Saturday, October 29, 2011

It's All Over...

...Project Driveway, that is!  What I thought was going to be a drawn all out through the winter and into the spring project has been completed.  And, don't tell Ben, but I do like the car.  I used to have a keen little red Miata back in my early twenties that I loved, so having another convertible will be fun.  Anyway here are some pictures:

      This is how the project began (you can see how this may have been a little unsettling at first!)


But it didn't take too long to change out the bad engine and here we the finished car:


And Lucy:



It's All Over...

...The ninth season of Project Runway, that is.  And I must say that it was pretty disappointing.  I was thoroughly let down by the lack of talent this season which is confusing because I am sure that they get thousands of applicants.  And here I am "in training" myself, as I do not think I am experienced enough to even try out and along comes Anya with only four months of sewing experience and she wins the whole thing.  Although really it came down to who didn't completely blow it.  The competition was Victor's to win, but out of nowhere he throws in all these transparent black chiffon cut out monstrosities which was a shame as his other looks were good.  But Anya had no depth to her collection.  She had no jackets or pants, only flowing dresses or jumpers.  Kimberly had some interesting pieces, but her collection was just ok.  BUT at least Joshua, the Bedazzler, didn't win.  I can not believe that he made it that far with some of the things that he made during the competition.  His color pallet was awful, particularly the chartreuse items.

I just kept thinking about past seasons' designers and current designers and design students everywhere and how they must have been at home shaking their heads in wonderment at how things have come to this.

but I will keep on course.

Let's just chalk it up to a rotten season.  Now, I will keep up with my game.  I have an imaginary $9000 to create a collection of ten looks.  So - stay tuned as I will be posting my "collection" soon.  Currently I am finishing up Lucy's princess costume and then I have two more Flower Girl dresses to do - which I will post all of those pictures, too. But I did want to reflect on the end of the show as it was still fresh in my mind.

Friday, October 21, 2011

Flower Girl Gallery






So... these are the dresses that I have been working on for the Autumn wedding season:

The first was an existing dress that I took off the dark brown velvet sash and installed a light pink taffeta sash.  It ended up going to Australia!



This dress is a mini version (size 12 months) of my popular silk and lace design that went to Tennessee.


This dress was a replica of a J.Crew design that went to a Flower Girl in California.  The ruffles kicked my butt, but I was happy with the end result.



There was actually four dresses (the rust colored sash one is not pictured as I only have three mannequins). They are eyelet dresses with coordinating skirt lining and saves all in Autumn colors.  They ended up in New York.


And here we have two dresses in very different sizes, that went to Miami, both in the silk and lace design:


Thursday, October 20, 2011

The Final Challenge - "Ello Govner!"

For the final challenge, the remaining designers are swept away to Governor's Island to final inspiration in creating three garments.

Governor's Island is really not all that inspiring, however, nor were the final collections of the final designers.  For my designs, I looked away from the island toward the surrounding water for inspiration.  I used a color palette that reflects the water with a dark steel grey/blue flawy silk.  With the structured city in the background, the top of act design is more constructed.  The belts I couldn't find on Piperline, but could just paint the mint green color onto a thin belt.  This pop of color (which also is sneaked between the folds of fabric in the gown) is a literal nod to The Statue of Liberty, but was not actually intended.  I just really like the mint with the dark grey blue.  Anyway, here we go:






Coming Up Next:

My next blogs will show all of the dress orders that I have been working on (all of the internet orders are finished and shipped!)  My next projects will be:  Lucy's Halloween dress, Sarah's Flower Girl dresses - one of which is a Junior Bridesmaid's dress which I'm really excited to create, and a dress for myself to wear to the wedding.

For the Birds

So this dress was inspired by the green parrot that inspired the losing garment this week.  Poor Bert got the axe this week and I didn't hate his outfit as much as I disliked Laura's.  But, here we go:

This look would be made with as much tulle as my $300 would allow with a graduation in color that would differentiate my dress with a one toned yellow "Big Bird."

 

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Every Day I'm Shuffling...

to get everything done.  I am still getting caught up on all of the Flower Girl dress orders and I do plan on getting Lucy's dress done for Halloween.  I have also increased my number of shifts at the restaurant (which received a four star review last week!).  The major victim in my life right now, receiving less attention from me, is the laundry.  I'm hoping that soon my husband will wake up to find that he has no clean undies and will then realize that he needs to help out.  But, alas!  He has found his passion, too.

My husband has taken on his own project, which I have aptly named: Project Driveway.  He has procured a 1994 Audi Cabriolet in non working condition that he is determined to transform into working condition. I would rather he would come home from work and declare his desire to play with the kids, do a couple of loads of laundry, empty the dishwasher, etc. so I can sew, sew, sew!

I really don't know where the time goes.

But, I have managed to get my designs done to get caught up with Project Runway. And I would like to give a shout out to Lucy for letting me use her box of 96 crayons to help illustrate these designs.

Enjoy!

So, the first is the challenge where the designers had to design garments for "real people."  They met with a man who would describe a perfect outfit for his lady.  I ended up designing for the woman who wanted something girly and pink for attending a wedding in.  The actual design made for her was the losing design.  My design is a layered, tiered chiffon wrap dress.  I love it and may create it someday:







The second design in this post is for the episode where the designers had to design a garment for a member of a rock band.  Again, I took the losing designer's client and redesigned something.  My idea here was to have a snakeskin leather pant in a deep brown red color and on top a gauze (think thin linen) bottom down shirt over a brick red jersey tank.  




And last week's challenge was to create a look inspired by the seventies, but still modern.  The first look was to be done with $150 and the second with $50.  The second could not be separates.






So, I am caught up on the design challenges now.  I am currently working on a new design (new to me) for a flower girl dress that is almost complete.  I also got my new tags in the mail.  They are really sharp - embroidered silver thread on white that say: Mousebee Couture with Cincinnati, Ohio underneath.  I will do a post on my flower girl dresses soon.

Now off to bed!