Totoro Cross Stitch and Zippers

That's right, I made a Totoro cross-stitch!!!!

I've been working on this one for 4 months. Doesn't sound like a very long time... but in this month alone I would have spent at least 15 hours on this stupid bit of stitching. Why do cross stitches take so long? Why?

And that line half way through his belly is REALLY frustrating... I ran out of that coloured thread ;( I'm too lazy to re-do the whole thing however. I shall never be able to look at it without cringing. Good thing I'm giving it to my dad!

Meanwhile, in my textiles class, I sewed a zipper!!!!! I'm feeling very pro.

Drawing and Cinderella

A few days ago, my Textiles class got a special visit from the Whitehouse Institute of Design, who spent a whole day working with us on improving our drawing skills in fashion.

This was my best drawing from the day, still not brilliant, but pretty good I think :) It was based on a photograph:

Anyway, on another note, yesterday I went to a Disney Party :D

I went as Cinderella. My costume was sourced from various opp shops, and my mum sewed the apron for me :)

Uncreative

Ahh, yeah 11 is so incredibly consuming... And I'm away on a camp all weekend, and excuses excuses, I never have any time to be creative... ever...

T-T

I am, however, getting a lot of work done.

But as the art class at school went on an epic excursion today, and I was left behind in my Ancient History class, I felt a lot like the people in that comic.

I have ALWAYS counted myself as an Art student. And now I am constantly whining that I did not choose it for senior years, as my friends and family are well aware of (Sorry guys...)

So I'm thinking I might make up for it by painting a giant canvas for an Extension English visual represenation project. Just as long as it still counts as English, and isn't obviously a vain attempt at pretending that I still count as part of the art class........

:(

I NEED MORE TIME!!!!!!!

And sleep.

Textiles

So I've just started the HSC Textiles course, and am finding it very challenging. My teacher has very high expectations, and I find myself turning up 10 minutes early to every class just to avoid the chance of being late and getting a demerit! I feel like such a nerd.

Anyway, we've started work on seams. We've been doing some sample work, and I thought I'd put some pictures up.

Pardon the terrible quality photos, but I couldn't find my camera and had to resort to my computer webcam.


These are my bound seams - very tricky. I was the first person in the class (but certainly not the last) to get a cotton lock over doing this fiddly work. That means that the fabric gets stuck in the bobbin thing and you pretty much have to take apart the whole machine and rip out your fabric. Thanks for using me as a demonstraction, that really made my day (not). At least I learned to be more careful!


These were my first attempts at using an overlocker - what a marvellous invention!! A few seconds of loud noises, and the machine creates a complex stitch and cuts the fabric for you, and it always looks professional.


On this page I sewed some very simple hems, and the bottom three were hand-stitched. Oh yes, I am amazing at handstitching after those hundreds of hours I've spent on cross-stitches!!! It was supposed to take the whole lesson, and I finished in the first 20 minutes :D Browny points for me.


As a reward for fininishing the handstitching so quickly, my teacher showed me this very unusual seam. Hand-stitched again, but I'm not sure if I did it quite right... I think this is called scalloped or something? It's supposed to be a decorative hem for sleeves or something.

So yeah, Textiles is turning out as more challenging than I thought, but lots of fun! Haven't had to do any figure drawings yet though ;)

Drawing, drawing, drawing...

As I am about to begin a textiles class at school, I thought I should put some work into getting better at fashion drawings.

Not that I'm saying any are particularly fashionable.

I was helped along the way though, so you might be able to see the way my original fairly-preportionate manga-ish drawings turn into more stylised, yet realistic drawings.

(Hopefully clicking on them will enlarge them, if they appear too small....)

based on a photo. which i could have created this out of my head...

this one was based on fanart of the Zelda character Midna in human form. Something weird with her feet... O_O

This is a drawing of a childhood figure I created in the first novel I ever wrote, starting at age 10 and finishing age 13.

okay, now we're getting into fashion designing.

random schoolgirl portrait. When i began on the eyes, it was going to be a model... thats why they're scarily 'made-up'

Harry Potter Dobby socks

After much trial and error, I completed my Christmas Harry Potter socks at 10pm on Christmas night!!!

At least I had two hours to wear them on the right occasion :D



Yeah, a lot of pain to do these...

They were my first attempt at making socks!

I can turn a heal!!!! :D

It's actually far easier than I thought...

Thankyou, youtube tutorials!!

Manga Studios

So I got this manga studios present for my birthday... and have only JUST gotten round to using it :P I wanted to trial it, and so picked that random picture which I posted previously of my formal dress, and started fiddling with this program. This drawing took me 2 hours :S it's a bit more complicated than I thought... and I haven't worked out how to do the tails on speech bubbles yet!!!

So yeah, here's my random digital art test:


p.s the face and hair are totally off, but i made them just random. i was mainly focusing on the outfit. How cool is the flower pattern on the dress?? So cool when i found that template :D