Blogging from bed...

Hey everyone, unfortunately I have been really sick lately and haven't been able to do much but stay in bed for that last week :( I am starting to get really depressed because I miss going out and seeing my friends. The weather has been beautiful lately and I haven't even been able to go out an enjoy it....But on the bright side I have been getting some knitting done, since it is pretty much all that I can do, lol. I decided to make a sweater for myself to cheer myself up. I have had this design in my head for a while and have been dying to make it. I originally designed it for a presentation for Vogue Knitting's Early Fall issue. Here is the page from the presentation:

I was inspired by trends in knit techniques that I saw utilized by designers such as Cynthia Steffe and Byblos.

I made a swatch to test out the technique with Filatura Lanarota "Puno" (100% alpaca) yarn and Filatura Cervina "Imperiale" Super Kid Mohair (20% polyamide, 80% mohair). It looked exactly like I wanted it to so now I'm starting on the real thing!

Also today I put up another look on Lookbook.nu and here it is!

This dress was a great find, I just happened to be walking through the garment district around fashion week and came across a sample sale. They were selling all these Versace clothes for so cheap! I got this dress for about $45 I think, it was a couple years back. It's very sexy so I don't get the occasion to wear it very often but I love it :)

Quick Update

As I have been promising to for weeks now, I am finally posting the progress I have made on the sweater I have been working on for my client. Here it is!

I just have to make the cuffs for the sleeves and the collar!

I'm going to buy the buttons tomorrow, so it should be totally done within the next few days. Then I can start knitting something for myself! I haven't knitted or sewn anything for myself in a while so I think it's about time. I have a project in mind but there will be more to come on that later.....

Oh , and don't forget that my GIVE AWAY is still going on. Enter while there is still time!

Love me, love me, say that you love me! Give Away!

Today I am posting my second look on lookbook, and because all of the people I have talked to on lookbook.nu have been so sweet to me I am offering a give-away to spread the love! If you follow the instructions below, you could win this Valentine's Day gift bag from DJC Existence . DJC Existence has partnered up with Anastomose to create this cute and fashionable gift!

Here is what you need to do enter for a chance to win this gift:

1. Become a fan on the DJC Existence Facebook page

2. Become a fan of the Anastomose Facebook Page

3. Become a follower on this blog

4. Post a link on your Facebook page about to this give-away

5. Leave a comment on this post with the link to your Facebook post and your email address

That's it! Not too difficult, right?

About today's Look:

This whole look cost me about $40 including the shoes, being broke doesn't have to cramp your style! I got the sweater and the pants at the Salvation Army for $13. The shorts were originally Anne Taylor dress pants. The pants were too short for me, a little too big, and too dressy for my everyday life so I spiced them up!

First I had to take them in (unless you have a good amount of experience sewing I wouldn't recommend you try alterations yourself. Try to find something that is already your size). Then I cut them off and added a cuff to the bottom.

The next step was distressing them. Once the fit and cut was right I still wasn't in love with the color. So I cut some test swatches from the extra fabric (If you can you really want to test out your dying technique before doing it on your final garment. It's hard to tell before hand how it is going to come out and you don't want to ruin the garment). First you need to mordant the fabric (a process that strips the fibers of the fabric so that it will accept the dye better), I used tannic acid and soda ash. Then go to town with different dyes  and dye combinations! I used all natural dye from Blue Castle Fiber Arts. Another tip: if you want the dye job to come  out a little uneven like mine, let the dye bath come to a boil and then turn off the fire before you put the garment in. This way it doesn't move around and the dye won't be as saturated in the folds of the fabric (I let mine sit in the dye bath for 2hrs).

Here is the transformation!

For the shoes:

The left shoe (my good side)

The right shoe (my bad side)

Someone pointed out one day that if you change one letter in my name then it spells "devil", I though it was funny so I decided to decorate my converses so that they represented my good side and my bad side. I drew out the design with pencil first and then painted it with acrylic paint (always mix it with a little water), and fabric paint. Tip: Once the paint is dry, put a piece of fabric over fabric of the shoes. Turn the iron on the the highest setting, and then hold the iron down into the shoe for a few seconds (only the fabric part not the rubber). Make sure you do this over all the parts you painted. This will set the paint and prevent it from running or bleeding if the shoes get wet.

Now go hit that thrift store and get creative!

Progress!

The new website for my earrings is finally up! Also I have posted my first look on lookbook.nu :)

The sweater was a gift from Jia Li, the designer of Jia Collection. Jia Li creates clothing for women who want high quality, chic styles, and versatility. The signature of Jia's designs is her focus on luxury fashion with everyday function. Jia considers herself an ally to the modern women; Jia designs multifunctional clothing that the modern women can easily dress from and travel with. Jia's woman is open-minded and not afraid to embrace colors and changes in life. I was so excited to get on of her pieces. Here are some more pics of the look...

I know you probably can't tell from the pictures but it was about 20 degrees outside when we did this shoot, I was freezing! On the bright side, all of the cold totally cured my tendonitis :) So, I'm back to knitting! I have have finished a sleeve so far and am halfway done with another one. I'll post pics of my progress soon!

Setbacks and Keeping my Sanity

So I have been going crazy trying to get my domain so that I can publish my new site for the earrings because I hate ArtFire! It keeps saying on the side that I haven't had any sales when I have and there is no way to hide the stats. It just looks really bad so I created my own site. The problem is to get it active I need my domain, which is a process that should have taken a few hours but instead it has been taking weeks! I have been so frustrated by this that I woke up with a migraine this morning. I decided to get my mind off it, take a break from always working, and take my bunny for a walk in the park :)

How can you stay stressed after seeing that?

He got a little chilly so I put on his sweater, lol

Too much excitement for him....

I finished the second half of the front of the cardigan that I was working on but I started getting tendonitis so it has been slowing me down a little bit  (yes, yet another setback). But after a few days of icing my wrist I think I am ready to get back to work!

Also my Earrings made another appearance on lookbook.nu! This time by Enocha T. from Boston....

You can read more about her look on her blog Locks and Trinkets. That's all for now, keep your fingers crossed that get all this stuff straightened out in the near future :)

Designers don't get holidays, lol

I hope everyone has been enjoying their holidays! Although I took some time out to spend time with friends and family I have still been working hard! My client approved the final sketch so it was time to move onto the next step. I asked him to bring me a cardigan that he liked the fit of so that I could take measurements and plan the new cardigan.

So this is the cardigan he brought, it was really nice. I think it was Ralph Lauren.

After I took the measurements I had to create technical drawings of the new cardigan design in Illustrator.....

This is just a sample of some of the technical drawings that I did. After I did drawings of the entire sweater I had to do one for all the separate pieces with exact measurements. Once I had all that done I had to figure out my gauge (how many stitches and rows it would take to make an inch), then convert all of the measurements into rows and stitches. As you can imagine this process was pretty tedious and time consuming, but it saves you time in the long run because you know the pieces will come out exactly the way you want them to.

At first I was a little intimidated by the size of the sweater. My client used to play football in college so as you can imagine he's a pretty big guy. I'm used to making things for myself which are much smaller, but it is actually going pretty quickly. I already finished the back and will probably be done with one of the halves of the front by tomorrow.

In other news, I am so excited because some of the girls that I sent my earrings to liked them so much that they posted them again with different looks!

Virgit also posted another look on her blog, Preppy Fashionist. I so glad that my fashionistas are enjoying my earrings so much! Well that's all for now, ttyl :)

Trying my hand at menswear

So like I mentioned before in a previous post I am trying menswear for the first time. A client of mine wants me to knit a custom cardigan for him. At first I was a little intimidated because designing menswear is actually more complex than it seems. Since men aren't as adventurous with their wardrobes as women you have a lot of restrictions. It's really difficult to come up with something new and fresh without going too far out of the box. I found that with men it is all about subtly and small details. So the first step was to do my research, I looked up a bunch of European brands and was attracted to the styles by Soul Cal Republic.

This is the sweater that my client was most drawn to (it was one of my favorites too).

 My client really liked this look but wanted me to tweek it a little bit. After all what is the point of having a custom design if it looks exactly like something that you could buy in a store? So after chatting for a while this is the design that I came up with for him.

The next step was to make swatches of the different stitches in the cardigan so that he could see what it would look like out of the yarn that he chose. The yarn he chose is a lot fluffier then the yarn that the sweater in the picture is made out of. He chose "Alpaca Cloud" by Filatura Lanarota (78% baby alpaca, 22% acrylic). It is so soft! I got it at the Smiley's Manhattan Yarn Sale, it was only $30 a bag! And there were ten balls in each bag! They had some crazy deals there...anyway here is what the stitches looked like with the alpaca cloud...

Now I'm just waiting for his approval on the final sketch and then I can start making it! Ok, well that's my update for the day, I'll keep you posted on how the project is going :)