I have a picture of one of the new skirts now! It’s exciting. I’m actually quite happy with this one…so far it might be my favorite.

It’s bright and colorful, which I love. I love that I will have so many different color options for a blouse to wear with it. And it’s hard to go wrong with a simple pencil style skirt. There was a time when I only ever wore jeans and a cute shirt. I might dress up in a dress or skirt outfit on occasion (such as a date), but I was always afraid I would be over dressed…and being a shy girl, that didn’t go over very well with me… I wanted to blend in, not stand out. I always tried to take to heart the quote by Oscar Wilde “You can never be over-dressed or over-educated,” but I just couldn’t do it. Then, some years ago, I met a couple who are very dear friends of mine now. She was always dressed in skirts and dresses, with her hair and makeup done, and even pantyhose. So now I started feeling under-dressed all the time, which I quickly learn, was far worse than being over-dressed. It got me in to wearing my “fancy” clothes more often until they started becoming my normal clothes. Now it feels weird to walk around in jeans. Occasionally I have days where I miss my jeans, but I realized I have so much more self confidence dressing up everyday, and putting effort in to how I look. Quite often I get odd looks, some appreciative, some jealous, but they don’t bother me any more, because now I am so much more comfortable in my own skin. And at the end of the day, that is such a better feeling.

First off, I’d like to start today’s post by wishing every a Happy Valentine’s Day…I hope it was a good day for you. Personally, not my favorite Holiday, and I would feel bad…except I know plenty of people who aren’t a fan of this particular day…even happy couples. To be honest, I think I know more people who don’t care for this day, than I do people that actually look forward to it. Thinking about it… I can’t think of any one I know who actually looks forward to it. They tolerate it, but it isn’t their favorite. I wonder if it is a Holiday that has just become too hyped up. There is so much anxiety around this one day, what with commercials, and movies, and dinner dates, and other dates…so much is wrapped up into this one day of the year. I wonder if that’s why its so disliked. It used to be a time to celebrate love and romance, a time for couples to revel in how they feel about each other. (Yes, I know couples should do that anyway and not have to be told, but it’s like Christmas…people can, and do, give friends and family gifts for absolutely no reason, but Christmas is still the time for celebrating and gift giving). It was a day to enjoy love. It has become a fairly stressful day that is full of chocolates, roses, fancy meals, and (often) expensive gifts. Somehow, the gift has become a show of how much you care for the person, and the better the gift, the more you must care…and things that used to be little shows of affection (flowers, chocolates, etc.) are now required yet also inadequate, and have lost their meaning. The day is meant to enjoy your significant other and your love for each other, not to prove the depth of it. Say you and your spouse have very busy lives, maybe jobs with long and crazy hours, or family that always needs you, or situations that have you traveling away from each other a lot…this is a day that is meant for all other things to be put to the side, so you can remember why it is you care about that person, and to take time out of your crazy schedules to devote purely to each other. I know that it isn’t always easy, and in many cases, not actually possible, which happens…life happens…but Valentine’s Day is there to remind you to find time for each other, and to remind you that love is important and is something to be cherished, not taken for granted.

Today I challenged my boyfriend to look at his workplace a little differently. I gave him a task to look for the best label on a specific type of product. I didn’t give him any other parameters except that it had to be a single type of item and he had to give me reasons why he chose it. It was an attempt to give him a way to have more fun at a place he doesn’t always enjoy, and it made me realize that life could be so much more fun in general if we all gave ourselves quirky little tasks like that to help us get through the day. If it’s a task you don’t enjoy doing, look for a way to make it more enjoyable: give yourself a task like picking your favorite about it, or try to figure out how many colors you see while do the task, or any other odd type of thing to notice. Its a way to force your mind to look at it from a different perspective and have a new way of looking at your surroundings. Starting with little things just to help make the day go by faster or at least less un-enjoyable and could eventually work up to making every day a good day because everything is being looked at in a new light. And believe me, I know some days it’s really hard to look for any sort of silver lining. We have all been there. It feels like everything is piling on top of you until you are buried so deep you can’t even see where up or down is. Those are the days we need these little ideas the most. One glimpse of daylight can help renew our strength to dig out of that hole and bask in the light. I’ve also had the days where I just wanted to be in the dark, I didn’t want to fight any more, or try any more, just wanted to sit there, alone and miserable… and that’s okay, those days are part of life and don’t make us bad or broken, we just have to try not to let those days take over to where we forget what the daylight looked like. It’s like a quote from Gandalf in the Hobbit movies “Saruman believes it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay… small acts of kindness and love.” Granted Sauron is not trying to take over Middle Earth, there is still truth in fact that it’s the small things that keep the darkness at bay.

I finished the dress I was working on today, very excited that its done… it took a little longer than I had expected it to, but I’m pretty happy with the end result. I’ll hopefully have some pictures posted of it soon. I just realized I meant to work out today…oops. I wish I knew why it’s so hard to get into an exercise routine…It goes along with my post yesterday, I wish I had more hours in the day…but I still don’t know if I would actually use it to work out. I was doing a great job for a lot of last year, working out every day and hitting my calorie goals every day. I’m having the hardest time getting back in to that routine and I don’t know why. Exercise has so may great benefits, and I’m not afraid of hard work, so I don’t know why I’m having so many issues. I even have plenty of motivation, but still haven’t gotten in to it. Maybe it’s like artist block… you have to keep trying and hope that one day you just snap out of the funk and can continue about your plans. All I can do is keep trying and keep surrounding myself with motivation. Doesn’t help I have so much motivation for all the other things I would like to get done. So hard, sometimes, to prioritize what to do with the day. Especially with so many options. I can safely say I’m never bored…unless I want to be, and that is a very rare circumstance.

Quick update on the day…managed to get four of the skirts I was working on finished, and almost done with a dress. Would have done more, but there are only so many hours in a day. Which leads me to wonder…so often I find myself wishing for more hours in a day, or more days in a week. We all wish we had more time in our lives to get stuff done and be able to do things we would want to do. But if we actually had those extra hours, or extra days, would we use them to accomplish all the things we wish we had extra time for? Or would we end up just continuing doing all the stuff that already takes up all our time? I’ve wondered about it a couple times. Played out in my head what I would do with the extra time…would I really read the un-read books that have been sitting beside my bookshelf…would I draw just for the fun of it…would I play that video game I haven’t found any time for? Or would I find a way to add extra work into my schedule and end up with even less time for fun? And that then leads me down my next train of thought…why is it so hard to make time to just have fun or relax. Why do so many of us feel like we have to keep working…working, working, working…to a point where we feel guilty just to take time to enjoy being alive. Relaxation and fun are as vital to humans as having purpose and meaning, but we cast them aside as though wanting that is selfish or immature. Yes, too much relaxing and too much fun, can be bad as well (the whole, too much of a good thing isn’t always a good thing) we have to have balance in our lives…but work and responsibility always seems to take precedence. We shouldn’t feel guilty wanting to take some personal time to work on things other than work (regular work, housework, etc.) It’s really hard to find out what that balance is, though, and its not the same for everyone… and I really doubt there is some scientific way to figure it out, but I hope that we are able to find our own balance of work and play, and that it will make us happier and healthier, and have a prosperous life.

I haven’t cure my artist block yet, but at least tonight I had the beginnings of a desire to draw. Nothing has come of it, but it’s a step in the right direction. I did manage to get three skirts I’ve been working on finished…well, almost finished, technically they will be finished when I iron them. But the sewing portion is done at least. I’m hoping I can work on some new latex designs tomorrow, but I still have another skirt and a dress to finish. I’m trying to get projects out of the way before I dive in to new projects. That’s one of the only potential downsides to having creative juices flowing again…once you start on one project it leads to new ideas that have stemmed from the first one, and then it just keeps going. The only plus to the current artist block is that I can now finish some of the designs that I wasn’t able to work on yet. Kind of like I’m doing a creative spring cleaning (even though I know it isn’t spring yet). Maybe the artist block is because I have so many unfinished projects. Maybe it’s my subconscious mind forcing me to finish things up before I’m allowed to start anything knew. If it is, then my subconscious mind is being quite successful. My only catch to finishing up all the new skirts, is coming up with ideas for blouses to go with all of them. I haven’t even started that process yet, its almost a bit daunting at the moment, it’ll help me continue in my quest of using up the old fabric I have. And, it’s always fun to see projects come to life, but it’s really funny, I love almost every step of the design process, except the end. Once I get to the final parts, such as hems and waistbands, I’m wanting the project to be over already, so it seems like those steps take forever…and they are almost the easiest part. Kind of funny how that works. My favorite part is definitely the design stage, followed by the drafting/draping and mock up stage. I really enjoy watching the piece start to come alive into 3 dimensions, when it started as a simple 2 dimensional image. The final project doesn’t always end up exactly like the drawn design, but I try to come as close to it as possible (not including changes I might have made in the mock up phase to enhance some of the design features). I’m not exactly sure this post is making the most sense, so I think I will call it a night.

I am sitting here trying to figure out what I want to write about. The longer I sit here, the less I can think of. Interesting how that works, huh? Sometimes it seems like the more we rack our brains for ideas, the less capable we are of coming up with them. I wonder why that is. Is it the stress of trying to come up with an idea, or is it just some weird block our minds do. It’s like with artists block. How can I go from having so many ideas bouncing around in my head I feel like I’ll go crazy if I don’t put them on paper and get them out of my head, to having absolutely no ideas floating around and feeling like my artsy side is an empty and boring void. It is the weirdest sensation and I wonder what it is that causes it. I’m sure I could research some scientific explanations of sorts, but it’s almost more fun to think of it as a philosophical conundrum, something that may or may not an explanation. Food for thought, as it were. Another crazy thing is how artist block hits every artist. It’s not something that happens on occasion to a few unlucky people, it happens fairly frequently to every artist. And it could happen right in the middle of a project. How strange is that? One minute you could be working on a painting, a story, a garment, anything, making really good time on it, or being really proud of it, and then all of a sudden, with absolutely no warning, artist block comes up and now you can barely remember how to even use your paintbrush. It’s the same one you’ve been using the whole time, but now it looks and feels like a foreign object in your hand. I’ve had moments where I even stare at the tool I’m using trying to figure out why, for the life of me, I feel like I can’t remember how to use it. Or it seems like I’ve never done it before. I do that a lot when I’m trying to force myself to design something new when I’m in the middle of a design idea drought; I can be sketching away, happy with how the ideas of flowing onto the page, and then all of a sudden I’ll forget how to draw. Every line is squiggly, and in the wrong place.. I won’t be able to get any of the shapes right, the shading will look forced and unnatural (which is saying something for a cartoon like sketch) and the proportions will be so off the figure on the page (which should have resembled a female human) now looks like some weird, alien creature. On those particular days, I don’t even attempt to draw a face, even a cartoony stick figure type of face, it would be the death of me. And then you can wake up one morning and have all of your skills back, as thought nothing ever happened. I’ve researched different ways to try and cure artist block, but I’ve learned that sometimes, no matter what you do, it won’t come back until it wants to. It’s as though my muse has gone on some sort of very long vacation far away and will come back as soon as shes good and ready.

I thought, tonight, I might bring the blog back around to the actual business, or at least a top more related to the business. This is just a little bit of a shout out to let it be known that more stuff is coming soon and will be posted on the site. I have many projects in the works, in various states of the design process, and have a lot of new ideas I want to bring to life. Currently, I’ve been working on a bunch of fabric skirts that I’ll have some pictures posted of soon in the gallery. I have so much fabric laying around from various projects or just liking it at the time, that I’m trying to get it used up and turned in to stuff. Latex is still my main passion, and I will be doing some more new latex projects soon. Latex is just such a fun material to work with, and it suits my particular design aesthetic better than any other material I’ve worked with. Leather comes close, and I would like to do some more leather pieces that I could add to the site, but it still doesn’t have the same appeal to me that latex does. And, If I’m being truly honest with you, I think latex is so much fun to wear. It’s comfortable and so unique. It’s especially fun to wear here in Colorado… a friend of mine calls it “Scaring the locals” since it is a fairly subdued and traditional type of town, being weird and out of the ordinary is really not hard to do here (minus having to shop elsewhere for supplies and accessories). Can get some interesting looks walking around here in some of the stuff I’ve designed. It probably doesn’t help I currently have bright reddish pink hair. Makes life so much more fun to be able to show my true colors though. Besides, why stick with neutrals and dull colors when there is an entire rainbow of options to choose from and so may different ways to play with a look to make it truly original. At least we have a wonderful costume shop here that has some great make up and tights (its a little paradise of color and personality in an otherwise drab set of options). Why have a favorite color if you can’t show it to the world in your style. I hope more people can learn that color isn’t as scary as it seems.

It seems like I keep posting these later and later in the day. Not sure if that is helping or hindering my creative juices in terms of what to write. The days just don’t seem long enough lately, and trying to make the most out of a day can lead to really long hours. They aren’t too bad, though, since I really do love what I do. It sometimes makes me wonder how life got this way. It used to be you worked as soon as the sun came up, and work was over once the sun went down. There really were no exceptions because work depended on daylight. Candles were a commodity that few could afford in those days, so work was over and families were able to spend time together sitting in front of the fireplace. How did we go from that, to “burning the candle from both ends”? And why is it so difficult to slow down and take time to rest. What, in society, has trained us that working non stop is the way to go. When did we stop valuing personal time. Our minds and bodies need rest to heal and function, so why is it so hard to come by? So many of us try to get as little sleep as possible just to have more hours in our day. Which is fine for the occasional moments, especially if it is involving doing something you truly enjoy, but it has become a habit to a point where its hard to sleep at nights, or at least hard to get a full nights sleep. I was sitting here wondering if people were happier or less stressed back in those times, and realized that they had just as many things to keep them awake at night as we do now. I’m sure they wondered how they could pack as much as possible into their days, which, if you think about it, were so much shorter without candle light or electricity, and worried about health, and family, and other things we still think about today, and plenty of things that aren’t even on our radars any more now. So I guess, humans are just humans, and (other than modern technology and the like) we really haven’t changed that much.

I only missed a day in between blog posts this time, so I count that as a win (at least its not a year.) Thanks to the last post, you know where I went to college and that, as simple as it is, I learned I loved fashion from none other than Barbie herself. And as far as that goes, I was never a little girl that wanted to be Barbie or to look like Barbie, all I wanted was her wardrobe and some of her awesome stuff, but yeah, mainly the wardrobe. The fun part now, is I can make clothes for people rather than dolls now, which can be a lot more fun. My other reason for going into fashion design, was that I never really liked stuff I found in the stores; it was just never anything that really spoke to me, so I figured, at the least, I wanted to learn how to make my own clothes so finally I would have stuff I was looking for. The downside to that is… I don’t always know what I’m looking for, so sometimes the things I make still aren’t what I want. But oh well… that’s just part of the design process and the trial and error process of learning what my own personal style really is. And at the end of the day, isn’t that really what fashion is about? Taking pieces we like and adding twists to them to make them our own, whether its with embellishments or accessories. Sometimes I’ll find a pair of high heels I absolutely adore, and end up not having anything to wear them with… so I’ll make an outfit to match. It’s why I wanted to be able to do custom design for people. I have the skills and abilities to be able to make an outfit to match my shoes, or make an outfit that popped into my head, and I want to be able to help other people be able to do that as well. We’ve all ran across that certain dress, or blouse, or other article of clothing, and said “I would love this if (add color, design element, style, etc., here) was different.” I want to be able to give that option to my clients. They might love a particular style of a piece, but not the color, or the color but not the length, etc. I want to make those changes for them, so when they get that item, they know it was made specifically for them. A piece truly unique to their own style.