Saturday, July 30, 2011

Today we set straight to work sewing the shorts. We took out an inch from each side seam as well as the back seam. The hardest part was reattaching the belt loops. We had to undo the tops or bottoms of the belt loops in order to access and take in some of the side and back seams. Close to the end of the day we had three shorts finished and the last one set up to be finished by Melissa later that night. In the meantime, we cleaned the studio and had a little party for Daniela since it was her last day.

Friday, July 29, 2011

Today I went straight to work cutting out and sewing the sleeves. While we were working Melissa got a call from a client. We were finishing up with our lists for the day so Melissa invited him over. He had purchased some shorts and had lost some weight and wanted Melissa to take them in. we had him try them on and pinned them. Melissa then gave him an estimate and noticed one of the shorts had a stain. For the one with the stain he was open to Melissa dyeing it. After he left we got to work marking, seam ripping and prepping the shorts for sewing.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Today Melissa got a new printer. She and her husband set it up. Meanwhile, I made three sleeve slopers. When the printer was done Melissa and I looked through the pattern-making book and found a sleeve we thought looked interesting. We decided to incorporate the sleeve into one of the jacket designs. We also took time to organize Melissa’s contacts.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Melissa has always had wrap skirts and dresses in her collections. They often make good cover-ups for swimsuits. Out of curiosity she asked me about swimwear (knowing my experience). She had been playing with the idea of including swimwear for her cover-ups to create a whole look. Between yesterday and today we made a suit for Melissa. Yesterday we made a muslin and adjusted our patterns. To get our patterns we started with a basic bandeau top and Melissa did a rub-off from a bottom that fit her well. Today we finished the design details and did a final fitting. Melissa is really happy and looking forward to seeing how the swimsuit we made functions.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Today, I draped a torso princess bodice for one of the other designs Melissa designed. I pattern the new bodice and make princess slopers from the patterns. I also take measurements from the manikin and type them into the computer on Xcel for comparison reference and also to leave room to draft a basic bodice sloper.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Today was truly special. It started off as usual. Melissa had a list of patterns for me too get through. I patterned the princess bodice I made yesterday and made patterns for three dresses and a top. About halfway through the day, Daniela came and picked me up to take me to the guild (a Textile Guild that Melissa is a member of where she dyes her fabric).

The dyeing was done before I got there. My job was wringing out the fabric, putting it on the drying rack and washing up the tools.

After the process was complete, she took us out for ice cream. This was a great way to end the day, but there was another surprise. Melissa used to live around the corner from the ice cream shop she took us to. She pointed out the house and her old working place. It was cool to see how far she’d come.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Melissa was really happy with how the vest had turned out. She asked me to help her plan some women’s vests and jackets so today I started draping a basic princess bodice. I go through the basic motions of prepping, pinning and marking each piece. I also showed Melissa the seam finishes that we could possibly use.

Friday, July 15, 2011

Today was a light day. Spike came over with his wife and tried on the Magic Vest. They both seemed very happy. We noticed some of the design changes we had made were affecting the function a bit so a quick bit of hand sewing fixed the problem so now it functions just the way he needs it to. We were delighted to watch him perform magic for us again. He performed the best trick I’ve seen so far. He gave three cards to Daniela and had her sit on them. Then he picked three cards from the deck and made them disappear. Then he had Daniela count how many cards she was sitting on and there were six!

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Today we finished the Magic Vest. We closed the back of the vest and then hand tacked and reinforced the Magic Pockets, the armhole and the bottom of the side seams.

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Coming in today I set right to work cutting out the pieces I had traced yesterday. Due to how the Magic Vest needed to finish and operate, I started with the pockets to finish them in a clean way. The sewing of the vest was very much like the little boy’s vest we made sophomore year, but adding in some cool pockets. The tricky part was figuring out the order to sew the pieces together so that everything was clean-finished and functional.

When I wasn’t working on the Magic Vest, I helped Daniela and Melissa set up a small dye batch in the backyard. It was a fascinating process that was both simple and complex at the same time (which is as much as I will say for now, as I am sworn to secrecy). Finally, as an easy task to end the day, I ironed a custom dye pattern wrap dress.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Today I turned in the fabric Catalog and Sample swatch books. I also made adjustments to the chart that I started for the catalog after going through my progress and planning the next steps.

Spike the Magician came for a fitting today. I got to help. While I knew this was most likely the first time Spike had been personally fitted, Melissa was able to read him and see that he really was not used to two ladies fussing over the fit of his clothes. I was completely clueless and was grateful that he was patient and not mortified by the experience (I may have been a little to enthusiastic to help). I admire the way Melissa is in tune with her customers, especially on the new customer level. No doubt she was keeping an eye on him so her energizer bunny intern didn’t spook him.

The rest of the day I adjusted the patterns based on the changes made at the fitting. Once the patterns were finalized I traced them onto the final fabric.

Sunday, July 3, 2011

This weekend was interesting. Melissa had two clients walk out with dresses. One of the clients was a friend and coworker of Melissa’s. the dress she wanted was a solid colored blue dress, but she asked Melissa to dye it. Melissa was all for it or course so we hunted down the fabric and did a dye test (dyeing a small swatch to test the color outcome). The blue turned into a bright orange. Everyone thought it was cool and couldn’t wait to see it on the dress. The dye pattern chosen was one Melissa calls x-ray-vertebrae. It’s a pattern that amazes me because it looks just like a rib cage x-ray. It’s a pattern she’s been doing for years for which she made her own tools to do it. That same day after she left we dyed the dress in Melissa’s backyard. This was cool because I got to see a dyeing process from start to finish. I also helped with set up and take down. The next day we cataloged the dress and planned the photo shoot for the next day. We shot Melissa’s friend wearing the dress on the rooftop. The photos turned out amazing.

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Today we actually rearranged the studio to encompass the new silver table. While rearranging, we reorganized fabric and brought some bolts down to the basement (where the large bolts and dye tools are stored). We reviewed the pictures from the trunk show from last weekend and began the magician’s vest. I traced the pattern onto a rectangle piece of fabric. The pattern had a good 2 to 4 inches extra room around it. This allows Melissa to aim for the pattern to land best in the outline but still gives her room to pick the best result.

Friday, June 17, 2011

Today marks the beginning of an exciting project. Melissa has agreed to make a custom vest for a magician. Before he arrives I hunt online for male measurement charts and find the best ones. This is the first time Melissa is custom making something for a man so I she’ll be looking to me for some help since I have some experience with menswear. She let me help with the consultation (taking measurements and writing them down). Before he leaves, Spike (the magician) shows us some tricks. All of them are mind blowing of course and they allow us to see how he needs the vest to function. It will be quite an adventure and I look forward to working with Spike on this project. It really helps of course that he leaves his current vest with us for a guideline.

While brainstorming the plan of attack, I had two other duties for the day. One included reworking patterns for a custom jumpsuit. This is an important piece not only because a client asked for it specifically, but also because while at the trunk show last weekend another customer tried it on and orders one too!

The final task that takes up an hour or two is cleaning a table. At Melissa’s part time job, her boss was going to throw out a table that was covered in layers of paint (the materials they work with). Melissa volunteered to take the table knowing what it looked like before it was caked in paint. She and Daniela had started it off with different soaking stages. Then Melissa got some paint scraping tools and Daniela and I started to work. I think Melissa was amused by how badly we both wanted to clean it. Chalk it up to OCD or personality types, but Daniela and I were stoked. The paint came off in rainbow chunks that we saved (because Melissa knows a jewelry artist that works with dried, peeled paint). In those two hours we got all the paint off the table and scrubbed it clean. Underneath all that was a beautiful silvery, mirror table.

Melissa was ecstatic when she saw it (she had lost track of time in the business end of emails) and was surprised to see it done. We all had looked at the thickness of the paint and thought it would be a project we work on over a few days. The presoaking had worked better than we thought and with me and Daniela working on it, it took no time at all. The beautiful new table replaced the old one. It was a little shorter, but it provided some much needed room by the entrance of the studio.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Melissa got her new computer so the day begins with some final reorganization to incorporate the computer into the studio. It will be nice to have a computer with all her important files on the same floor as the studio.

The rest of the day Melissa has left open for me to finish the chiffon scarf. I’m using the rolled hem and I’m doing it on the regular sewing machine. Armed with a manual and an iron, I begin the process of iron the edge over an eighth of an inch twice then sewing with the special foot. The foot makes it really easy once you have everything ironed correctly. In fact, the foot does most of the work for me. if only I can get the iron to do the same…

Once finished I show the end result to Melissa and just in time for the end of the day, we finish with taking pictures and final preparations for the client.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Aside from the basic duties of ironing and keeping the studio in order, Melissa decided to have me try something new. It was one of those “I want to see what you can do” moments. She has this beautiful silk chiffon fabric she has ready for finishing, and she wants me to do it. As if that’s not scary enough she wants to to use a finishing method I didn’t even know existed until she showed me. of course she had me spend the day practicing. Once I knew how the method of the finish worked I had some suggestions to see what finish would be best. I made some samples of my different ideas along with some corner practice and showed her my progress throughout the day. She is now confident in my ability and while of course doing the final version will be scary I’m pretty confident too.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Today I just worked on patterns. All in all I did 8 patterns. I did 4 dresses, 2 skirts, a top, and a pant. I also added information to the instructions for a jumper. I feel very accomplished cause on my daily agenda I only had five planned. After that Melissa was happy to have me do many other patterns. I'm think she was very pleased with the speed and quality I was working at. Special thanks to all my past studio teachers!

Sunday, June 5, 2011

When I came in Melissa had 8 new pieces ready for finishing to be in the show. Between 7 yesterday and 10 today she made 8 new pieces from scratch. I so wish I could do that. I finished and ironed them (some of the pieces required hand-sewing which I'm happy to say I'm pretty good at), then found some old patterns from her files.

I remember also remembered my camera today and took some time to take some pictures. There's the train station I take to Melissa's house and studio, my tools for the day and the red shirt I was talking about. I learned today that it started out as white charmeuse. She dyed it 7 times to get it to that color and pattern! Pretty cool huh? I certainly never would have guessed, and to be honest my pictures don't do it justice. The color is a stunning fire engine red with red violet dye pattern on top.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Today we got a lot done. I started off by sweeping up and then moved right into finishing garments. Some needed threads trim, others needed hand stitching, one needed snaps reinforced and they all needed fray checking. I finished all but four garments. Three are halters that just need placing and for the last one Melissa and I are remaking a top she made a while back. All she really changed was the armholes and the neckline but because it was lined it basically needed to be completely taken apart. The top is so beautiful! She took red silk chiffon and dyed it with a technique I can't spell (it's pronounced she-bore-ee) which added a purple pattern that is just lovely. Tomorrow it sounds like we'll be taking pictures (to catalogue everything because she makes custom, one of a kind pieces). I think I'll try to get a picture of everything I helped with along with some pictures of the workspace.

Friday, June 3, 2011

First day working with Melissa. I was a little nervous. I brought my camera with me to take pictures but forgot to take it out and use it. Once I got into working I lost track of time (luckily she took pictures which I will get from her later). Melissa is getting ready for a trunk show. She has a list of pieces that need touching up (a snap here, a fray check there) and some she wants to make for the show. Today we worked on (and basically finished) two dresses. They were both made of blue silk linen that she dyed to bring in a green color. One was a tunic dress and the other was a jumper. Today we were going pretty slowly so that we could get used to each other, especially sense she's used to working alone. I offered to bring in my serger for Saturday so maybe we could work simultaneously and have two different colors on each serger.