Another fashion week!

So, I'm on the bus from Heathrow airport again... Off to see my nephew for a couple of days (no I still haven't finished the quilt), and then into London for another short course at the London College of Fashion! Woo!

This one is called "evening and party wear", and is mainly teaching about boned bodices, with some more exciting drafts/drapes thrown in too, so it's looking pretty fun. It's also at the same campus as last time, so one street away from the brilliant fabric shops of Goldhawk Road... Because it's a construction course though, I will probably need to do some sewing outside of the class. Not normally a problem, but of course my sewing machines are in a different country - so of course the solution is to buy another one! I did contemplate getting a "travel" sewing machine, but I'm not convinced they're sturdy enough to do any proper sewing on, so I plan to buy another basic but decent one similar to my current Brother machine, but keep that in London. We have a storage unit where it can live between visits (until we get our own place here).

It's also going to be a pretty fun week outside the course - I'm going to have a whole week in London, I'm meetin a friend to discuss doing some dressmaking for her, and I'm going to a wedding on Saturday and then a Brian Setzer/Jim Jones Review gig on Sunday. I should have internet, so I'll try and post some pics for you from the course.

Draping galore

As expected, the draping course was AMAZING. We covered the basics of draping, starting with preparing the stand and fabric. We draped a basic skirt and bodice, an A-line skirt, a circular skirt, a ruched front bodice, a sleeve and two collars. Doesn't sound very exciting, but it's provided the basics to understand how to manipulate the fabric into whatever I want! Well, maybe not quite anything just yet, but soon...

The teacher was excellent, and the other students were a very lovely bunch of ladies. (The weird thing is that one of the other students is moving to Switzerland too at the end of April! Unfortunately to Zürich, but hey, Switzerland's a small place...). Studying at the LCF is also very inspiring, surrounded by all the industrial machines, cool looking fashion students, and amazing fashion photography, and it's great having a proper workspace. Speaking of which...

Here's my workspace! I was so engrossed in what I was doing that I forgot to take many pictures, in fact only three in total - here are the other two:

I'm now desperately looking for a reasonably priced dress form as I can't drape on Wilma - as she's adjustable, there's big gaps right where I need to mark and pin along the centre front and back and sides. I wonder if I can make a cover for her as an interim measure...?

After the course had finished, I had a morning in London to spare, so went to the Yohji Yamamoto exhibition at the V&A with my mum. I didn't really know what to expect, or much about his clothes, but oh my, it was definitely the right thing to see after a course on draping on the stand! The clothes were beautiful and intriguing, and the best thing was that we could closely inspect them as they were laid out without any barriers or cases! Unfortunately photos weren't allowed (and I couldn't sneak any due to the burly Japanese security guards), so here's a few from the V&A website:

ETA - There's a very interesting "behind the scenes" blog on the V&A Yohji Yamamoto website, written by the exhibition curator, Ligaya Salazar.

My very own "fashion week"

So, I've just landed at Heathrow to spend a week in London. And I'm very much looking forward to it - because I will be spending the week at the London College of Fashion on a course to learn how to drape on the stand! Squee!

I did a course a few years ago on personalised pattern cutting (i.e. making a block to your own measurements - or your client's - ha!), and it was great fun and I learnt an awful lot, so I can't wait to get started on this one. It was meant to be running last week, but had to be moved, and in doing so the location was moved, which I'm exceedingly pleased about, as instead of trekking over to Old Street every day, I'll be in my old stomping ground of Hammersmith/Shepherd's Bush, handily located for curries on King Street, shopping at Westfield, and of course fabric shopping at Goldhawk Road. I think I may end up paying some excess baggage on the way home - I'd intended to bring as little as possible in order to bring back vast quantities of fabric, but ended up bringing far too many clothes - well a girl has to have choices if she's spening a week at a fashion college!

In other news, I've been doing A LOT of sewing lately in the run up to this week - in the last ten days or so, I've sewn two skirts (one of which is a jeans skirt), one top, and altered a dress. Which is more than I sewed the entire of 2010 I think. Vie been on a major mojo bender - I've also planted up innumerable plants on our balconies, including lots and lots of veggie seeds. Hopefully this continues! I think the sunny weather has helped :)

I don't think I'm going to be able to post photos whilst I'm over here, so expect a glut of photo heavy posts on my return...