The Going Rates For Jacket and Tailored Suite Patterns

I've just completed my first fitted jacket, pattern and man,  I truly understand why it's one of the most expensive garment to have a pattern drafted for. First of all ,  there are so many pieces,  you've got the shell,  the facings, the linings to make sure the jacket looks almost as good inside as it does outside and the interfacings that keep the crisp,  clean cut look for the jacket.   Then you've got to make sure all the pieces correspond with eachother correctly while not being the same shape.  This is where careful notches come in. 

Actually now that I've drafted a jacket pattern,  I'd say that if someone just learnt how to correctly,  professionally draft a fitted jacket they'd have the foundation to drafting all other patterns except, skirts and pants that is.   I'm just exaggerating here,  really,  try constructing a bra with what you know about suit drafting,  hmm...

When I read that the going rate for coat, jacket/suit and tailored blazer pattern drafting,  ranges from $125 on up to $325  (this is actually separated into two categories) I thought it was a bit much,  but not after getting a little experience in with the drafting process. 

I want to nit pick my working process though to hone it to a perfection.  To do this I'm going to use the information provided in the article "How To Hire A Patternmaker" at Design Entrepreneure.com and make up a bunch of colorful mini lists as a computer desktop image so I can go through them each time I complete a client's pattern.  :) what a happy solution.  I'll post my desktop list on my blog when I've got it completed so all of you fellow patternmakers out there can use it too if you like.

If my patternmaking progress and my blog posts seem a bit slow for a while,  it's because aside from doing some patternwork for my clients as well as for myself when I catch a free hour or so,  I've also got 5 writting projects to work on for my article client.   The workload is heavy right now.   But I'll try to keep things at least at a steadier trickle than I did before.

If you'd like to read more about fashion, information on the industry and online schools check out my site at:
Budget Online Fashion Design Schools and Resources

If you're a designer or home sewer and you'd like to find some cool eco-friendly fabrics and more check out my resource page at:
The Eco-Friendly Fashion Designer's Resource Page

An Adventure Awaits In Patternmaking

Hmm, sometimes you got to jump in headlong, don't wait around and think too much. That's if you can actually take action though. Turns out, a friend of mine has offered to give me her dressform, I'm very thankful for this. And it also means that I'll be able to get started much sooner than I expected. This Wednesday my brother is going to pick it up for me and I'll start working on my 'master block' set made from the dressform. Because I think I better try to get some writing work done as I'm switching over to patternmaking, this process may take me a month, but that's okay. I'm going to start putting together my patternmaking ad, a new that is, and than think about a delema I'm having.

I've done a bit of work for two designers now, with some really great pictures from one of their completed collections. With permission of course from the designer (Joneien), I'll see if I can post links to the garmets I worked on for her as examples of what I've done. What I'd love to do though as well, is draft the patterns of my own designs, sew up some muslins of them and take photos to post as examples of my work as well. And there's the delema, which is really about time and money I guess. I'll have to wait to get a new camera as my old one is hopelessly broken and wait till I've got enough money made to buy eco-friendly, organic cotton muslin fabric for my designs. I'm just not going to buy anything that isn't eco-friendly. For now than, I'll just have to settle for those links and pray I can get permission to use them. I think she'll let me though.

A while back I put together a great little squidoo lens on eco-friendly fashion design resources, nice list of shops, however, I've got to add another online store that happens to provide a nice range of organic fabrics, and not just cotton either. It's Fabric.com, I typed in 'organic' and chose quilting to narrow my search, than sorted by 'prices (ascending)' and came across an olive green fabric for just under $6 a yard, sale price. Soon as I get a chance to buy some fabric, I'll see if I can get a bulk order of something like that for my muslin samples. And they take paypal too, so that's totally awesome.

I want to learn Industrial sewing techniques as well, so my samples will be professional. What I'm actually planning on doing, if I can squeeze in some time, is to cut out some great Lutterloh patterns for myself, use my old fabric stash and refer to the step by step instructions in my book "Sewing Secrets From The Fashion Industry" and check out Threads DVD on Industrial sewing techniques that they have at the Vancouver Public Library. You've got to love your library if you have one, such a wonderful resource.


If you'd like to read more about fashion, information on the industry and online schools check out my site at:
Budget Online Fashion Design Schools and Resources

If you're a designer or home sewer and you'd like to find some cool eco-friendly fabrics and more check out my resource page at:
The Eco-Friendly Fashion Designer's Resource Page

Don't Be Afraid Of Challenges

Okay, if you're like me you may be doing both a job you don't like and working toward learning how/doing one you love. For me this means being a freelance writer for hire while really wanting to pursue/indulge and dive into a fashion career. Somedays, I can't work on patternmaking, it's true because deadlines, articles need to be done at certain times. Being a ghost writer too, means that you're letting more than one person down if you don't complete your deadlines. Your direct client and their client, no a good thing.

So when you need to make the money with the job you don't care for, you need to face up to the fact that this is about daily/weekly priority fluctuations. You've got to be patient and avoid being reckless with your time. Think about your time priorities, if you've got an extra tight deadline to meet (4 articles need to be done by the day after tomorrow for example) then get those out of the way before working on your heart's desire (patternmaking practice). However, when you have a breather in the form of no current projects or a distant deadline, don't go slack. DON'T PROCRASTINATE!

If working on patternmaking or anything else that you really want to do that takes time and effort, don't steal time away from your dreams by taking it easy. Get up and fight for what you love and get busy working on it. The little problem that keeps us from doing that is wanting our undesirable work to be easier right? Like, if we just relax and take some time off doing nothing, than the 'other work' won't be so depressing and stressful right?

If this is happening to you, put your foot down with yourself and remind yourself that if you work on what you love anyway it's the only right way to invest in yourself and your dreams. Even if by doing so you keep your not-so-fun work on a constant fairly tight deadline, at the end of the day, you still know that you're working toward your goal, you're getting somewhere. It's like what they say in the fitness industry, "no pain, no gain".

If you'd like to find out more about the fashion industry, schools, work, inspiration or anything else related to fashion visit my site at:

Budget Online Fashion Design Schools and Resources

If you're a designer or home sewer and you'd like to find some cool eco-friendly fabrics and more check out my resource page at:
The Eco-Friendly Fashion Designer's Resource Page

Tell Yourself You Can Teach Yourself Patternmaking No Matter What

Improvise, Compromise and Keep Thinking and Working

I was working on my patternmaking studies on the kitchen table, a couple months went by and the surface of the table never saw the light of day. Was my husband happy about it, no way, he didn't say anything if he seen me working on the patterns, but not having a place to comfortably eat is not okay.

So my patternmaking came to a dead stop more or less, learning how to do it was left up to the desire in my head while I struggled with my article writing. Quite frankly making me more depressed as time goes on. I would love just to focus on learning patternmaking and make oodles more money from that later on. That's my hope and part of my dream, but not convenient reality.

I had this little motto running around in my head, echoing at me through lost time, "you make time for the things that are important to you..." and Shawn Connery's line from the Rock, "Losers always whine about their best..." Don't you just hate that? But it's true I guess. So what did I do, took me a couple more painful sad months to think of the idea. I took 4 boxes and an about 3.5' x 3.5' piece of laminate board and laid it on top, viola! I've got my worktable. Than I thought I might be able to get started getting serious with my patternmaking studies. No more having to set it all up and then putting it all away.

It didn't work out, I still had no time, I needed another table for my patternmaking supplies as well as my art supplies so I stacked another 2 boxes and laid my brother's framed Chinese painting over it, voila! Another table. This spare bedroom is now my studio too. I still had no luck with my time though, so another few months went by and I hadn't yet been able to get back to my patternmaking.

This is basically what I've got to deal with, regular family housework, keeping up with appointments so I can take care of my little sister, feeding (including breastfeeding my daughter at any time of day or night), changing, dressing and consoling my two little kids, taking care of my 4 cats, shopping, article writing (not so great source of income) and then find the time to do other things, like reading or patternmaking.... "NOT" happening, especially with 5 hrs average sleep...However, a solution did come to me a little while ago (just a few weeks ago actually), but that's for another post on my blog. Till my next post....

Have a wonderful day,

Ayisha

Slow Progress, But That's How Things Are

Okay, so I've gotten into fashion pattern making now, I'm still doing freelance writing on the side because I'm not getting paid yet for my drafting gigs. If you teach yourself and you've got no experience and credentials, that's reality, you've got to do work for free to prove yourself. If you're dedicated it's not a real problem, but you still need to make money to live, especially important if you've got 2 kids and 4 cats, they don't stop needing stuff, so I'm choked. But, ONWARD! You know what Benjamin Franklin said? "Up with ye sluggard, there's time enough for rest when you're dead." I just love that, don't you? Goes hand in hand with my "Just do it!" motto I live by.

Wish I could keep up with my blog like I want too, nothing much has happened so far really, well, that's not quite true, I've managed to:

- land a few non-paying clients (everybody likes free labor don't they?" one in Illinois, a girl in Florida and another one right here in Vancouver, all by using the fashion industry network and craigslist, hmm, didn't think to use kijiji though, I'll do that too

- come across this awesome site for designers to upload their fashions, get exposure and even get their garment made and sold (and earn a profit from it, too cool huh? the site url is: http://www.garmz.com/ great team, great quality site, you got to love them and check it out

and I've come to realize that I better get Connie Amaden Crawford's book "pattern making made easy" so I can further professionalize my work, the lutterloh pattern making system has some nice "blocks" you can work from, but they're pretty poor on marking and labeling so I need another resource as well, I'm thinking Connie's book should do it. Maybe I should have done that first, but I'm starting to shun procrastination big time and wanted to get started. Face your fears, let nothing stop you, when you jump out the plane you've got to hit the ground running!

Anyway, wish me luck, I want all of you to succeed in your dreams, let's make a happy, eco-friendly world!

Eco Friendly Fashion Designers Resources page

Budget Online Fashion Design Schools and Resources

The Lutterloh Fashion Patternmaking System

I've just got my fashion patternmaking system by Lutterloh. I'm so excited because this is the beginning of eventually moving from freelance writing to real fashion industry work.

I'm going to first put together my own one women discount fashion patternmaking service for up and coming/student fashion designers and home sewers looking for custom patterns in exchange for photos of the finished designs on the intended wearer and patternmaking credit. This will be used to build my portfolio and resume. Then when I've got enough experience that way, I'll begin creating my own design samples, adding them to my portfolio and then shopping it around to get work as a designer at either a fashion house, clothing manufacturer or for my own line of clothes.

I've just got to find out where to get a roll of some decent patternmaking paper or a couple hundred yards of good paper on a roll, hmm, I'll look into my local newspapers, maybe see if the craft shops got anything or maybe a roll of butcher paper. I'll be looking for something between 36" to 50" inches in width I should think. Michael's will be my first quarry. Thank you Lord for this awesome opportunity and thank you Grandma, for making it possible.

Budget Online Fashion Design Schools and Resources

New Resources To Help You With Your Online Fashion Degrees

Over the past few days I've come across 3 great new information resources for those of us Fashionistas that are looking to become fashion designers on a DIY basis or through traditional college or by getting a few online fashion degrees. (I'll provide the links to each of these sites after I tell you a bit about them)

First, I came across a wonderful explanation behind the precarious copyright laws regarding the protection of Fashion Designs, it's good for any fashion designer to familiarize yourself with these laws, your designs are not protected for your own good, if they were, your work could prove to be your legal undoing, a liability.

However pretty much direct copying is still a frowned upon disgrace, some designers have won battles with each other over this. Thank God, but it's a good thing too because we should all strive to be more creative.

For the greatest amount of protection of your work, document your fashion design process. You can do this by keeping your sketch book of the evolution and inspiration of your ideas, keep the mood board. Collect all your material created during the fashion design process, put it in an envelope and mail it to yourself, and never open it. That's one way, it's all about the creation date, another way I should think, is to post your work online, on a blog, on an online portfolio, person website, the internet is an archive of dated material.

I've done this with my own work already so I guess I've successfully protected myself in a way. Now all I have to do is get my work on the store shelves, well that's another story.

Second site I've stumbled upon was Top Fashion Designers, this webpage is a listing of all the top name fashion designers, not only can you check out their latest collections but you can also get a brief over view of each designers biography. I've enjoyed reading quite a few of them already, they're highlighted facts about their background, how they got started, just a very interesting information resource.

If you're attending an online fashion design school or you have to do a paper on a famous fashion designer, this is the place to go to find out which one you want to write about. As for all of us non-student, DIY people, read up on these designers, you never know where you're going to get your heads up about the next move you should make and that's besides the great collections they've got up.

Third site I found called Couture Candy, would be great in helping your creative wheels turn in the fashion design process. It's a special store that sells very high end, designer label, avant garde street wear, I love the site it's got some great garments to look at, I could get lost browsing this fashion store/gallery for hours looking for the next idea to work with. Not steal mind you, but mutate, add too, and other wise use as a jumping board for my own semi-original garment collection.

So far as the buying is concerned, the prices are high of course, but they aren't too bad at all if you've got the money.


Watch Johanna Blakley talk about Copyright Law in fashion:
Copyright Law In the Fashion Industry

The one stop site for quick biography highlights of all the best designers:
Top Fashion Designers

And here's that great fashion store I found:
Couture Candy

You can find more info and resources at:
Budget Online Fashion Design Schools and Resources

Where's My Project Runway Archive

Shoot, you know a few months back I went onto the Project Runway Canada site and discovered that, COOL, they had the entire archive of project runway Canada episodes, that was wonderful because I managed to miss all of them. Well, a few weeks ago I went back on the site and discovered that they got rid of the archive. What was that done for? Ouch, please if anyone knows where I could watch the old episodes without having to suffer through commercials and what not, let me know. There is nothing more enjoyable than watching educational programming on one of your favorite subjects, fashion design.

As a reality show, it brings home the sometimes uncomfortable, downright frightening competitive reality of the fashion industry and I think that was really indispensable to any aspiring fashion designer to watch as it brings you face to face with the challenges of the business of fashion before you actually take the plunge. It was fun to watch too. I wish so much that they'd bring it back. I think I'm going to go back to the site now to see if anything has changed, or maybe I missed something, here's the link in case you're interested http://runway.globaltv.com/default.aspx or am I just so absent minded that there were only 12 episodes to the show and only one season? It doesn't feel good to be so out of touch with fashion television.

A Nasty Hickup In My Path Of Becoming A Fashion Designer

Okay, first word to anybody trying to become a fashion designer without going to school to do so. My dears, my poor poor dears please listen to me very carefully, this is not Chanel's era, we all need to do things differently now, you must learn everything you need to know as a fashion designer before you attempt to wing it on partial knowledge, okay? This is what just happened to me, I contacted a clothing company and they were interested in my designs and wanted to acquire the specs for my garment designs, I don't yet have pattern making skill though and had actually forgotten about the technical aspects of fashion illustrations (the flat 'technical' line drawings used by the pattern makers) and so, there is no practical way to for the company to do business with me in the way that this business is run now. And that's okay, because although I've been dis-illusioned and dis-appointed I was aiming to learn all I had to know as a fashion designer any way. So I haven't of course been knocked off my path. I haven't and you shouldn't be either. Just keep going and focus on the next step in front of you and not how long the journey is.

Anyway though, I've joined the fashion industry network and I've been making a few friends along the way. There are also some products that I know are going to help me out in my path and here's a list of which wonderful things they are: The Lutterloh Pattern Making System, Islander Sewing's Industrial sewing training DVDs and 'Il Figurino Di Moda' Fashion Design Techniques Book and the Portfolio Presentation for Fashion Design book (I've just ordered this last one) So I'm digging in my heals like usual and continuing to find my way.

I wish you all a wonderful day,

Ayisha (Emma)

I'm Back From The Dead Ya'll

Oh, the problems that hit you when you're trying to make it in life. My computer broke down, did I tell you that? (I have to use my brother's now, a total bummer) Then I've been unable to log into my blogs here, not been getting too much money made and been up to my ears in anemia and too much house work and errands and not enough sleep. Well, I'm taking a breather right now, sort of.

Here's a little change in plans, thanks to a friend of mine, I'm going to be working on writing and working on a cool fashion related web site, unlike anything else on the web right now. You guys (all my fellow fashion enthusiasts out there) are going to love it. I'm not giving away any secrets yet though, you'll have to wait at least a month or so I'm thinking but, I'm working on it. Anyway, I've got to go for now.

Have a good one

Finally Working On My Collection Again

Whoa, I'm finally working on my collection here again. Got 3 color ways I'm playing around with, I just love them. Can't wait to get started on the samples, but I've got to focus on finishing the presentation for this collection first and putting food on the table. My boss hasn't gotten around to giving me more written assignments, let's just say I'm scared. More bills too, well my philosophy is this, when you have to wait, don't wait, do something else that needs to get done, no matter how scared you are, be productive while you're waiting, work on something you've been working on and be careful not to start anything new. This painful delay gives me a chance to work on my collection so I should be grateful, just grateful with an ulcer starting but never the less grateful.

Also I've got to concentrate on what I need to do to get the collection illustration ready into a complete presentation/portfolio, 1. color everything in the different color ways 2. do some from behind 3. create the front and back 'flat' views (this is to show the basic pattern shapes, shows you know what you're doing, helps out the pattern makers) 4. arrange everything on your final 'support' whether it be digital or not 5. decorate the support to complete the 'look' or 'mood' After that you're done and ready to show the world your work or get busy putting together your samples or rather both at the same time.

A Few More Set Backs But Keep On Kicking

Hey now, my computer just broke down a few days ago and business is going to be seriously slowed down for a while. I've got to redo all the the Photoshop line touch-up stuff on my collection pieces and I've got my bills to pay. Well this is a littel goods news/bad news kind of thing. The credit place gave me another chance with the situation I keep telling them (my brother skipped out on me and racked up his cell phone bill with premium calls, I've got a 900 dollar mistake on my hands) and I'm not working a regular job, yes it's no exageration it's extremely hard to keep the food on the table (I wasn't able to afford toillete paper and toothpaste okay, it's no joke) Any way though, my boss has apparently got more writting work coming my way, I hope I've got a bit of a raise coming, cross my fingers, so I'll be able to swing with, God willing. Lord knows I'm willing to work for it. One of my brothers is here helping me pay the bills so together we should be able to pull through.

Also, the folks at Lutterloh pattern making system got back to me and said that yes I can put together different patterns to come up with my own patterns! So yeah, I'm going to get that package as soon as I can and then, then, I'll be able to create my own samples! I'm so excited by the thought of this, all I have to do is get through this financial crunch and I'll get another chance.

Also, I haven't been able to get any volunteer models in so that I can do my makeup artist course, well, I had another idea I'm going to advertise it like this:

Free Elf Cosmetic High Quality Product try out/Marylin Makeover

Somebody should be interested in that, I'll see how it flies...

Any way I got to get to work here, keep you posted

Collection in Progress

Well, last night I managed to get quite a lot of work done, not only did I get my mood board done finally but I prepped all my designs for coloring on the computer. This involved opening up all the files in Adobe Photoshop 7 and...

1. Converting them to grey scale, this allows you to more efficiently 'clean up' your image later on. Basically what your doing is extracting your line work and throwing the rest away.

2. Go to brightness and contrast and increase both values to 50 and hit okay.

3. Take the magic wand and make sure it's value is at 50

4. You need to get rid of the grey background of your work so you can complete your images, with the magic wand choose a grey area that's a bit lighter than the middle tone of entire background quality and click.

5. The selection is not always perfect but you can do a light clean up after ward with a 'soft' eraser, it's better than getting rid of some of your line work, you don't want to waste time doing that.

6. Get your image back to RGB (or CMYK if you're planning to print them out after, wise choice although not my favorite because blues and greens in cmyk are a lot duller in hue and tend to be more of a challenge to use)

7. When you're ready to color them up create a layer on your image and make sure it's in 'Overlay' mode so you don't have to re-do line work as it will just show through your colors. You're done for now!

I'll keep you posted on my progress hope the info helps you all out :)

My First Digital Mood Board

Hi everybody, here is my first ever mood board period. I usually just keep the ideas all in my head, but professionally you can't do that any way so I've got to change my practices. Be sure to let me know what you think. Thanks

Ahh Life, Another day Another delay

It's alright, I've been dealing with this for years, any way a little secret I've learnt that if you perpetually think about what you're going to do to achieve your goal before you actually go through with it, it'll go smoother and faster than if you just sat down and did. Well that only goes so far. Had to catch up with some funds, my home job employer has given me some lower pay pieces of work to do so it's consumed my time and I've been feeling really worn out with my little daughter having a growing spurt while she's on the breast full time, ahhhh! Bare with me.

I've recently found out about a pattern making system (lutterloh)I want to get my hands on, for $125 I can get it and I've got my mind set on it after I email them and ask can I use the system to create my own patterns from it, give or take a few changes/modifications, and the creative such, design lines will always be a custom job, that's what it's all about, but you want your basic pattern to be somewhat conventional unless you're izzy miyaki or balenciaga, I don't even like their stuff although it is a break and a sometimes eye opening lead into creative thinking.

I prefer Alexander McQueen and John Galliano myself, LLOOVVEE THEM!

Well as for my mood board for my collection, I've managed to get all the pictures off the internet for it, and now all I have to do is put it all together in adobe and decide on some color way variations, (I apologize if I said this already in an earlier post) Also for my collection designs themselves, I've got to start working on those, first repairing the line work, you do that by first putting the photos to grey scale in adobe, then enhancing the lines. Then you convert the images back to rgb and you're set to go with your color work.

When I got my mood board finished I'll post it here.

Bye for now everybody, got to make the weekend mean something for my husband :)

Mood Board Delay

Well now, yesterday I wanted to put together a digital mood board with three color ways and everything that led to my new collection. However my brothers popped on by for a surprise visit. And my day went to hell, then I got busy with my virtual assistant job, then my house work then more VA...you get the picture. Hopefully, today will be different, only thing is, today I'm worried about one of my cats again, one took of two weeks ago and never came back, now another one has taken off last night and hasn't returned yet. I'm going to get ulcers I assure all of you. this kitty is fat too although she's obsessed with running around outside and I'm afraid she might be so fat and slow that she got hit by a car. Then again maybe she's just hiding from the rain. I really hope so. If I'm losing my cats out here though I'm going to start getting suspicious of my neighbors. Mood board, mood board, I have to think about my mood board. You know those are supposed to be put together before your collection, I know that. It's just that it was so well ingrained in my mind that I never needed to put it together for my own use and inspiration, I'm just now putting it together for the sake of my portfolio. :) I'm not showing off, I'm just talented.

Back to the Grid But With Plans

Always have your plans, gotta make some money today though, get back to my fashion collection when I've got a gap of time available. trying to develop some plans with a friend from US of Africa and take care of my kids and my sick cats. One of the kittens have swollen front paws and diarrhea and I don't even have grocery money let alone vet fees to spend on him. I'm trying some ground black seed though, it's apparently a powerful anti-microbial and immune support. And mustard seed powder, you may not know this but it contains the now coveted selenium, anti-cancer agent as well as other things. I'll start a new blog for my cats and herbal log there.

Yeahh! Got My Sketch Work Done For My Collection!

Okay, now we're talking, I've got all the sketch work done for my new collection, I've taken pictures of all of them, I have to load them up to my computer now from my camera so I can do the color work on them and other stuff, flats and so on.

The other day I went on apparel search.com and tried to find out where my collection would be well received, Europe is almost a sure shot. Well I was talking to my husband about it when he called and he was asking me afterwards "how do you know you can have a job like that? wonder if you can't keep having those wonderful ideas?" His seeming lack of faith in my imagination and ability really kicked me but I told him something really valuable I've learned over the years thanks to reading Julian Seamans books, there are no original ideas, and no such thing as artists block. When you need ideas for a new collection, you don't necessarily look for inspiration to come from your own head, ideas, concepts, nothing. What you need to do is be yourself, cultivate a love and appreciation for everything visual, art, architecture, history, all cultures, museums, landscape, past fashion, so called futuristic fashion, movies and so on, even cultivate the ability to appreciate the visual elements of things you don't like or rather be able to spot whatever there is about them that is worth something of note.

You love everything, so what next? Okay, what you've got to do now and this is where being yourself comes in, anything that speaks to you, think about it, look for what ever things you've seen you'd like to combine in different ways to produce some interesting, functional, wearable and beautiful ideas for garments, that's simply what I do. It's true you don't do this very well if you don't culture a love for visual elements everywhere from pretty much everything, but that is something you can learn. Don't forget to learn about different design elements, garment cuts for example so that you've got a variety of them as well that can be combined with your visual chemistry's.

While your putting things together like that you've also got to keep current fashion trends in mind, see if some of them can be thrown tastfully into you collection's design and also be aware of color trends to for what ever forward season you're designing for that way you're collection will be up to date. Have fun!

Every Step Brings You Closer

I watched 'Signe Chanel' again on youtube, I love french documentaries especially about fashion, got to find some more. I've got a little more than half my sketches left to do on my collection before I can get them on my computer for finishing. When I'm done I want to do three things

1. put together my fashion design/art resume
2. post my new collection on all the free portfolio/fashion portfolio sites
3. send my links over to all the Turkish and Kuwait and whatever other clothing manufacturing companies that I think may be interested in my work.

Sounds like a plan, I want to see if someone will hire me to design even without me knowing patternmaking. Also I've got to remember that I should draw up the flat images of the garments to accompany the illustrations. Those are for the patternmakers there to understand the garment better so they can make a pattern that will re-create the depiction of the illustration. See? My mind is thoroughly on my dreams.

Any way though, I've got to get back to my writing work, just had to drop in and let everyone know that I am still in the fashion design hopeful sling. I'm just stuck like the pig in the mud of life. Wait Till The Summer! Oh God, I plan to be done with my new collection way before that, and I think I'll make it the trend cast colors for this coming fall and winter navy blue and brown. Well that's a wrap, back to the grind folks.

Optimism that's not for "Optomists"

Yeah, I'll tell you like it is, you need to hold on to your dreams and not let go, ever, but on a daily basis it's hard because other than holding on to your dreams in your head you've got to sometimes have the discipline in your mind and heart to wait till you can actually take a tiny baby step toward that dream. It almost seems impossible at times but that's what it's going to take if you've got any chance at all to reach your goals that's what your going to have to do. Every time I look at that collection of mine, I love it, I miss it and I wish I had time to work on the dear thing. But life and how screwed up for time I am has me neglecting it in all ways but in my mind. In order to continue actively chasing your dreams you got to except the pain of holding on when times are tough. If you can do that, you've got a chance, by default. It's just going to take you longer unless you get lucky along the way, so just hold on.

See so far what's been going on is that I've got my writing assignments, I've gotten ripped of at the store for 38 dollars, and I'm too short of cash for anything, it's really sad. So it's important that I focus my time on work around the house for my kids and shopping for the stuff that's needed. When it's all done I've got no energy for anything else. With my teeth being broken and my knees hurting so bad it doesn't make anything easier. But I love my collection and I want to be a fashion designer, design beautiful clothes and make a lot of good money and my daughter will be able to look at me and say 'My mother is a fashion designer' and my son can admire me because I've made enough money and I don't need to whine at my husband and ask him for anything. I have control over my life and what I want to do. I'm somebody not because of what other people have done for me but because of what I fought to do for myself, because of talent I have that God gave me that I fought to hold on to use. That's what I'm doing. That's what I'm fighting to do.