term garment-spring '10

dear all:

this was my term garment for the SPRING '10 semester.

I worked on it during my 2nd year abroad(in Milan, ITALY) for my knitwear design and knitwear draping course. It was part of my "trans-automa-sitosys "collection, of which i will post pictures (that was the project we did for our fashion art portfolio class) soon.

I wanted to combine hand work with machine work to "humanize" it a bit. The main pieces of the dress(pewter blue) were machine knitted on a brother machine using plain knit stitch and dropped needles to create "water bubbles". I combined 2 yarns: a cotton one, and a metallic one to give some sort of sheen. The whole collection was about the irregularity of nature and how its beauty is perfect in a very imperfect way... so I didn't want to create any pattern- to do that, I changed the amount of needles to be dropped every three rows and after having used 3 sizes i created 3 vertical lines that resembled the evaporation/natural cycle of water purification...

the drape of the dress changed a lot while i was assembling it- and ended up being a very very open armhole. I crocheted the "straps"with a bulky/irregular cotton yarn and let some loose pieces hang to add movement.

FOR THE BOTTOM...

i suspended from the dress, a part of "moss" by crocheting mustard yellow loops into the hem of the dress... the moss was alluding to the "creative moulding" process and was made by combining both the machine techniques and by hand....I changed yarns, dropped needles, used ottoman, fisherman, and other combination of stitches to create the most irregular/imperfect look!

whalah!

NYC... i am back

my fellow blog readers:

after 2 years abroad- I AM BACK!

i am back to the city that never sleeps.

Italy is far now, and so are my Italian habits:

• taking breakfast at the bar [caffé marrocchino+pastry],
• cooking a full meal every evening and actually sitting down with my roommate for a couple of hours to chat
• running to the gelatteria a couple of blocks away to get some home-made gelatto before they close at midnight
• Taking the train to other regions, especially to Florence where my italian step-mom/mother in law cooked amazing (I REALLY MEAN AMAZING) meals
• asparagus and wild berry picking
• not going to schoolLABS on the weekends
• getting out of school by 6:00pm
• buying smaller portions of things at the supermarket (the kind of one person portion that stays fresh without a million preservatives)
• hand washing the dishes, hang drying my clothes and NOT having a microwave, a toaster or an air conditioner...
• having to blow dry my hair because they wont let you leave the house or go to sleep with a wet head.
• having a HUGE room
• not paying more that 5 euro for an AMAZING bottle of wine
• and others that i'm too sad to tell about

Although its been a rough transitory period... I'm all moved in now and just need to make my loft bedded (minuscule) room look decently cute and start the routine. I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and things are happening! I'll be starting my LAST year at FIT next week and I am very enthused... senior collection coming up!

Im hoping to freelance so please keep me in consideration...

for now... just a quick salute!

ciao

trans-automa-sytosis- THE BOOK!

some pages are still missing, I promise to upload soon. This is part of the "book" we developed last semester in Milan, at Politecnico


enjoy!

ah aha ah! la finale!!!

i needed some days of breaking away from this last project... but you need an update and closure.

hah!

• my Politecnico di Milano WAS INTERESTING and is now FINALLY OVER!

I finished the semester on the 25th of jun. and I'm very very satisfied with the results... as were my professors!

1. an essay on "my fashion philosophy"/thoughts on 20th century style and fashion lectures with marvelously radical BENEDETTA BARZINI!
2. a spring summer knitwear collection "book"
3. my first completely knitted garment
4. a book on knitted swatches and samples of creative stitches and knitwear techniques on coppo and bother machines

IT WAS HEAVY STUFF TO PREP. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SUMMER IN DRY AND HOT MILAN- while not getting much sleep and starting to feel the far-awayness of anything i could maybe categorize as "home"

That last week I was exhausted. Finals week is always devastating but tiredness has accumulated since.. boh!- i was born- I was just falling into pieces- but we did it!

• to make matters just shockingly amusing...i lost my FLATS.ai FILE! around FRIDAY THE 18TH of june... project deadline: the 25... needed to print... THAT FRIDAY. I had spent so much time making those flats and put so much passion into them- i was lucky enough to have finished them "early" and all of a sudden- POOF!=GONE! just like the wind-oh-well leaving no trace. I had been blogging, and posting and sharing information (because it was providing me with constant constructive criticism and positive communication with the somewhat "human world"(even though through a reality more virtual than warm blooded) but SANITYWASVERYNECCESSARY!

and yet in the middle of the madness- i could only save this file on my EXTERNALharddrive due to its IMMENSITY and still i made a stupid crazy frenetic error of deleting the file from the hard disk and the trash can of my mac... lets just leave it at that- and with the great satisfaction that my genius computer programer uncle- HELPED ME RECOVER IT!!!!

and i was back on full throttle...

• HANDED IN THE BOOK ON MONDAY,

• 
  AND A TEST ON TUESDAY

...even when in the middle of the week:

• We went to ATMOSFERA-

a tram that takes you around milan while you have a fancy dinner inside. FANCY- i mean 3 forks and 3 knives 3 glasses. WE DRESSED UP FOR IT! then at 11pm got home, made some coffee and pulled the...

• LAST ALL NIGHT-ER OF THE SEMESTER... IN WHICH:

1. I finished my TERM GARMENT: which meant trying to crochet together pieces of knitted "moss" and attaching the moss to the "yellow stuff hanging", and then I attached the bulky white straps...
2. not to forget that I also had to prep a sample book, from scratch.. which meant: assembling it and ironing and sticking ... NUF(read that backwards)

I SAW THE SUN RISE- got ready and "pretty"- for my last day of school and an evening of ushering the graduates' fashion show- HEELS AND EVERYTHING! WOOHOO . off i went ...

ps: my bus ride to school was incredibly ridiculously-INSANE- because my bags were to big and too full to fit (with me) in the FULL Bus!

• the day was long, but okay- in the evening we had an exhibition at the entrance of the fashion show so our garments- shone!
• 
  and meanwhile- i worked as an usher- to guide people towards the correct building.meanwhile....
• ITALY was CRAZY- this was the day they played their last game at world cup - ITALY VS SLOVAKIA... they are such FANS( or tiffosi as they call them here)can you believe that at the POLITECNICO they opened a garage and put a huge projector screen to show the game- people sat in the middle of the lawn and yelled like crazies- and then - they lost :(...

• halfway into the fashion show we went inside and saw the marvelous creations of our colleagues. Once the Fashion Show was over- we realized that it was all over... it was time to say goodbye- to our professors to the graduates, to this chapter- everyone who had not left yet- was about to do so- and THE FIRST TEARS STARTED TO COME OUT.

i feel accomplished, but I AM SO SCARED- this feeling of belonging evrywhere-and nowhere at the same time and wanting to go "home" but not knowing where that is... is pretty invasive...

• 3 DAYS LATER...LONDON . 7days later and I am blogging AGAIN...

july '10:

• TUESD 6TH- FIRENZE, for pitti filati n.67
• 9th-MILAN.... i need to ship my house back to my not yet found apartment in NYC
• 17-20TH: belgium
• then milan
• AUGUST 5TH- nyc...

THE END...

FOR NOW....

<<-I'll catch ya' later alligator->>

trans-automa-sytosis- MADNESS

blogging has been keeping me sane...so blogging i shall do!

two weeks of madness and this is -3 days to deadline!

i remember back in NYC I used to be able to stay up all night for as many nights as necessary to finish projects and then have enough energy to go to work, intern and then out and socialize.

i'm failing to understand why, since i've been here in milan, the all nighters are just almost impossible- i ONLY STUDY here and yet- all i do is go from school to home, and from home to school. no exploring, no adventures- all the fun is in cooking and drinking wine!!!

anyhow...

i'm struggling because its been about 4 months of development for this project and i really want the PRINTED/ BOOK result to be as good as what i have in my head

=

LOTS OF HARD WORK+ MANY PRINT TESTS

- i printed 11 pages today, + 3 that i printed last week- that makes 14 and the book is growing

nonetheless i still have 2 more groups of 5 --> individual sketch to layout

+ 3 keyword pages

+ synthesis

+ titles

+swatch pages

+ be able to finish my OTHER CLASSE'S PROJECTS...

wish me luck and send me lots of energy please!!!

here are some layout previews( although when printed the effect is totally different)

and i'm off!

huugs1