Be you. Everyone else is taken.
Welcome to Clothesline Patterns
-the home of Simple, Speedy Sewing.
Thoroughly exhaustimicated at the end of term. I promise you I worked harder for this quaint little TAFE course, than I ever did to earn a degree! 
Sorry I don't have photos from the parade, but here's the outfits I made on some of our lovely students. Thanks to Lynette Rees for the great shots.
For more clarity, these can also be translated into a technical drawing on a computer drawing program.
Patterns are drawn up by hand and a toile or test garment pieced together. At college, we have rolls and rolls of fabric oddments to cobble toiles together. At home, I like to pick up cheap fabric from op shops for testing patterns. It can be a bit of an eyesore, but it's great for trialling. Here's a snap taken in our college studio...
Here's my mood board from which I'll draw up some design developments, draft patterns, make toiles and sew up a collection. All by June. Wish me luck!
Emily is a student who entered a modelling competition and did very well, even taking out Miss Congeniality (the best award!)
For some more images from the shoot take a look at Burda Style here.
It prompted a series of design developments. One of which was made up on a half scale mannequin. Then there was the pattern making and experimenting with constructing a pinata of an underskirt in boning and mesh. Then the 40 white leaves were glued in place and Ta Da! 
Congrats to very talented Grace Cross - she won the big prize of the night - a scholarship to study at Central Saint Martins in London.
Fascinating stuff!
We even arranged a photo shoot - which was a bit of an eye-opener for me! Our first model pulled out 2 days before, the next emailed me at 12.15 am on the day to say she couldn't come. Finally we found someone to shoot at 9 am on the day. Unbelieveable!
We made up a brochure of our designs and presented them to some very lovely ladies from Qld surfwear company Billabong.
Feel like I've learned a lot this year. From visual diaries, to mood boards, to design boards, to drafting patterns, to sewing them up.
But it's back to the salt mine at college. (Here's some piccies taken on Banallee's new camera.) Have been whining about a few late night classes this term. On Wednesday night, was still wandering the halls at 6.30 pm. Peeked in on some classrooms - people making patterns, sewing garments, designing hats. In the hallways, racks of lovely garments all ready for the big (fashion) parade. And I thought to myself - there are worse places you could be!
My college project (above right) was drawn using a template on a light box. No light box? Tape your template to a window in daylight hours, tape to the TV at night! Pencil in the basic shape and add your clothing design. Use a fine line pen (I like 0.1!) to define your sketch. Erase original pencil lines and colour.
When I was in sixth grade our teacher made us stand up in front of the class to show our best drawing. I had to borrow a picture from a friend! Couldn't draw to save my life and avoided art at high school in favour of maths and physics (unbelievable!). But at age 27 I decided I wanted to learn to draw - it's never too late to start.
The life-changing book I read was Betty Edwards' Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. For a totally left-brained person, it helped me learn a skill I thought was only for the chosen few!
At college, our inspiration boards are usually themed and include a title, samples of fabrics and a colour palette. They work in tandem with a visual diary, and are a handy way to see all your influences in one hit.
My pictured board is inspired by (you guessed it) desserts! From here I'll draw up clothing designs focussing on a berry coloured palette. We've been doing some natural fabric dyeing using blueberries and raspberries, creating some yummy colours. Have also been experimenting with ruffles and pleating to suggest layers of creamy icing on a cake.
The holidays are here! The holidays are here! We've worked hard at college this semester and I really enjoyed the chance to learn some great skills amongst some lovely creative types (most of them half my age!)
We also did some T-shirts - painless fun for those with an overlocker, but a little trickier on an ordinary sewing machine. Here's a little cowl neck tee I made, it's pretty simple to sew once you draft the pattern up...
Keeping a visual diary is like that but in mostly pictures instead of just words...
We're required to keep a visual diary for our drawing class and it's been really fun.
First there's the discipline of daily entries...
For the past month, I've made myself put aside time every day to draw.
It's a real luxury to do that, putting aside housework or other things you're obliged to do.
But it's really rewarding - give it a go!
For our sketching class, we had to draw a dress from five different angles. Unable to find anyone willing to stand still long enough five times, I resorted to freeze-framing people on So You Think You Can Dance. Here's Ivy from that fabulous Paso Doble routine a few weeks back!
a great book with lots of tips and techniques for using coloured markers in particular.
Full of fabulous examples too...
Here's one I copied earlier ...
Here's some drawings I've done in our fashion illustration classes.
Try copying drawings that you like.
Or work from real life garments.
Practice, practice, practice!
By the way, when I was a kid, I couldn't draw to save my life. Just ask Christina, a friend in grade 6 that I had to borrow a drawing from, for show and tell time! But I do believe it's like reading and writing, you can learn to do it. Betty Edwards' book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is a fabulous book for those who want to learn to draw.
Click on a pic to see helpful notes. Enjoy!
First week at Fashion Design & Technology school at MSIT... A little strange for me as I'm so much older than most students! Lots are recent school leavers - mostly aspiring fashion designers. Our Industry Awareness class was a bit of an eye opener - designers' jobs are pretty scarce, but there's work going for sample machinists (who sew a prototype garment that is sent overseas for manufacturing) and patternmakers (the area I'd like to move into) are sought after too.
But aspiring designers don't despair - some do just fine. 
Show me the money!
Studying through TAFE can get expensive as there's no HECS scheme where you can defer payment (fees are around $5000 per annum.) So start saving, and get ready for some hard work! This semester we're tackling patternmaking, drawing and design, fabrics, industry awareness, computing (Photoshop and Illustrator) and sewing on industrial machines.
Enjoyed our fabric identifying class this week...
This exercise would be great for teachers to introduce students to different fibres.
Also fun is looking at fabrics under a magnifying glass. You can clearly see the knitted structure of stretch fabrics in T-shirts and the diagonal patterns of twill weaves on denim.
