Of dyeing and design

I know it’s been five days since I posted anything. Lots of wonderful stuff has been happening! but mostly not stuff I can talk about yet, thus the radio silence. (But stay tuned – in a couple of weeks, I’m hoping to have excellent news!)

However, not all is enshrouded in secrecy, and one of these wonderful things is a book I’m reading. If you are interested in fashion design, you must get a copy. It’s Fashion By Design by Janice Greenberg Ellinwood, and it is the awesomest book ever. It covers principles of two and three dimensional design in the context of designing fashion, with examples from haute couture, and includes profiles of well-known designers, giving a grounding in fashion history as well. It’s exactly what I’ve been looking for – the bridge between design principles (mostly aimed at fine arts students) and fashion design. I’ve been devouring it at a rapid clip, which has also contributed to the radio silence.

I’m also getting back to creative work, of a sort. My friend Julie is having twins, and I offered to tie-dye some baby clothing for her. I also have an entire 66-quart tub full of things that need dyeing – sweatshirts, sweat pants, button-down shirts for work, bras (bras??? – yes, bras), socks, and, um, stuff. Lots of stuff. So I mixed up a big batch of dyes and am going to start dyeing today. I don’t expect to finish all of it today – like I said, I have a HUGE pile of stuff to dye – so will probably do a second dye day in a month or so. But I should have pix of dyed items later today.

No progress on the garment design – I want to finish devouring Fashion By Design before doing further design work – but I’m very much looking forward to getting started.

Stay tuned for dyefest photos!