some new things for the shop that I need to finish.