What I did this week (7 mar 2014)
It was a short week because of sophomore review. In motion graphics on monday, I started a new project. One Show being all finished, everybody was a lot friendlier.
I spent most of tuesday and wednesday working on freelance projects at home. I also worked on drawing up final patterns for my Thesis sweaters. Wow! Graduation is approaching swiftly, and I’m not as far along with my sweater-making as I ought to be.
Thursday was a normal day. After a too-long crit during which nobody spoke, I used the rest of class time trying to make a successful resin cast (it didn’t work). La-Neka and I walked over to the fashion lab after jewelry, because I wanted to see her do a couple of things on the knitting machine. After that, we sat through a bunch of presentations in senior ad. I finished this very short week with history of 2-d: the teacher assigned a two-page paper, “due by may 1”; I went home and finished it that night.
CCAD students, 1950s. Those drawing horses and easels look eerily familiar, don’t they? And check out those smocks.
Thesis, part 5: patterns are sized!
After I got my knitting machine, I practiced quite a bit. I made a sweater vest on it. Then I got distracted with other parts of my thesis and trailed off practicing. And now look at the calendar! It’s already march and I need to get my act together. Last week, I did some retail investigation into grading and sizing of commercial pullover-style garments. I combined my findings with my own notes about the pattern I want to create. At this point, I have a solid sweater pattern in sizes s, m, l, and xl.
Now that I have patterns, I’m ready to start making test garments. A few days ago, I called the people in South Bloomfield who will be spinning and dying yarn for me, and I made a small preliminary order—just enough yarn so I can create one sample sweater in each size.
I’m not anticipating a lot of trouble with the pattern, but it’s high time to have the final materials in my hands and to start making finished garments. Once I iron out any difficulties, I will essentially be ready to start producing en masse!
What’s next?
Speaking of en masse, I’m getting a little anxious about all the sweaters I need to make! While I’m not interested in making thousands of sweaters, I would like everyone who wants one to have one—and I don’t want to be running a sweatshop to get it all done. I really need to find a way to produce the knitted pieces I need offsite. When I go pick up this first batch of yarn, I’m going to ask Toia about outsourcing some of the machine-knitting work so I can produce more overall garments!
Day 82: thu, 6 mar 2014. La-Neka gives me some machine-knitting advice, despite dirty, broken-down equipment.
Pieter Brueghel the Elder. The fight between Carnival and Lent. 1559.