OOTD: What uniform?

One thing I must say I like about going to sixth form is how I can play about with the uniform. Whilst it may be compulsory to wear blazers, since October I haven't worn mine at all. I like to play about with jumpers, skater skirts in different fabrics and different kinds of ankle boots. So here was my school outfit for today:

P.S: Our blog has just reached over 30,000 views OMG!

Thanks for stopping by today!

M

The stress of paper pattern cutting

Actually paper pattern cutting is not that stressful I just find it really long and the people around me see my concentration face. Get the paper pattern wrong and the garment you're designing will not look like what you imagined it to be. So here's a reminder of my final design and how I translated it into a paper pattern.

Busy Busy Busy!

We haven't updated in a while have we? -sigh-. Sorry guys, it appears Rianna and I have succumbed to the pressures of writing English essays. I guess this post is to update you on the recent things we've been doing in and out of school.

Caramel Rock

 So we recently begun a "Fashion Open" course with Caramel Rock based in Canning Town. This course takes 10-12 weeks to complete and is every Friday till Saturday. It consists of us learning how to design, create and present our work to each other and to other people. My little qualm about the course is the amount of time it takes up. On Fridays we go in from 4.30 till 6.30 pm and on Saturdays we go in from 11-4.30 pm. So by the end of the week, we are KNACKERED. Its also why we haven't gone out to do Street Snaps or just generally go out. After the course we get an accreditation and we get to a chance to showcase our work in local fashion shows or in London Fashion Week. Despite that I have some doubts...

Sneaky shot of Rianna doing some design work, hee.

F.A.D Fashion Forward Careers Course.

I did this a week ago without Rianna -sigh-  It was an intensive 2-day course about our future choices and beyond. The first day involved talks from undergraduate students studying Textiles and Fashion. They were all studying in London. One funny thing was how the textiles students all had massive portfolios filled with samples of weave, stitching, print, dye and many more decorative techniques where as the fashion students just whipped out their iPad or portfolio to show us drawings of initial ideas and design developments and research. 

The second day involved meeting professionals in the field, so we met a trend forecaster and a boutique owner based in Dalston who worked with environmentally friendly material, check out: http://www.heretoday-heretomorrow.com/

P.S Their winter accessories have beautiful velvet lining, their muffler is on my wishlist!

Its a very intense two days with a close group of people, if you plan on taking Textiles A-Level or planning to do anything with fashion in the future, I highly recommend any opportunity given by F.A.D!

Textiles Coursework

So we've been pressing on with our textiles coursework and got started on my favourite bit (designing).

In comparison to GCSE, A-Level is a lot more fast paced and intensive, a lot of choices are made impulsively and its never good to be behind on work. We've almost completed our paper pattern for our waistcoats and we are currently designing our skirts.

The main aspect of our waistcoats are decorative techniques used and for our skirts we are looking at the structure and how it is constructed. Our paper patterns made us think quite a bit, because of this we can foresee what a nuisance our paper patterns for our skirt is going to be.

So here are my designs, I'll update this post with Rianna's design work later~

Melissa's Initial Design Ideas

Melissa's Design Development

Melissa's Final Design

GCSE Textiles, anyone?

If you've just started GCSE Textiles or are in your second year of it, we have a few tips for you from our own personal experiences:

•  Don't leave everything at the last minute! - Doing everything at the last minute for any subject is a bad habit to get into, so don't do that for Textiles either! In fact, any D&T subject because it takes quite a lot of time to do. Trust us, we've been up until 2am doing our textiles coursework and we still have the eyebags to show it.
• Don't leave empty spaces! Make sure your moodboards are fit to burst with images, make sure your evaluation pages are full with images and lots of writing (or what we say, bullshit, there's no right or wrong answer as long as you justify what you say when evaluating) and make sure your designs fill the whole page of A3. Don't be a wuss and make your drawings dainty and invisible, make sure the examiner can see it.
• Take pictures of everything! - Why? I hear you ask, because you'll need it to show the blood sweat and tears that went into creating your garment. Instead of using words to explain everything you've done, you could just stick in a picture, write a measly paragraph instead of an essay and bob's your uncle.
• Have enough time! - From what I remember, once we started making, everyone went into panic mode. Remember you have about 6-8 weeks to make your garment, make sure you ask your teacher at every stage what you should do next or else you'll spend your lessons unpicking your stitches and you don't want to be doing that!
• Don't have extremely tight stitching! - Ok this made us suffer quite a lot, the reason we say this is because if you do ever make a mistake, you won't be able to unpick all those extremely secure and tight stitches. Due to frustration, we actually cut our fabric by accident :-/
• Write write write! - Write an introduction and a conclusion for each page except the moodboard. It can even be just two sentences each! Also remember to evaluate everything, every design, every construction and decoration technique to the quality of your finished garment.
• Beware of the overlocker! - Back in the beginning of our textiles journey, we were very afraid of the overlocker, our tip to you is don't press the foot pedal so hard! It's as simple as that. Just overlock the edges of your garment in a controlled manner and then you'll end up becoming best friends with it, like we have. Seriously, without the overlocker our garments would've just disintegrated into thread. 

Last but not least HAVE FUN! If we didn't have fun, why do you think we're taking it for A-Level? 

Perks of being in Sixth Form

Here's a picture of my lovely, uncomfortable looking, friend Laura who I saw today with a fabulous necklace from Accesorize! The piece is absolutely gorgeous as it features lots of clock faces all interlinked to make this necklace. Getting to wear statement jewellery is probably one favourite perk of sixth form of ours as well as the free lessons. 

Your School Survival Kit.

With school coming up just around the corner (urgh) I decided to let you sneak a peek at my school survival kit. Honestly. For 5 years I kept it in my locker or just had it in my bag because accidents happen. So just take a small cosmetic bag, fill it up with your essentials and you'll be without any mishaps...beauty wise.

1. BB CREAM: Yes in my survival kit I have a Korean Actress' secret. Why? Because its a multi tasking product. As well as moisturising it works as a light foundation and it protects your skin with a little SPF 15, there are added factors too, some are anti ageing, blemish clearing, whitening and many many more. My current BB Cream is from the Korean Company "Skinfood" and it is from the Good Afternoon Tea range in Peach flavour. It smells delicious and works wonderfully at keeping my spots at bay. I bought it online for £4.03 with free shipping from  http://cosmetic-love.com.
2. VASELINE: The Autumn/Winter season is coming up and one pet hate of mine is my lips cracking due to the cold. I know most of you have this in your pockets or in your bag, so of course I have it in my survival kit.
3. BODY SPRAY: During really hot days we all have that problem with keeping cool and feeling and smelling fresh. You don't want to be the reason why the bus smells odd do you now?
4. HAIR BANDS: If I had a pound for every time I was asked "Do you have a spare hair band?" I would have been able to splurge on Korean cosmetics. Ladies, always have a few hair bands on your wrist or in your survival kit because not only do people steal them from you, they don't give it back even with your hair flying in your face.
5. HAND CREAM: Again, in winter my hands get rough and really red due to the frost. Having builder's hands isn't cute ladies, so please put a bottle in your survival kit and keep those paws smooth and soft.
6. TIGHTS: The most annoying thing in the world is walking home with a ladder in your tights and every time you walk that ladder just gets bigger and bigger. Unless you are making a fashion statement, roll up a pair of tights and stick it in your kit, or else have fun walking home with a ladder.
7. COMPACT HAIRBRUSH/COMB: Ever come out thinking that the day will be beautiful but just get hit in the face with a gust of wind messing up your hair? I know how you feel. Especially after an hour's work on just making yourself look as if you did not just wake up, because not everyone can rock bed hair y'know.
8. PERIOD PADS: "OMG MELISSA WHY WOULD YOU PUT THAT?!" I hear you say. Well I'm a woman so of course I need these. I always have spare because there's always that person that frantically runs around in lunch asking if you have a spare pad. Don't worry, I've got your back. Going to a girl's school totally makes it a normal thing to ask even if its such an embarrassing and messy matter. 
9. CHEWING GUM: Gum is a saviour, it stops you from getting hungry in between lessons, it shuts you up whilst you're doing your work and it keeps the awkward breath encounters at bay. Despite that don't chew them so loudly, the sound is annoying.