Superficial Stuff

Whoohoo! I have conquered my fear over that darned sewing machine. Well today at my sewing class I didn't get the chance to even use my machine because I was too busy cutting the fabric pattern and then we had to watch our teacher do this and that so two hours passed by really quickly. Prior to my class I was fiddling around with my machine trying to get familiar with all the gadgetry. Well I remember little bits here and there from gr 6 which helped a lot actually except the manual for the machine really sucked and didn't explain the details which I really needed. So when I came back home I decided to give it a shot and sew my pant legs together (we're making pj pants with elastic band waist or drawstring). Ugh my finishing is terrible. Hahaha.. the seam ripper was my best friend today. I got a good laugh out of it though. Here comes Sam, couture seamstress. Haha.. Anyway I decided to sew both pant legs together so now I have a pair of enormous pj pants. I should not have lengthened my pattern because it's trailing on the floor and it looks like massive. It's a dress on my mom- really funny.
Anyway I'm really happy because I was the only one who used that shiny polyester which is extremely slippery and difficult to use (the teacher kept exempting me from every instruction because I had to do extra work. Before sewing with the machine I had to do 'baste sewing' which is a common practice among tailors- now you know why custom made clothes are so expensive. Baste sewing is basically when you do a lot of loose stitching around the area you want to sew together to hold the pieces lightly together so when you use the machine, you don't have to worry about the fabric shifting. And then after using the machine, you have to pull them all out. NO ONE had to do that except for me. Yay for me...). Yeah so now I'm done and all I have to do is sew the elastic in and hem the ends- at least that's what I think there is left to do.
Which now leaves me dreaming of what to make next... and I'm really ahead of myself. I wanted to make a small jacket with a Peter Pan collar except it's probably really difficult dealing with thick fabrics and linings and more pieces etc. So I've got a plan which gets progressively more difficult:


1) Make pj pants (almost finished)
2) Make a skirt
3) Make a dress
4)Make a jacket


But at this rate I'll probably have to sign up for some private lessons at a Newmarket sewing studio. Two hours a week isn't enough and I have to share the teacher with nine other people and I'm eager to learn more so I can expand my wardrobe. Jking.
Well I was browing around when I saw this:

The problem with following ready made patterns right now is that the clothes look like anything you'd typically see at a Garage or Costa Blanca. I want to buy basic patterns and alter them to satisfy that creative crave I have to personalize things. I'm trying to find a dress pattern like the picture above. It's basically a long skirt with two strips of fabric on top really. So I'm wondering if I got a skirt pattern, would it do double duty as a dress pattern as well?



I was in the car with my parents when my mom asked me if I had looked at the Fashion section from the Star today which wrote about the new August issue of Vogue. Haha. Yes I wrote about that yesterday, mother. She once mentioned that she liked this huge white wedding gown from a picture with the designer of Rochas, Olivier Theyskens (the dress above is from Rochas), and I told her that the French house just announced it was going to close down. Why? Because it was owned by Proctor and Gamble (funny isn't it. We don't associate high fashion with P&G). Now why wouldn't LVMH (Louis Vuitton) or the Prada or Gucci team take in Rochas and support this budding designer? Doesn't make sense. So the now orphaned Olivier Theyksens, full of talent but no supporting house, will be left as a- free agent. Yes, kids. An unrestricted free agent. Meanwhile, Phoebe Philo, a key player within the company who transformed my beloved Chloe brand, has left the house for Chanel and becoming the right hand woman of Karl Lagerfeld the legendary designer for Chanel. So with no head designer at Chloe, their fall collection really sucked due to the work of three random people within the company- they tried to mix in huge slouchy overalls with grey tones (the colour of fall this year) and added some Marc Jacobs layering and tried to keep some of its summer wardrobe by adding a few Victorian blouses here and there. That's what you get in a democratic society of a designer-less house who passes the ball too much and lacks a star. A lot of junk:

Yuck. So with Phoebe Philo at the house of Chanel, there is also the speculation that she will be the next successor of the house after Lagerfeld leaves. Oscar de la Renta is also head designer-less so which team will take up Olivier Theyskens? Huge potential and lots of creativity, I'm thinking he's more suitable for de la Renta because his work is generally more lavish and red carpet than Chloe which is more (or was) cutting edge and for the younger crowd.

After I finished talking, I realized that I basically sounded like Tania talking about basketball minus all the b ball jargon.

I'm really annoyed at Canada's Next Top Model. You may think this is an overreaction but it's really annoying because the end was a total letdown (you have to see it to believe it). Producers must seriously think their viewers are stupid to allow the girl to win last night. It made no sense. The Chinese girl, Sisi, took fabulous pictures throughout the entire show and she was kicked out because they had to do a commercial for Cover Girl. Stupid. Models are supposed to model not act. Okay, modelling is sort of like acting but it's in front of a photographer who has a camera which takes STILL frames while a commercial requires a film crew who have video cameras which take MOTION shots. You really do not see top models acting. They stay on the runway because it's their forte. We're looking for a top model which entitles runway and editorial shoots not commercial stuff. Ai yah. And the dumb thing is is that the supposed 'knowledgeable' judges in the show are from the industry. You'd think they'd know what to look for. Andrea, the winner, looks anorexic, eats only candy though, cries way too much, looks sad all the time and cannot walk for the life of it (even tania said she can strut down the runway better than she can. HAHA. That I have to see). And the show they did was less than wow. It was in some convention centre on a carpeted floor like some cheesy high school act.

You know why Sisi lost? I think race is only a minor factor if it was one. It's actually because what the judges are really looking for is not who is the best, but who has improved the most. They want to say "look at what you were from the beginning and look where you are now! We have turned you from a geek to a glamorous model!" like some Cinderella story. Instead, Sisi has been consistent with her pictures and had some experience in the industry and in the end she had 'stalled' and hadn't improved, so they let her go. If they let her win, it'd be as if the show never really contributed in helping her grow except giving her some media attention. It's not about who took the best pictures, it was about who went from 'meh' to wow factor. Which disappoints me because both of the last two models were not the ones I pictured standing there. I will bet you anything that she will not make it anywhere in the 'real world'. At the end of the episode she promised that she wouldn't disappoint the judges and that she'd go far. Haha let's see that.

"WE made this girl who she has become."

Okay I will stop ranting about a superficial tv show. It's just like watching a movie with a great start but a crappy ending

About a month ago my aunt asked me if I was interested in taking this paper craft activity with her at the local community centre because I "like shallow things". I told myself not to take it to heart but I haven't been able to forget either.