Catalog Sunday

Meet Lady's brother.

Obadiah Quentin Ladie

Thanks, Serenity Love Sincere Peace Earth 

for coming up with his first name. Send me your address and I'll send you a thank you!

Obe (his nick name) is a magic fanatic. He wants to be a magician when he grows up and loves the local magic show that is broadcast every Saturday morning.

 Thanks for all those who contributed names. 

I'm working on the Great Uncle and Lady's boss and then I'll start on the weekly strips. Stay tuned!

Thought you guys would like to see downtown Vintageville.

Here is a concept image of downtown Vinageville. What do you think? We've got the major department store on the right, Radish's. Radish's Department store is THE place to go. Also there's Rats on the left, the best bar in town. In the back behind the fountain is city hall and behind that is the park. There is more of the town but this is one of the major streets.

Don't forget to keep those names coming!! 

Have a great day!

Contest: The Lady needs a name.

I was vacuuming this past weekend and I was pondering NVL. As the dog hair and cat hair were being sucked up, it hit me. I should just world build the Lady. Then, like a flood gate ideas began to tsunami into my thoughts. The gears churned, mulling over it in my head for 36 hours I think I have a workable storyline I'd like to share.

I keep getting these vignette images of silly things the Lady might do and it dawned on me why not create a world for her to do them in. So far, I see this world consisting of three places; the town she lives, Vinageville, 'The City' the giant nearby metropolis where all her dreams will come true, and a smaller nearby ville or burgh, I haven't decided.

Vintageville is basically a retro mecca. It's got a soda shop, a museum, a local tv station, a newspaper, an Elks Lodge (or equivalent), you name it. The Lady just moved there from said smaller town (that's still in the air) because she bought a 'new' house. She wanted to live somewhere between her old hometown and 'The City' because she wanted to be close to a place where her dreams are gonna come true. 

Her great Uncle (name undetermined) lives in Vintageville and he owns the barber shop. He told her of this house for sale and did all the scouting for her. She gets there and the house is not like the picture he sent. In fact it's nearly dilapidated. He sees it a a fixer-upper, she sees it as a disaster.

The Lady had hoped to spend the time in her new house working on her dream, but she now has to get a job to pay for the repairs on the house. She gets a job sewing clothing in Mildred's Fashions,  the seamstress shop in Vintageville's downtown. This sets our story.

I'm still working out the total number of characters, but the Lady is our own highly fashionable gal from my drawings. 

Time to start getting ready!

I saw this at Target the other day when I was going to buy Brian a body pillow.

He always scratch at the comforter in the living room 

I've made into a bed and bunches it up for support.

CVTotI

Sometimes a basic search can bring up a cornucopia of great things.

There is a Google search for vintage illustrations.

Enjoy!

CVTotI

This week I have a cool tumbr of classic fairy tales written for the 20-s hipster in all of us.

These are amusing vignettes. Check it out and have a laugh. Remember, if you have a cool vintage site on the internet, let me know and I'll post it.

Thanks! 

Cool Vintage things on the Internet

Happy Thursday everyone!

So sorry about the lack of posts this week. I've been drawing and as soon as I get home from work, I'm all about that. I have been sewing, finishing up a dress, and this weekend I plan on starting some of the MnM projects I've been prepping. A hat from my new repro being one of them...hehehehe.

But this week I have an oldie but goodie. 

I mentioned this on a previous catalog Sunday but it's so cool, I think it deserves another shout out.

My framed picture is up!

The framing store called and my piece was ready for pickup!

I could not wait to get it home and hang it. The frame is custom made, and the matting is a shimmery linen. I love the look, though, it looks rather underwhelming in this picture :)

Pimp My Dress Form: The 'She's got Legs' conclusion

Happy Monday one and all. 

I tell you, the weekend isn't long enough. Just when I get through with all the stuff I didn't have time to do during the week, Sunday evening us upon me. 

Don't you hate that?

I did manage to get some stuff done, though.

On Saturday completely cleaned house. Mopped the bathroom and kitchen floors, and set up the final touches of my drawing area.

Catalog Sunday

This Sunday I have something different for you. 

Some of you may know about this link, but someone just exposed me to it.

Andre Studios 1930-1941

Fashion Drawings & Sketches in the Collections of FIT and the New York Public Library

Hundreds of fashion illustrations all sorted by subject.

The sewing space takes shape.

Good morning and wonderful Wednesday, everyone!

As you can see, my sewing area is coming along. I plan to get back to making clothes this weekend. I have a skirt pattern I want to knock out. All my skirts (and blouses ) are getting too big, and I need some quick fillers. Seeing as I have nothing planned for this weekend (yet), I think that's the best time to get started!

I'm on the air!

Happy Monday, everyone.

 I'm just dropping a line to let you all know I'll be out for a couple of days as I finish up packing and get ready for the movers on Wed. I'm moving in the morning and that afternoon I'll be on the radio!

That's right, I'll be doing a live interview for Women's View Radio this Wednesday afternoon (4PM PST). I'll be talking about my vintage patterns, and general all around vintage stuff. The show will stream live online and on radio (check listings on the site).

Okay, I'm off to work on my radio voice!

Have a great day everyone!!

Here is the interview!
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/gillespie/2012/01/26/womens-view-radio-new-vintage-ladycom

This weeeeeekend!

Whew! *cough*

That pretty much sums up my weekend. 

This drawing got me the job! Thanks, The Lady!

Stout Alteration Tricks: Pick a sleeve based on your boobs.

Well, upper bust.

I know this is going to sound strange, and perhaps I spend way too much time pondering the fit of the bust to arm, but I've been asked a bit about how to pick a sleeve when you are altering a garment, or if you want to change the sleeve on something new that you are making. Here is what I've concluded.

It all is in the boobs.

For me, when I pick a sleeve, I want one that will give me a good range of motion. To determine that, its about the upper bust/arm pit ratio and how much of you actually fills that area. Sure, we all know to adjust this when we are making a garment, but also, if you are adding a different sleeve to a garment, you will also need to take into consideration the armscye with the new sleeve. 

That's why some sleeve patterns came with mockup bodice pieces to test the sleeve, which I think was brilliant. Match that up to the bodice of what you want to add the sleeve to and you're golden. But a lot of times that's not the case, and a lot of times if you are adding a sleeve, you don't take this measurements into consideration. I know I didn't. This I'm sure we all know.

Please leave a message....

Hello all.

I'm taking a brake. I'm just burnt out. I really need to redirect some of my energy to some other things and after I finished my Air Raid projects I thought now was a great time.

I'll still be sewing, don't worry about that, I'll prolly update NVL with some projects, and Catalog Sunday is all lined up for weeks to come, but I'm gonna chill on this blog for a few weeks.

My Etsy store will still be humming along (it better be, it's my only income right now), and if you are interested, during this hiatus I'll be doing more over at the Gazette.

If you truly have nothing else to do in your monumentally busy lives (unlike myself) read through my ramblings. I hope to catch some more followers that way. I'm way behind all the real cool people :)

Anyway, I'll see you all around the web and back here with tons of new projects in a few weeks and if you have any questions, feel free to email me!

Later!

A day at the Getty

I'm not going to lie, this week has been pretty shitty (pardon my French).
My phone line has cut out, again. Third time in 15 months, and because California is in a state of emergency, ATT (#&%*(*@(!!!!) said they can't get to it for THREE WEEKS!

Can you go without home internet for three weeks? No, didn't think so. So job hunting, internet surfing, and just basic networking have all been stifled because ATT is the only player in the game. Don't bet me started on competition...

But I digress, again.

In the middle of my chaos, I get a call from my friends visiting from Australia. They contacted me earlier in the week, but with my virtual foot being cut off, I forgot. Yesterday was Getty day. AHHH! So I hosed myself down, put on some clean clothes and hopped in a cab.

I'd never been to the Getty museum before. I didn't know it was that far out of LA. When we got there, we waited for the tram to take us up the mountain and to the campus. It was a very peaceful ride, and one of the frequent goers recommended we get in the front car to see the view.

Great suggestion, even saw a deer just chillin' by the tram tracks.

Once we reached the top and got out, it was so quiet and still. No traffic and visual obstructions, just marble covered buildings and the putter of fountains. We ascended the main steps and I could not help but think we were on Mt. Olympus.

I said that over and over, especially when we partook of the many panoramic views sprinkled all over the complex.

There were many exhibits going on; illuminated manuscripts from 16th century France, modern photography, expressionists paintings,

17 th century furniture (this 'princess bed' is totally going to be reference for a Princess and the Pea illustration)... I could go on.

This was a bed that we ALL wished we could have in our place. It's about 8ft long and as coral pink as is pictured.

AWESOME!

My favorite exhibit was the Secret Life of Drawings, where they show the restoration process of some of their most severely damaged drawings. I loved seeing so much not entirely modern, though a lot of it was, but painstakingly long detail used in restoring those images. It was humbling and often an uncredited task.

As the day wound down, more nature revealed itself. We caught a hawk riding on the current stalking out some food below. He was there fora good ten minutes just hovering. It was spectacular. We looked down in the cool air and saw the lights of the cars on the roads start to glow. The sky was orange and Olympus was closing. I really didn't want to go.

We returned to mortal status but had a wicked ride home.

*kidding*

We had dinner at a rather good Italian place. The wine was great.

And here I sit in a cafe with a not very good cup of coffee (I make better coffee at home, mind you) in a cafe so I can type this. *sigh*
Just when I thought 2011 was gonna be my year.

So now you know the reason for my sporadic posting. I'm gonna try and get better. Some friends have offered my some time at their places, and I'm working on putting together more advanced posts. So please bear with me. Catalog Sunday will always happen :)

That museum trip hit the spot. I'm so inspired! I had just finished a 2 year long animation project and was feeling rather ill that my internet went down before I could post it online, but I'll let y'all know. Right now I'm getting ready to take my serger to the repair shop. I miss it and I'm tired of everything I use being out of commission. This thing I can at least help.

Man, this ended strangely.

My other artistic dimension.

Hi all, hope your week is going well.

As you all know, because I've said it to exhaustion, I'm a creative professional. Since all the kids are doing this whole blogging thing, I thought it was time to expand the updates part of my portfolio site and branch it into blog form.

Here I'll document the processes of my work, and post progress on projects. I hope it will be of interest to some of you, and to others something to at least check in on from time to time.

So spread the word, and thanks bunches!

Rayon Blouse Progress....and other things.

My Christmas cards came the other day.

I spent an afternoon going through my list of folks to mail them to.

I love a big old pile of letters all ready for the mail.

Sent them out and now they are on their way to friends and family.

I also did the last wash of the cotton stockings.

They bled more than i thought they would have, but I finally managed to get them clean and now they are dry. Here they are paired with the two tone dress I want to wear them with. The stockings are a bit warmer than the red of the dress, but they will serve their purpose, and Im excited to wear them together.

I've also made progress on my new rayon blouse.

I constructed the bodice the other day.

I would have been further along but I wanted to get my cards out.

I'll admit what's been holding me up, laziness. I want to do a binding around the wrist opening this time instead of facing it because the the white rayon is so sheer. But I'm hesitating because I *hate* mitering corners and I'll have to. Bleck. I know it will most likely take me all of ten minutes, but it's the mental hurdle I have to get over.

Or I could just take a nap.

My 2010 Christmas card

Every year for a long while now I've done a custom Christmas card for family and friends. For a while I did a linoleum run (when I had access to a press) and signed and dated them. MAN I miss printmaking.

This year, like last year, I've been knee deep in Adobe Illustrator, so I decided to do a second version of last year's card, gingerbread me. It was hugely successful. Between the Lady and gingerbread me, you all must think I'm this HUGE egomaniac.

No, not at all.

No more than what's healthy, I guess...

Now I need to have some cards printed. I still have time!