Illustrations

It's been 3 weeks since I did my last post! Slacker... But this MoDA Obsessions project is driving me to the ground, hence the lack of posting, because the massive pile of work that I've needed to do. 'Obsessive' amounts of research and 50 designs with fronts and backs, plus the they needed to be coloured, presented with thumbnail images of where our inspiration cames from. Gluing and sticking is time consuming! And you feel my exhaustion? On top of that as a student rep, I'm also currently planning a fashion show with my fellow student reps. Planning a fashion show with no funding seems to be a bit of a challenge. 

Oh no, us students love to work for free for other companies (when we're doing internships), but do they want to work for free for the students? I don't think so! 

We haven't given up yet, surprisingly we are looking at the whole situation fairly positively - so that's good news. 

Back to the drawings. We've been doing extra sessions, now that the second years are on a placement, the tutors have found some spare time. And to be fair we've been complaining about not having illustration lessons, so kudos to them for listening to us (that's almost a miracle) . We've been doing different exercises - and to be quite frank, I'm WAY out of my comfort zone! It's okay, you're allowed to laugh at my drawings, I wont take any offense, beside I have excepted the fact that it's just not one of my talents. 

I know, I know, I could just practice, because practice makes perfect, but to be honest I'm just not that bothered. Once again, you might think I'm a slacker! 

Hope you're all well. I feel better now that I've handed in my work for an assessment. I was in the library yesterday from 12:00 am till 2:00 am this morning. Got to bed at 3:00 am and had four hours sleep... 

Commitment! Although you might sake your head at me, you haven't met the super heroes of the library; Rose, Phoenix, Mars and Erin - these girls stayed all night, they stayed right up till the hand-in at 9am this morning! Plus Phoenix then sat in the atrium with me and the other student reps and had a 2 hour long meeting! She deserve a medal and an applause! 

/Hannah

Better Late Than Never

I wanted to show you the dress some time before, but then I thought I didn't want to reveal it before Julie had actually worn it to her party, which was in late December. And well now it's mid-January. 
So here's the dress on Julie, doesn't she look beautiful? Well she always does regardless of what she wears! 

She wrote a lovely thing on Facbook: 
"Tak til min dejlige og talentfulde veninde Hannah fordi hun havde tiden og lysten til at sy denne fantastiske kjole til min galla." 
Need a translation? 
"Thank you to my lovely and talented friend Hannah because she had the time and will to sew this fantastic dress for my gala." 
Well there's no guarantee that you'll believe the translation if you're not Danish, for all you know I could be thinking very highly of myself ;) 
You could always ask Julie if you're in doubt. 

These are not actual images from her night, she took these afterwards, because she claims, that there are no decent photos of her from that night, well who believes that? 

/Hannah

Treasure Trail in London

Some images are taken by Ruth one of my flat mates and the rest by me on my iPhone. 

On Monday Freshers Week started at Middlesex University. I had my introduction day, where I got to meet some of the tutors and shown around. We were also given two project briefs, one that would cover this week and one that we would start on next week. 

This weeks project brief required us to divide into groups of four - and then run around in London to find different places. Each place had a description and address, but no name of the actual place. Then there would be a task that we had to solve. 

There were 10 points of interest that we had to visit: Bond Street Tube station, V V Rouleaux (braids and trimming), Liberty (had to find my 3 favourite stockiest), Dover Street Market (famous Japanese brand), Ance (get the magazine), A.P.C (get a picture of their interior), Topshop (current collaboration),  Berwick St. (get fabric swatches), Old Compton St number 48 (by a magazine that inspires me), Start (what type of pet does the founder own?), Rivington St (more magazines to browse) and meet at Patisserie Valerie. 

The most eventful thing of the day was when we went to START and had to find out what pet the owner had. We couldn't quite understand why, until we asked a shop assistant. We then found out that the START shops (there are 3) are own my Brix Smith-Start, famous for competing against Gok Wan in the TV progamme Fashion Roadshow. Brix has two dogs called Gladys and Pixie, unfortunately they weren't in the shop today, usually they are and so is she! Such as shame, would have loved to meet her! We had a good chat with the shop assistant and found out that he also had been a fashion student, he took his BA at Manchester Metropolitan University and his MA at The Royal College of Art! 

Our jaws dropped in amazement, how did he get in?! He just said it isn't as difficult as everyone thinks it is. Just apply, have enthusiasm and drive! 

/Hannah

Update on JV Project

It's been while since I last gave you an update on what was going on with Julie's dress. A lot has been going on the last few weeks not just for me, but Julie has also been really busy. 

Initially I did a toile in calico of Julie's dress, but that didn't work about very well! Too small, so I decided to get some fairly cheap jersey, to get an idea of how the material would work with my design. This worked out better, not only because of the material, but also because I actually got around to take her measurements! 

Which actually weren't that far from the original patterns. 

Anyway these pictures are of Julie, wearing the toile in calico, were just doing her fittings. It was a little bit too big and the front neckline needed altering. 

As I was ordering the Luxury Viscose Jersey and checked out, I got an email couple of minutes later saying that the material was out of stock! And it would take a week for it to arrive instead of a 2 days. Which totally messed up the plan of having the dress ready for Julie before I returned back to England. 

On the Friday that I left, I was able to see the lovely Julie for 5 minutes and she quickly through on the dress, with the new alterations, and it was perfect, besides the ragged edges and the fact that I hadn't had the time to stich it together properly! 

Now I'm just waiting for my Mum to send over the material, and then I need to find out if  I have to go out and purchase a sewing machine or if its going to be possible to use the studios at the university in the weekend. Either way the dress is going to with Julie on the day she needs it! 

/Hannah

Side Project

 As you know I'm working on the dress for Julie, I decided to use some of the scrap material to create a top in the same style as the dress for Julie. I might be a bit tricky to see the details, as black mannequin and black top doesn't make it easy to see the contrasts! 

Lets hope she likes it! 

/Hannah

A Sketch of A Dress

While I'm still slowly working on the dress, I thought I'd show you a quick line drawing of the design. 

/Hannah

Kitchen Studio

When you're no longer working in a studio you have to find alternatives, when you own bedroom is too small to even have patternpaper laying on the floor. So I transformed my parents kitchen island into a workspace. One of my dear friends Julie asked my kindly if I could make her a gala dress, some might call it prom, but since it's for a college due and the way Julie described the event, I think the more appropriate word is "gala". Anyway people keep telling me that I've got all this time, and I'm doing nothing with my life, so I might as keep busy these last few weeks, before I move back to England. 

Julie had a very clear vision for her dress, which makes my job easy. She wanted something elegant, with a deep draped back, reasonably high neckline at the front and floor length. We've been discussing material quite a lot, but once again Julie had quite a clear vision, nothing shiny or something that screams cliché gala dress materials (silk, satin, taffeta etc.), so we've ended up with a luxurious Viscose Jersey in black. 

So far the biggest challenge making this dress has been creating the pattern, as I haven't been able to locate any basic blocks here in Denmark or anywhere online that looks trustworthy. 

So I brought a basic maxi dress block from Stof & Stil (a Danish fabric store), and altered it from there, which turned out to be a trickier than expected. 

Hopefully I'll be able to show you the final result soon!

/Hannah

First Order

The reason why there's two images of the front, is because this more reflects the true colour of the jacket - BLACK. Whereas above and below is comes of more brown, but it's hard to capture the colour and the detail in the same shot, especially with a white background as the contrasts are too big.


Apparently my construction tutor, Emma, really like my Final Major Project jacket, so she asked me if I could make one for her, as I had a spare couple of weeks before college actually ended. 
I was so proud and extremely flattered so I said yes! Although she asked if we could do minor alterations, such as two sleeves the same length, instead of four, and the asymmetry to less dramatic and without the trimmings. Emma also pick the black wool, as she wanted to wear it for fall/winter, instead of the blue soya jersey. I like the fact that we still kept to the natural materials.
I'm really pleased with the outcome and hopefully so is Emma, now I want one myself, better save up for the wool though, as that can be quite expensive!

/Hannah

Sydney Habour Bridge @ Aylesbury College Shop

Here are my scarfs presented at the Aylesbury College Shop, sold for £30 each! Screen printed silk scarfs, each with their own individual design!

/Hannah 

Turmeric & Scarfs

Not too long ago I posted a post where I was playing with turmeric, here's the result, how amazing is that colour?

I was asked by my print tutor if I wanted to recreate my Sydney Habour Bridge scarfs, to put in the Aylesbury College Shop to sell. I thought why not, that's a great opportunity! Here's the first three... 

/Hannah