My November Fabric Challenge

The leaves are changing, it's getting noticeably colder outside, and all of the coffee places have specials on pumpkin spice lattes. It must be fall, and with fall comes November and all sorts of wonderful challenges.

My sister Devynn, has participated in NaNoWriMo for probably the last three or four years (and actually succeeded!) and I have yet to get past 2,000 words. It is inspiring to watch her meet her goals, but I would really like that to be me! This year, I've decided to try something different for November.

This is a photo of all of my beautiful fabric I have stashed away in my closet. Loads of clothes and projects that have only been a figment of my imagination. This November, I mean to change that, and hopefully begin some new good habits.

My November Challenge is to sew up one project per day. The rules are as follows: (1)that the garment must begin that day as a piece of uncut fabric, (2) I will post a photo of finished garment on twitter &/or facebook by the end of the day, and (3) I will allow myself one "catch-up" day per week.

All I have left to do is to think up a catchy hashtag for my challenge. I'm sure I will come up with something my November 1st, but and am certainly open to suggestions!

Here is to a productive November! I hope that yours proves to be productive as well!

Lord of the Silent

Amon-Re is the Lord of the Silent. Who is Amon-Re? He is the Ancient Egyptian god of the Sun, and a beautiful golden artifact found by the amazing Amelia Peabody Emerson in my most recently completed book.

I believe I have mentioned before that I am in love with the Amelia Peabody series written by Elizabeth Peters. I had started this series by listening to the audio books narrated by the fantastic voice talents of Barbara Rosenplat, but I had to switch to reading the books because Audible has a gap!

This post is mostly an update on what's going on in my life, as I have not been very consistent in my blogging (If you happen to have a twitter account, I've been slightly more consistent in getting tweets in...).

As I mentioned above, I just finished reading "Lord of the Silent" by Elizabeth Peters. It was a very enjoyable book, as they all have been thus far. I had the chance to finish this book because I read most of it in airports and in flight. I've recently started this thing while reading in which I write down words I come across that I either do not know the meaning of, or words that I am just curious of the dictionary's definition. In reading this book, I wrote down over 100 words that met the criteria I just mentioned, and I didn't even have my notebook with me for at least half the book! Here are some of the more entertaining words that I have had the chance to look up:

aggrandizement: to make great or great; to make appear great or greater: praise highly

picayune: something trivial, or little value; A Spanish half real peace formally current in the South.

surreptitious: done, made, or acquired by stealth

supercilious: cooly and patronizingly haughty

ungainly: lacking in smoothness or dexterity: clumsy; having an awkward appearance.

I'm happy to report that reading this series will be building up my vocabulary! You are probably curious as to why I was traveling, well, I just got back from a quick trip to Boulder, Colorado for a triathlon that Kambria competed in. It was a fun trip with the sisters; we got to see wonderful lightning storms, do some window shopping, eat bad Thai food, eat great Chinese street food, watch new shows, and see Kambria compete at a pretty large race! Kambria did well, though not as well as she would have liked. The most important part is that she qualified for another big triathlon at the end of the season. If you want to read more about her season, you should go visit her blog. She hasn't written about her Boulder Tri yet, but you can feel free to bug her about it!

I think this will be the end of my brief update. Coming up soon, I will write about my sister Devynn's Etsy store, and her self-taught glassworks business (she's making me an adorable pair of earrings!). You should check up on her store periodically, it's called Fallen Leaves Koi. Check her out on facebook and Twitter!

I will leave you with a picture of my newly acquired stickers. If you didn't know, I collect stickers to put on my sketchbooks (Cassandra does this too). I wanted to find a cool Colorado one, but didn't have the best of luck. These stickers are pretty cool though!

For the Love of Contests

One of my goals for this year is to participate in a contest each month. Contests are a wonderful way to give yourself a deadline, and push your limits to learn something new. Now that I am out of school, and  somewhere in between free-lance designer and employee for my parents' business, I find that I need to push myself more than I did when I was in school.

For the month of January, I failed miserably. I had intended to design a fabric for one of Spoonflower.com's weekly contests. If you have never had the opportunity to check out Spoonflower, I highly recommend doing so. They are a fantastic website that gives you the opportunity to design your own fabric and actually get it printed! There is also a wide range of beautiful designs available to chose from that other artists have already uploaded. My favorite part is the contests though, and at some point this year, I will enter one!

Because of my failure at making it into any contests for the month of January, I decided that I would just have to enter two contests in February. To my surprise, there is a wide range of contests on DeviantArt.com. I found two different fashion illustration contest groups to join, and designed something for each one. 

This dress was for the "Greek Mythology" theme for the "Fashion Illustrators" group.
My dress design is based on Heracles fighting the Hydra. If you want more of a description, go check it out on my Deviant Art account.

This dress design was for the "Ugly by Design" contest in the group "Catwalk Challenge" on DeviantArt.
There were several ugly patterns given for this contest, and the challenge was to use at least two in one design.  This was what came of my design, which I had to do all of the rendering on Photoshop to keep the patterns.

Back in January, I did some surfing on the web to see if I could find some design contests that required sewing and fashion shows and the like. I found a really cool one involving the "International Talent Support", which is located in Italy and has design labels that come to watch the show! I had to create a collection of 5 to 8 looks with a specific inspiration.

I have been quite obsessed with Ancient Egyptian Mythology lately, and after purchasing a book about it on my birthday, I found plenty of interesting topics to inspire a collection. I chose "the Book of Gates," which is a work that describes the passage of Ra (the sun god) through the Tuat (the Underworld). There are 12 divisions of the underworld, each with a gate and large serpent guarding it. Each of these serpents have a name, and in order for the deceased person to get to Amenti (sort of a heaven), they must have the names of the snakes to get through the gates. For Ra, he has to pass through all of the divisions to get through the other end. The 12 divisions represent the 12 hours of night, so when Ra emerges at the end, it is morning.

I designed a menswear collection inspired by the different divisions of the Tuat.

My collection for the ITS Fashion Show.

I mailed my package at the end of last week, and will hear in mid-April if I am a selected finalist. If I get in, that means I get to actually make all of these garments by July (when the actual show is), and the really awesome part is, ITS will fly me and my collection to Italy for the show! So send me all of your good energy so that I make it as a finalist!!

For next months contest, I am thinking I might try for a t-shirt design contest.

Anyone of my readers a crazy contest person like me?

If I could pick a romantic movie....

Since February is the month that contains the controversial holiday of Valentine's Day, the topic of romance inevitably comes up. Plenty of people hate Valentine's Day (mostly singles) and there is the group that love it (typically couples), and all the rest of us who fall somewhere in-between. I've been single for a lot more Valentine's Days than not single, so knowing the best romantic movie to watch is essential.

I actually don't watch romantic movies on Valentine's Day and dream about a love I don't have. Usually, I just try to find other people who want to do something fun. Last year, my roommates and I hosted a "Singles Awareness Day Party." We played games and had a great time! This year, my sisters and I went and saw the Zombie movie "Warm Bodies." I enjoyed it! I was thoroughly entertained by the preview for it, so I figured I would like the movie. What girl doesn't want to go watch a zombie movie on V-Day?

When it comes to romantic movies I am extremely picky. I get tired of unrealistic characters in unrealistic relationships. I know most people think that my ideas of love and relationships are unattainable in real life, so my idea of romance is unrealistic. I won't get into that now, I don't know who wants to hear me rant about my idea of love. The movies listed below are my favorite romantic movies because they do a beautiful job in illustrating two people falling in love. I think the phase of a relationship is one of the most romantic parts of a relationship.

My sisters and I were discussing our favorite romantic movies (we have similar tastes) and this is the list we came up with (in no particular order). Not even a top ten!

*I like this version of Pride and Prejudice, I have never read the book or seen other versions. I apologize if I am unaware of another, better version. Feel free to educate me :)

We thought that the Princess Bride deserves an Honorable Mention, but it doesn't really fit in the category very well.

What do you think of these movies? Any movies you would add?

Salumu Alakum!

Salum Alakum is the Arabic greeting "Peace be upon you!"

Recently I have become very interested in Arabic and Middle Eastern countries. Where did this inspiration come from? Well, it probably started with my listening to the Amelia Peabody Series by Elizabeth Peters. 

I used to have this idea that I would never have any reason or desire to listen to a book when I could just read one. It probably didn't help that the only book I had ever attempted to listen to was a terrible written story narrated by mediocre voice talent. Then one day, I began working in the Outdoor Gear Repair Shop in Corvallis. The shop is a fair sized room made from an old garage of a building, and is filled with different sewing machines, various hardware, scrap fabric and materials and plenty of gear in need of repair or recently repaired. The man who owns this shop and works in everyday loves to collect and listen to audiobooks. So while I was employed there I got to enjoy quite a few good books with good and bad narrators and discovered how much easier it is to do mundane work while listening to a book. Expanding my vocabulary isn't a bad side effect either.

One of the last books I had the privilege of listening to was one of the Amelia Peabody books: "Seeing a Large Cat." I fell in love with the characters in the story. Amelia Peabody is an opinionated Brittish Egyptologist, that has a wonderful family of colorful characters placed in 1880s to early 1900s. Most of the books take place in Egypt and always have some sort of mystery that needs to be solved and usually some confounded young lovers that need her help. The narrator of the audiobook is a very good narrator. If you decide you should listen to these books, you should look for the versions narrated by Barbara Rosenplat. Elizabeth Peters in a wonderful author, and I would recommend reading the books if you don't want to listen to them. The author definitely knows what she is talking about when it comes to the history and relics of Egypt, which means in reading the books you are actually learning something about history. I am currently on book 12 of the 19 book series, and can't wait to finish them!

Listening to Amelia's passion for Egypt makes me want to go and see it for myself. A world that is desert is very intriguing. The other two books I have been reading this month have also inspired me to learn about the Middle East. The nomadic tribe of the Tureg have certainly captured my interest. I have also recently learned about one of the most expensive hotels in the world is located in Dubai, and it is interesting! Dubai seems to have a collection of unique and modern architecture. 

Burj Al Arab-- Luxury Hotel of Dubai

Now back to the phrase "Salumu Alakum!" In the Amelia Peabody books, a reader will become familiar with some Arabic words that the author has included in the story. This phrase is definitely one of them. Imagine my surprise when I was walking out of Corvallis's Dollar Tree and I heard and recognized this phrase! Imagine my further surprise when the person who said this phrase was a Caucasian gentleman, holding the door open for two Arabs! Hearing him say that to them, really made my day! I do not think I would ever be brave enough to try to speak someone else's language here, because I feel like I cannot differentiate between races that well and would hate to offend someone. If I was in Egypt, it might be a different story! 

Egypt is definitely a place I would like to visit one day, and Arabic might be a language I want to learn (It's at the back of the line though). I love how a whole new world has been opened up before me, thanks to a book!

Tasty Asian Culture

I don't know if you realized, but this week has quite a few holidays! Mardi Gras does always proceed Ash Wednesday (or the first day of Lent), but they don't usually land on the same week as the Lunar New Year and Valentine's Day!

Today I got the opportunity to make some Thai Tea with Boba!! Following a recommendation from a friend's blog, I promptly ordered some Tapioca Pearls and large straws from Amazon! They didn't arrive in time for our Chinese New Year Feast, but close enough!

Mail Order!

Delicious Thai Tea with Bubbles!

This year, in honor of Year of the Snake, my family decided to start some new traditions. We made some tasty Asian foods, including: Mango Chicken Curry, Chicken Lo Mein, and Chicken Tempura. We adorned our table with a stone snake (the new year) and a dragon (last year) and our plateware from Japan. I put on a cd with traditional Chinese music that I purchased when I was in Hong Kong. We also decorated our cake in honor of Year of the Snake! It's fun to be festive!

Tasty Food for the New Year!

It kind of looks like a snake....

Another tradition we started this year was writing out some goals for the year to put away until next year. I have this large glass owl jar that we plan to fill with pieces of paper with great moments of the year written on it, to read at the next New Year's event. We put our yellow pieces of paper with our goals in this jar too. I think by next year I might need to learn some new Origami! (Mine is the frog.)

Decorated Goal sheets

I hope that you all enjoy the holidays of this week, and try something new this year! Start a tradition!

Runway Rubbish/ Recycled Fashion Show 2013

On the evening of the 5th of February, I had the pleasure of attending OSU's annual Recycled Fashion Show. There is quite a plethora of fashion shows at Oregon State; the Red Dress Show, the Recycled Fashion Show, Mom's Weekend Fashion Show, the Spring Fashion Show, and usually a few more non-annual events. My two favorite shows to attend are the Recycled Fashion Show and the Spring Fashion Show!

Because this year marks the 27th or 28th annual Recycled Show, I was very surprised when I saw that this year's event was free (The last two years have been $5 admission, and still managed a jammed-pack audience). I made sure that my sister and I made it to the MU Ballroom no later than when the doors opened at 6pm, and I was again surprised by the lack of a long line, or people rushing ahead to go reserve good seats. My sister and I sat about the third row from the runway and probably could have reserved a couple rows for ourselves if we wanted.

Still confused, I opened the program and the confusion was immediately cleared up. Only 30 designers in the show. 30 might seem like a large number, but with each designer typically creating one look each it doesn't equate to a very long show. Not to mention that past years have been double that number of designers.

Despite the few designers in the show, OSU's Fashion Organization still put on a great event. The audience still filled the ballroom, just no one had to stand to watch the whole show this year. Before runway part of the show began, I got to learn some new facts about what can and cannot be recycled. Like coffee cups, who knew that they belong in the trash? Apparently cardboard coated with plastic cannot be recycled in any way.

The thirty designers put on a great show! I only knew a few of the designers in the show and they proved to be as awesome as I already knew they were! Plus, there were some great new designers that demanded my attention. And not to be cynical, but there were also plenty of plain, non-creative looks make out of newspaper or bubble wrap. I don't think it would be the Recycled Fashion Show without those looks though, because this is one of the shows that student designers do not need to be an apparel design major to participate.

Now onto the designs! To start out the show was Brigitte Cluver's design (the professor who taught me all about testing textiles!) on her lovely little diva of a daughter, Mackenzie Cluver! She rocked her walk down the runway in an outfit made of old, out-grown clothes and had some fancy poses at the end of the walk!

**Note: It was sometimes difficult to hear what the MC's were saying about what the garment was made of, because of the influx of the music. I was glad to have MC's back though, it makes it much easier to spend all of my time looking at the designs rather than split my time between trying to read on the screen what the design was made of and analyzing the design.

Some other notable designs were Tayler Worrell's design, in her very classic style in this strapless dress made of receipts. Modeled by the lovely Jessica Neffendorf.

Photo by Tayler Worrell

Lauren Graebner grabbed everyone's attention with her adorable children's looks! First a cute little girl in a design made from an old pinata, high school graduation gown, and race numbers. She had a second look, equally adorable, for a little boy who even showed us his muscles at the end of the runway! Lauren's designs won the "Chair's Choice Award," the new Associate Dean loved these looks!

Photo by Genna Reeves-DeArmond

Next came the beautiful Christina Ngo, modeling her own edgy/elegant look (and fantastic pink hair!). She used caution tape, an old choir dress, and leftover ribbons and chain. I really enjoyed this look because it was one of the first women's looks in the show that had a different silhouette and wasn't made of paper.

Dina Pham and Jennifer Troung probably had my favorite "paper" dresses. They were both cute and classy, but still had some pizazz to make the look not like everyone else's. Jennifer Troung's look won the award for "Best in Show."

Jennifer Troung's design/ Photo by Genna Reeves-DeArmond

Ish Guevara is a new designer (to me anyway) who definitely got my attention. I really loved the fact that he had three looks that went together and didn't resemble the rubbish they were made of (so much so that I can't remember what they were made of!).  I especially liked the "armor" dress, and loooved the cape made of straws. The theatrics that went with the looks on the runway were fun, but not necessary in my opinion. This collection said enough for itself, especially with the eccentric styling. I'll be excited to see how this designer develops as he goes through the program.

Photo by Ish Guevara (I think)

One dazzaling design that earned itself an award, was Elisse Hansen's dress made of a mattress cover (or maybe an old air mattress) and pieces of mirror. It was a very neat affect as it went down the runway and the dress reflected little lights on the ceiling. She won the "Most Creative Use of Materials."

The last look of the show was graduate student Keith Nishida's design, modeled by the fabulous Jamie Cheung. The dress has an interesting shape, and is made of pop can tabs! I really like how the "fabric" looks like chain mail! (And I love the tiara!) Keith's look won "Most Innovative Design." I really enjoyed this design and was excited to see the difference in Keith's designs from last year's to this year's (both years were great by the way). It was an excellent look to end the show on!

Photo by Genna Reeves-DeArmond

Overall, it was a great show and I was happy that I could attend! I got in some reading while I waited for the show to start (I was so thankful I brought a book!) and was happy to catch up with some people I hadn't seen for a while. Great work designers! Good luck on your next show!! (I will have to post more photos when they become available! Enjoy these few that I stole!)