Happy Thanksgiving~

Midtone Monday

I made it to both figure drawing classes this week! Sounds crazy, but that is a pretty big deal for me. I don't know why I don't make it more often—I feel so good when I've been to class, even if I don't end up with a good drawing, as was the case today. Oh, well, sometimes I have my off days. Monday, though, we had Jenny (see above) and I love this model. I especially love this silk hydrangea half-hat she's worn to class before that I don't think I would have the guts to wear, but still half hope to find during my 2nd-hand-store crawls. Anyways, this drawing didn't really photograph well. I don't think I know how to photograph ANY of my drawings—look how blue the white paper always ends up—but that's not to say the disappointing end results are not my own fault; I do the kind of drawings that have great detail and line up close...but are low on impact from far away. Still working on that. In the meantime, zoom in please. :]

Afternoon Tea

I went to afternoon tea yesterday with N, my bestie from high school, and of course yesterday was THE worst of the recent rainy days. Ugh, I knEw I should've worn my rainboots, but of course I wanted to wear my recently favorite outfit which required my mouse shoes. Which were completely soaked by the time I got home—I mean there were rivers in the streets. Well, as much as a city built on hills can, I guess.

So there are no pictures from the tea that I took personally, but the one above is from the official Crown & Crumpet website. How cute is that. I'd been to Lovejoy's before, but that one was like...musty Victorian dollhouse and fun to go to once...but maybe not again. Crown & Crumpet was lots more modern and less scary, and even though I've been wearing a lot of black and other grown-up colors lately, I'm still a girly girl at heart, so this Cath Kidston-themed tea room was totally my thing. Though I think I was the bigger fan of the two of us...In fact, I don't think N is even a tea person! We sat at the table where you can only see that one chair on the very far right. That was my chair. :]

We got the Tea for Two, which means we each got our own pot of whatever tea and then a three-tiered tray of sandwiches, scones, crumpets, etc. The teapots they have are custom-made clever little things: You can hoist the leaves out of the water when the tea is done brewing without having to look for somewhere to put the mesh ball. Why aren't there more teapots like this? They actually sell them in their little shop, but I got this instead:


Cat pencil not included! Ha, that is one of my childhood pencils that I recently rediscovered. So this is a Cath-Kidston print tea-and-saucer-slash-plate set. The picture was taken back at my house later that night—I had a private midnight tea as well—with the leftovers from that afternoon that N had kindly let me have. I really should wear a tiara on my head sometimes.

Like a close-up shot was necessary, but here you go anyways. The lighting makes everything look kind of weird, but it's been grey and dark out all weekend so a picture this morning would've been pointless anyways. I was sad because the fruit tart was soggy by the time I got around to it, and fruit tarts are my favorite. The Halloween cupcake was surprisingly good—hard icing! Soft frosting = bad. One thing that was kind of weird was that they called what we got "Tea for TWO," but some of the things came in odd numbers. Like there were THREE scones. And there was only one each of the more interesting finger sandwiches. And like that tart was the only one. Stuff like that. I felt like everything should've been divisible by two. Good thing N is not as needy an eater.

What else. I did not get a parking ticket even though we went over the 2-hour limit on the street. I mean they validate the first 1 and a half hours at the garage, but we always spend so long talking and eating and the garage is $2.50/20 minutes so it would've been expensive anyways. And I was going to show you a picture of the only other Cath Kidston thing I have, which is this recipe binder that's SO cute. But sadly yet unsurprisingly empty of any recipes at all. And it just would've been another incandescently-lit picture anyways, so I'll just leave this here for now.

My Bra Adventure

It's been a while since I posted anything on my other classes, so here's what I just finished in Lingerie class. ("Lingerie class" sounds so strange; like all we do in class is try on underwear and prance around!)


Ta-da, my bra~ Originally we were all supposed to make the same bra out of the same white—but dyeable—materials from the teacher, but with enough whining, most people ended up with their own personalized versions. I wanted to make a bra that I wouldn't be able to find anywhere else, so this one is made of some Liberty of London cotton I bought years ago and never used. I knew collecting for the sake of collecting would pay off eventually.

So bra-specific parts are really hard to find in normal fabric stores. And it turns out a bra needs a lot of these parts. I tried to be a trooper and get my own materials from the store myself. I figured looking for things like "powernet" would be a learning experience—I didn't want to be like "I don't know, I just got it from the teacher," you know? But other than the fabric, I came up empty-handed for several parts and ended up having to buy them from her after all (she'd gotten them wholesale). So things like the underwire, underwire channel, finishing elastic, and ring and slider (actually, I never even looked for these things). Even the strap elastic was kind of a lucky find—it's an elastic, but what sets it apart from all other kinds of elastic [who knew there were so many kinds] is that they're not super stretchy, and the side that goes against your skin is plush-backed (a little fuzzy) and the side you show the world is pretty. It was also a huge miracle finding it in the color I did, because even if you're lucky enough to find the item you need, chances are it only comes in white. Which means you have to dye it. Which only works if it's not polyester. Which you won't really know until you TRY to dye it because nothing is labeled.

Anyways, the fabric for the cups was originally going to be used for the entire front, but then it just looked too...navy. So I took a chance and paired it with an even busier print because I love mixing prints! Yesterday I wore a mustard yellow striped polo with a lemon yellow striped velour track jacket. Don't make a face. It was awesome. But back to the bra, the busy print ended up being a smart choice because it made it harder to see how uneven my stitches were in some places. Yeah, I have yet to master my sewing machine. I'm just glad I finally managed to learn to avoid large thread gobs on the underside of the fabric.

What else do I want to say about this bra... I wish I'd taken more pictures of it during the process, because it's kind of amazing how all the millions of parts came together. I think once you get the cup to fit you the way you want it to (the entire class was complaining that the original Kwik-Sew pattern was too pointy), the rest is pretty much just assembling, and it's kind of common sense how the parts go together. It's just that the parts are so small and the seam allowance is only 1/4 inch, so for someone who has a hard time sewing in a straight line, it's really slow going if you want to get it right. And I wanted to get it right. I hate working on something for so long and having it not come out the way you want it! Picture of it under construction:

Yes, my work space is messy. It's a wonder I can get any quality done. The cups and the band were separate at this point, and you can see I just laid the underwires on the band at this point, to see what the final curve would look like. And this is the back of the finished bra:

The salmon on the underside of the bra was kind of an accident. The underwire channels were supposed to be the same color as the lining—you can see I came nowhere NEAR the target color—but somehow the peach in the dye clung to certain spots on the channel...it was the color of cheetoes dust. Gross. So I tried to cover it up with more Rose Pink Rit, so now it looks more like I dyed it all with Kool-Aid, but oh well, better than fake cheese. In the process of NOT matching the lining, though, I somehow managed to exactly match the hook and eye panels to the straps! And the straps are a little squiggly right now, but they should smooth out with wear.

It was lots of fun. I want to make another one, but a more sexy-pretty one next time. Next up: the final project. It can be anything—it just has to be "in the spirit of lingerie." I was thinking of doing a bra-top romper that can be worn out (with the bottom half under a pair of real pants) but everyone's excitement in class to make garter belts has me wanting to throw a pair on the romper as well. Any other ideas?

Features in Tones

New technique that S made us do today: drawing in tones instead of lines, and subtracting the light from a pre-applied medium tone charcoal background with a chamois and then kneaded eraser. I was like "blah, blah, heard it all before," but I tried to just really go with it, and look! I didn't even draw the left iris; it was just there after all that smudging and subtracting! Cool, huh. But I didn't get to the left eye because I'm slow. Anyways, looking forward to doing more of these soon.

Today is not the 14th.

I actually got to the background and setting of this one! Amazing. Actually it was D who came around during the break and encouraged me to use it not to socialize, but to do some placement of color for the drapery and stuff. Which was probably a smart thing for me because I am slooow so I need all the time I can get. And I tried a new way of starting this drawing: gesturing with flat strokes of a medium skin tone NuPastel, but because the pastel goes on really thick and I didn't want too much buildup so early on, I finished the blocking out of the general figure by smudging around the color with my fingers. Ideally, I'll work a little more on this by adding some fleshier tones on the figure and less fleshy colors in the drapery so that they're not so much the same color.

And yes, the date is wrong in the bottom corner. I spent all day today thinking it was the 14th!

Baby Hats