Ain't Life Grand!

It sure is!  And lately, for the most part, it's getting better and better every day!  In most recent news, my ties are now available for sale in Grand Central Station!  How cool is that? The lovely ladies behind Local Labels, Loren and Jean, are showcasing their wares at a kiosk in the Graybar Passage from now until the end of August.  Local Labels is the purveyor of many fabulous products, from pickles to perfume, which are all made right here in NYC!  This, obviously, includes my ties!  

To read more about Local Label's escapades at Grand Central, and to learn more about some of the featured artisans, be sure to check out their blog!  If you live in the city or are traveling through, don't pass up a chance to stop by, say hello and support your local artists!

New Ties Galore!

Haven't posted in a while, and although I have about 4 or 5 different things in mind that I want to write about, I thought I would start by sharing some of my new creations! I have 3 new tie designs available for sale, two of which were listed in my Etsy shop for the first time this week. Let's start the roll call!

Bicycle tie! This one has been super popular so far! Cause who doesn't love a good bike? This was originally designed as a custom request to be used for a wedding, and my wonderful customer was so kind as to allow me to continue to use their design. Now anyone can have this awesome tie! Shown here in Cerulean Blue, Beige and Baby Blue. ALL of my tie designs can be printed in ANY color of silk you can imagine and custom colors don't cost extra!!!

Next up is the Fan Coral tie! I think I need to put together an Ocean tie set. I've got an octopus, a seahorse and now coral! And *spoiler alert* there is an awesome new squid design on the way in the next few months. Definitely before the holidays! And it's enough different from the octopus that if you like one, you'll need both! So, yes, fan coral. This design was also made as a custom request for a wedding. The wonderful Chris and Katherine, now happily married, gave me a photograph of what they wanted their tie to look like.

Beginning photo for fan coral tie design

I then drew the coral illustration by hand and had it turned into a screen. Here are Chris and Katherine on their wedding day! (and a close-up of the tie) The tie was printed with silver ink on sky blue. It's a little hard to see in the photo, but looked great in person!

And here are the ties available in my Etsy shop! Shown here in Royal Blue, Seafoam and Sky Blue.

Both of the above designs were finished before I left Phoenix. This next one is my first new creation since moving to NYC! I've been saving this moth design for a while, not knowing what to do with it. I just recently had a silkscreen made with some other custom images done for weddings. There was room left on the layout and I needed something to fill the space! So I created this flight of moths design. I like it. Hope you do! Shown here in Autumn Gold, Turquoise and Red Grape.

These following two ties are designs that were created as custom images for weddings which I will NOT be offering for sale in my shop. The reason for this is that the customers purchased the artwork specifically for use with their order. For both of these I worked with the amazingly talented Beth of wildemoon.etsy.com She and the customer conspired to create their ideal design and when she was done she sent it to me to have made into a screen. Beth was fantastic, lightening fast and very personable and professional. She and I are collaborating on a few designs right now and I would recommend her to ANY of my future customers who are looking for an original design. She can create screen-printable artwork from just about anything! Art for the first tie shown here was created from an illustration, while art for the second tie was created from a set of photographs! Amazing!

Custom Peacock Feather tie design created for Greg & Noel's wedding. Aren't the colors they chose just gorgeous?!

Custom ties for Wendy & Tim's wedding. She's a violist (I think that's what you would call it) and he plays percussion, so their design incorporated fiddlehead ferns and drumstick Allium. Fun! We are also printing a larger version of this on silk shawls I'm making for her bridesmaids.

That's all the tie fun for now! Hit me up with your custom requests and send your engaged friends my way!

Construction Zone!

My sewing room always looks like a tornado just rolled through, I find it difficult to allot time for designing AND cleaning. Of course making new clothing comes first! Cleaning can wait til it's absolutely necessary. Anyway, right now it no exception. Half finished garments, pattern pieces, thread, fabric and notions are EVERYWHERE! But at least it's a fun and constructive mess.

Part of my sewing room and its lovely mess

Here's a little bit of what I've been up to since I got back from Chicago. I started this black and white plaid dupioni silk dress yesterday. I've had this fabric for nearly as long as I have been designing. It's just been sitting around waiting and waiting for the right pattern to come its way, and I think I have finally found the thing that it was meant to be used for. Good thing I have about 10 more yards just in case! Yesterday I draped the pattern for the top and made a quick fit sample. Today I sewed all the body fabric together. Right now I'm working on cutting out and piecing the lining together. It will be lined with black silk satin. Tomorrow I need to get a zipper for it and sew in the lining and then voila, a cute dress ready in 3 days! I'm thinking of using a brightly colored petticoat underneath it and then making some kind of sash belt in the same color for contrast. Any color suggestions? I'm leaning towards daffodil yellow, mostly because I already have a petticoat and silk fabric in that color. That petticoat is on underneath it in the second photo and I definitely like the way it helps the dress poof.

On the left is a photo from earlier today of just the bodice sewn and being checked for fit.
On the right the dress is almost complete! Just needs lining and a zipper. Also, it will have
tiny black spaghetti straps when it's finished.

I actually started making this dress with a completely different fabric in mind. I can't afford to buy that fabric just yet, unless a mysterious large amount of money suddenly falls from the sky and lands in my paypal account, so I decided to make a test dress. The plaid one is actually a little different style-wise in the skirt than the forthcoming dress will be. Also, the 2nd dress will have a super cute cropped jacket with petal sleeves. I'm still working out the pattern right now cause it's going have some crazy details and style lines. It'll be lined with and have accent pieces of the fabric the dress will be made from. Here's a little illustration I've made of the jacket:

Soon-to-be real cropped jacket, my original design. The body will be silk noile
and the lining and accents will be printed silk charmeuse. Yummy!

Both of these outfits and many more will be shown at Frock n Roll, a fashion show featuring local designers being held on May 17th. See my past post about the event here.

So, I guess it's time to get back to work! Will post more photos and fun details when this dress is done and I start working on the jacket!

Prepping for PR Tryouts

The past few weeks since the Project Runway Season 5 casting information was posting have been likely the most hectic weeks of my life. As we neared the Season 4 finale I knew that if there was going to be a Season 5 it would be announced soon, but I didn't expect to have less than a month to get ready for it. Yikes! Good thing I work best under pressure.

So, I've been sewing like a mad woman since then trying to figure out what I am going to take with me to show the judges. Since it's only days away, good news is I have at least decided. I'll be taking two pieces that I've made this month and one that I made at the end of last year. I'll post photos of the new stuff later, I think these three will be nice and cohesive. I actually started about 3 other pieces that I thought I wanted to take with me, got about halfway done and decided that they wouldn't be what the judges are looking for. Not that they weren't good or interesting, just maybe not good ENOUGH. I am planning on finishing them all and showing them at Frock n Roll in May.

Close-up of one of my designs. Modeled by KT Mayer

On Easter Sunday I did a photo shoot with an amazing local photographer, Nicky Hedayat-Zadeh. She was featured in the March 2008 issue of Java Magazine. You can view the article here. I needed to get some updated photos for my portfolio and there's no better time than now. We shot at Nicky's studio in downtown Phoenix and the shoot lasted about 6 hours and showcased 10 of my pieces. The photos came out GORGEOUSLY! I was so excited I could hardly wait to get home so I could start sewing new stuff to do another shoot with.

My design. Modeled by Amparo Elizabeth

Will wrap this one up in the morning... getting sleepy...

Persimmons Boutique

Starting this week my ties can now be purchased in another fantastic, locally owned and operated boutique. It's Persimmons, in Wisconsin!

Located at 314 N 8th Street Manitowoc Wisconsin 54220

I haven't been there personally, unfortunately, but it looks awesome from the photos! So I let the lovely owner, Kim Geiser, say a few words about her store for me:

"Persimmons is an eclectic oasis of inspiration and memories. Featuring over 100 local and national artists and designers you can find everything from fine art for your home to unique funky handmade clothing. Collage, crochet items, indie crafts, raku pottery, fused glass, and handcrafted jewelry are just a few of the one-of-a-kind offerings that make Persimmons the most unique shop in Northeastern Wisconsin.

For the artsy types we offer a fun little selection of supplies and would love to teach you to how to use them at the kitchen table! Join us Thursday nights for art night and create a project and hang out with friends. Often with a recycled art theme we are proud to teach people how to help the enviroment by re-using rather than filling the landfills.

Another great way to recycle is to buy vintage...we have that too. You can find a great selection of useable glassware, fantastic fabrics, old books, fun games, and beautiful hankies!

If you enjoy living an artful life you will enjoy your trip to Persimmons.

Oh and if you every find a store just like Persimmons...they copied us."

My printed silk ties on display in Persimmons

I'm totally excited to be working with this shop! If you're in Wisconsin or will be in the future, make sure you drop in and check it out!

stylemob

I just signed up for stylemob today. It looks pretty cool and I think that it will be a good promotional tool once I have more photos of my work ready for posting. I signed up initially to vote for tiinateaspoon, awesome fashion designer, photographer and Etsy friend. She entered the stylemob Made It Myself Contest. Click here to vote for her entry!

I checked out the site, found it to be neat, and decided to start a profile and put an entry into the contest myself. Below is a photo of the dress I entered, taken at Scottsdale Fashion Week 2007. The dress is worn here by my good friend and ever-devoted and dependable model Alyssa La Fortune Holt. Click here to vote on my entry in the contest. You can view my public profile on stylemob here.

This dress is made from lilac purple and black dupioni silk. The inside of the dress has 4 layers of interlining, two of which are hair canvas and two are black cotton broadcloth. The dress is boned with spiral steel and completely lined with black silk satin. The octopus detail on the outside was hand-embroidered by me with black laceweight silk yarn and took over 40 hours to complete. In the end it came out looking pretty fantastic and it's one of my favorite pieces that I have made. So that's all... now go vote!

New ties are ready!

After forever and ever of sitting on this design and trying to get it touched up just right and then just completely slacking about it, my new seahorse ties are finally ready!

The ties are completely handmade, by me, as always, from dupioni silk. They are available in all the colors shown here (sky blue, slate blue and turquoise), as well as dozens of other colors, upon request. To purchase or inquire about options, just visit my Etsy store.

Artwork for these ties was done by my good friend Matt Forcella, who also designed my Venus Fly Trap print. He and his lovely wife Pallas share a shop on Etsy also. Check it out! It's: mallas.etsy.com

Project Runway at-home challenge

I just recently discovered on BravoTV.com that they have a Project Runway at-home weekly challenge. Each new challenge is somewhat related to the challenge that was given to the designers on the actual show that week. When I found out about this, the challenge was "sketch an outfit using ONLY candy as your sketching materials." BLAH!

So, I skipped that one and waited for the next week's challenge. It was awesome! Make a prom dress for the year 5058. I was so excited I started conjuring up ideas instantly and was sewing my outfit the next day. You only have one week worth of time, until the next episode airs, to complete the outfit and submit your entry online. I sewed like a banshee and was done Tuesday morning with bleeding fingers and tired eyes and this is what emerged:

My outfit was made from faux ostrich leather, ultrasuede and a slew of random interior decorating fabrics that I had had lying around the house. Is it a two-piece outfit with a fully lined corset style top that buckles across the front. I spray-painted a super sweet pair of Italian leather boots that I had had since 11th grade, borrowed a wig from a friend and voila! The look was complete. I was so excited and so was my model, KT Mayer. She looked fantastic and the outfit was exactly what I had pictured from the very beginning. Here's a close-up shot for a better look at the detailing:

I touched up my photos and made sure they were the right size for the contest regulations, filled out the entry form and sent everything through. I should probably say that if you win, and there is one winner each week for each challenge, you don't win a million bucks or anything. You get a copy of the Season 2 and 3 dvds of Project Runway and one of those 5 lb. Hershey bars. JUST what I need to help me get in shape. Regardless, I only have Season 1 on dvd, so I thought that was cool. I was SURE I could win!
As soon as the show was over last night I logged on to their website to see if they most recent contest entries were posted. They were! But wait, mine wasn't there?! Just a lot of plain dresses that looked like the same things people had made the week before and one semi-interesting ruffly dress. NONE of it looked futuristic, eye-catching or exquisitely and painstakingly crafted. Ahem! In the rules for the contest Bravo does say they reserve the right to NOT choose to post your entry on their page, even if it's the most awesome one ever, but what the heck? I worked SO hard and was so excited and to no avail.
The next at-home challenge is the best yet! Make something avant garde. I would completely rock at this! But alas, I will be out of town for the entire week for a funeral, and definitely won't have any time to make the dress I had in mind. I THINK you are allowed to submit a sketch though, so we'll see...