There's a sunset brimming over the sky

Late spring is always my favorite time of the year!   School is usually out by May and June, and the evenings are long.  It's always such a refreshing time, and it reminds me of my tomboy youth when I would run around the garden for hours.  During those times, I never had anything specific to keep me entertained; just enjoying the outside kept me occupied enough.  I was outside the other day, enjoying the weather when I decided that it was the perfect settings for a photo shoot.  It's strange to think that in just a couple of months I'll be in another state with a completely different environment.  

All photos taken myself

Outfit: 

Denim shirt:  Gap - gift

Overalls:  Thrifted

Converse:  Thrifted

Right now I'm in the middle of working on a dress for a client.  I'm hand drawing these Sharpie doodles all over the dress, and it's taking me longer than I expected.  I'm excited about it though, because it's different than what I normally do.  I can't wait to post more photos soon! 

^Preview on instagram 

Orla Kiely Inspired Skirt

All photos taken myself

Outfit

Hat: Thrifted Gift from my sister

Sweather:  Thrifted

Skirt:  Esther from the Sticks

Belt: Forever 21

Heels:  Sears 

I made this skirt a couple of years ago based off of an Orla Kiely design.  It was during the time when I was obsessed with everything made from her.  Every collection has a beautiful vintage nostalgic feel that I can only compare to the feeling I get after watching a Wes Anderson film.  The way she works with prints and colors is genius, and she'll always be one of my favorite designers.  

The skirt was made using a linen fabric I found in the $1 section at Wal-Mart (where else).  It's a simple gathered skirt with an invisible zipper in the back.  There are two layers on the skirt that overlay each other and hidden pockets in the sides of the skirt.  The bottom hem line was finished using hand made 1 inch bias tape made from muslin.  I know that muslin is normally used for mock ups, but I liked the color, plus it saved a bit of money.  Here's a tutorial I made a while back for The Drifter and the Gypsy on how to sew bias tape.  You can check it out here.

My graduation party was this last weekend.  Ever since I first started sewing in the 7th grade I've been going to Wal-Mart to buy my fabric.  Not only are there really cool fabric finds, but also the ladies who work there are incredibly kind and lovely.  So I was very excited when I saw that Susan and Jackie from the fabric department came to my graduation party!  I was truly blessed by their presence, and I felt so honored that they came.  If you have a fabric department in your Wal-Mart get to know the ladies, because they are truly some of the nicest people you'll ever meet!

Thanks Susan, Jackie, and Evelyn for all the hard work that you put into your department!  I have loved getting to know you!  

All the cracks in the walls remind you of things we've said...

I love swings!  It dates back all the way to my childhood.  I've spent a lot of time on the swing.  Even today, every time I need a break the swing is the first place I think of.   It’s just always reminds me of calm and safety.  When Daniel was still alive and going through psychosis the swing was a place for me to get away. 

During one of his early psychotic episodes he went through a phase where he'd organize these chaotic piles of everything that he owned.  He would put mounds of random things, but “organized art” in his mind.  Every pile had a system.  It took over a whole room in our house once.  One day my mom told him that he needed to put everything away.  Of course, he didn't agree and suddenly he started yelling and quickly became incoherent.  I went into my room to get away, but I kept hearing these muffled bangs – he was throwing objects against the walls.  That’s when I decided to go outside for a while.  I used to go to our backyard and swing for hours, because it was safely away from the chaos inside, and the rocking motion always soothed me.

I used to pretend that the ropes were arms and that someone was holding me in that moment - rocking me back and forth trying to calm my cries.  It always worked.  So whenever Daniel would go into his violent spurts I would go sit on the swing, and pretend that I was being held by someone.  Then in the safety of the rope's arms I would pump my legs as fast as I could, thinking that if I pumped hard enough I could fly and touch the clouds that I was trying so hard to reach.  To this day swinging is such a calming motion for me. 

^Photos taken last summer by my incredibly talented and cool sister Ruth over at Yaro Photography.  Missing her today, but I can’t wait to see her in August!  She’s coming home to visit for an entire week!  I’m sure we’ll have many new photo shoots to show after that week.

Summer Wanderlusting Vibes

Summer has always been my favorite time for reading.  Whenever I read a book it has to be at the right time when I don't have any other projects going on, otherwise I feel like I'm not fully focusing on the book.  Right now I'm in the middle of a book called Gypset Style by Julia Chaplin.  It talked about the intriguing style mixture of the carefree Gypsies, with the luxury of jet setters.  Gypsetters are usually creative people such as artist, writers, musicians, who travel to get away from their usual life in a busy city to refresh and regain inspiration.  They take boho style to the extreme in such an effortless looking way that's mesmerizing and enchanting.  After reading about them, I've noticed my own thought process about style starting to change.  I've started layering more and playing around by mixing colors.  The next book that's on my list is about the costumes design for Mad Men so I'm sure in a week my style will completely change to the big crinoline skirts of the 50s.  But that's what I find so great and fun about fashion; it doesn't have to stay the same, nor should it. 

Outfit: 

Chiffon lace blouse:  Thrifted

Embroidered little girl's vest:  Thrifted

Blue beaded suede belt:  Thrifted 

Burnt orange suede shorts:  Forever 21

Guess sunglasses:  Thrifted (they still have their prescription in them, so I can't really wear them. ha).

Bracelet:  Hammy down from my mom. 

Hat:  Thrifted and then fixed up. 

All photos taken myself

 My favorite part about thrifting is turning an item into something totally different than what it first started as.  This hat has had a bit of work done on it.  When I first found it while thrifting a couple of years ago, it was tan with embroidered, pastel flowers on it.  It looked like something I would've worn for Easter when I was 8-years-old.  I fixed it up by seam-ripping the embroidery stitches out and then dyeing it with watered down, acrylic paint (because it's cheaper than dye).  After that I added feathers and some of my own bead work and now it's completely new hat. 

Happy Monday and I hope the start of your summer is full of new adventurous hope!  

Gatsby's Prom: Part Two - The Attire

Austin is a good art friend of mine who invited me to his school's prom.  From the very beginning Austin and I had a specific image in our mind of what we wanted to create for our outfits.  The theme of the prom was Great Gatsby so we both knew from the start that we wanted to take inspiration from that era.  Every item that we're wearing was carefully added to coordinate with the other's outfit.  My navy blue gown went with his navy blue velvet, smoking jacket.  His gold tie clip and cuffs matched the gold specks in the fabric of my gown.  The angles of my seam placements matched the angles of the design in his cuff links and tie clip.  Each piece was created to fit together in order to create a whole image and story.

^photo credit:  Austin

^He spray painted his laces gold to go with my dress. 

The dress construction:  

I have answered this question at least 150 times ever since I first started sewing "are you going to make your own prom dress?"  The answer was always pretty much self explanatory if you knew how many hours of the day I spend in my room sewing.  

The dress was completely hand drafted.  Over 23 separate pattern pieces were drafted for this dress.  It felt so much like a jig saw puzzle while drafting and measuring everything out.  I used two different kinds of chiffon for the overlay.  One was a plain, navy chiffon, and the other was a navy chiffon with small, gold dotted, grid lines which I used in the detailing of the dress.  If you've ever worked with chiffon before you'll know that it's not the most user friendly of all the fabrics.  I had to be very thoughtful of the grainline, otherwise the pattern would distort itself when it was moved to the sewing machine and the fit would be off.  

The dress was sewn using all french seams to keep the overlay from unraveling and completely falling apart.  Also I've found french seams to look sleeker when working with see-through fabric.  The seam placements are actually details of the dress itself.  Everything was cut out to create a triangle shape.  The skirt seams were placed to create a triangle effect going down towards the skirt; this is also echoed in pleated seam around the v-shaped neckline in the front and back.

There are a total of 5 godets in the front, side and back using the gold speckled fabric so when I walked the gold would pop, but only very subtly.  There's a slight train in the back godet of the dress, but nothing too long.  I wanted to be sure that I could still dance without getting stepped on all night.  

The lining is a completely separate dress made from bright cobalt satin fabric.  At first I was going to use navy for the lining, but when I held the under the overlay, the detail of the french seams were lost.  With the cobalt it was still blue enough to look navy, but at the same time show off the detail of the seams. 

I was working on the dress far into the early morning (4am) of the day of the prom.  I finished sewing the last detail of my dress literally 30 minutes before I left to get ready with the other girls.  Overall I'd say around 90 hours went into the construction of this dress.

Instagram photo while working on the skirt seams. 

I went to the prom with not only an awesome friend, but also an incredible artist!  Austin has a knack for details and the ability to think from every side of a project; that's a wonderful aesthetic for an artist.  He is a Junior in high school right now and hopes to attend an art school to pursue his passion for design.  Keep a look out for his work in a few years, because he has the talent and dedication to pursue his dream and make it big time.  Here are just a couple of his design works from this year:

Overall this felt more like an art collaboration project than a dance, but I think that's what made it so much fun.  It got me really excited for college, because I know I'll have so many more collaborative projects with talented students in my field of study. 

I hope you'll all having a wonderful start of the weekend!