The Process

Sometimes, this just about sums it up, and for me it’s one of those days!

Between the wacky weather we are having in NYC. Trying to update and keep track of 2 different blogs while learning the platform – not to mention my original simple blogger blog.  All crunched in between work, life & a sudden flurry of social invites. Helping my better half with his computer issues and trying to give helpful yet not confusing input to his new website project. And not being a computer geek by birth, nature or trade…

This is exactly the expression my brain has on right now!

Here is the finished product started in my earlier post:

I need to sit down and organize my work-in-progress photos, I have been doing several at once and am not so great at organizing as I go.

Consider this a teaser.

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I have found myself here.

With a new theme via a recommendation from a fellow classmate at LVS.

Thank You Mary & love your blog!

this after spending too much time trying to fix the un-fixable on the old thematic theme and now have run into another issue.

I would ideally like to have the lightbox working on all my images, but not able to get it to and I am very confused as to which lightbox is most suitable or if  should I take off the nexgen gallery?  I am simultaneously trying to work on two blogs (!) so it all keeps getting a bit muddled up!  After a bit of this I just get exhausted…

Ok, I have spent waaaay too much time trying to fix the glitch in my comments area. I am going to get a professional. There is some stuff I…
a) Just don’t need to know.
b) Could care less about- I just want it to work.
c) No time and this is a time vampire- (very, very bad for us obsessive –compulsive types)
d) Yes, I’d like to know what’s under the hood, but I guess I am at that ‘kick the tires’ stage of my life…Now I know why my father okayed the old Fiat I got as my first car, he looked under the hood, kicked the tires, it looked clean- tires hard- Fine! Because he already knew he couldn’t fix it- and he wasn’t gonna try!!! (It was Totally up to me to learn the meaning of FIAT) I did love that car, regardless of the fact that I had to get driven home from Maine by a van full of Evangelical guys in shorts and crucifixes when it died in the middle of nowhere. Now, that would be totally creepy, when I was 20 it was entertainment.

End of tangent- Ignore the glitch- if you want to leave a comment let it load. I am not screwing around with the php and mysql. It’s just gonna get really, really slow, but somehow it still works in the end.

I am going to post on my blogger blog now…I can no longer get my images to show here-weird.

update: just fiddling with a new template and my images….

Water Street Graffiti

This is a fairly new local “graffiti” it’s gorgeous and we love it!

I have mentioned the classes I am taking?  Well that’s why some of these posts are tagged “learning” and I am adding a tag  specifically for class work, since the of  one of these classes is for learning about blogging and in I took it  so  I could work my way through the complexities of WP with some  much needed guidance, rather than the dribs and drabs and fits and starts that invariably plague me with alot of this stuff.  I am so much more a hands on /3D  kind of problem solver.  Give me something to make, a garment, a set of shelves- that’s much more my comfort level.

I am really enjoying these classes and they are work!  I expect I may have to take one- if not both over since I am behind and the web design class is especially hard.  (Boy, do I wish they offered Spanish!)

So this is a test, I made this a month or so ago for my linked in page with  no thought to put it anywhere else, but since I am planning an online portfolio of sorts this will certainly be something I can use!   I will eventually  be able to post that complete video that YouTube took down half of (once I find the final edited file!) Yippee!

Ok, here I am playing catch up – but finally feeling that I’ve gotten over that combined hump of  moving,  getting a bit in control of my most of  homework (Spanish classes are done for now, which really helps) as well as the sudden flurry of inquiries & orders, during what is usually a relatively quite time of year.  And an almost surprise Easter Dinner at my house!

Almost being…I put out the invitation before the move, completely forgot about it and on Thursday my sister calls to say they’re coming!  Was I not prepared. But we pulled it together and had a lot of fun and a really nice time and at least the sun was out on the terrace- even though we were freezing our keisters off  if we went out on it!

When is Spring ever going to arrive?  I’ve been looking at these photos by another student in  the blog class I am taking and just drooling- I want to plant something!  Even though as far as we know I’ve got the thumb of death.  I want to try.  Some nice herbs, some mesclun greens, how bad could it be?

Also, I am hoping I have gotten the way pingbacks work,  for some reason I got stuck on this in class 3 and I am now trying to work my way through to class 5 where I should be.

Sunday seems like the first day we’ve had sun this month,  boy was it clear!  So,  since I hate to post naked …

stained glass and smoke stack

I am not quite as organized as I’d like to be starting this blog off, I had planned to start with a custom jacket I a making for a client but I have not got the correct images available so I am starting with this project.

The client wants a capri length jumpsuit with an very open/ strappy back. She brought in a old denim jumpsuit she likes the idea of, but it no longer fits or flatters her. She wants something sexy and with a bit of detailing- the original has lots of straps and buttons, the straps cut the line too much to be flattering, the buttons are mainly decorative. It was kind of in the vein of an old Versace look, lots of straps and hardware. She wants white leather, but after meeting with her I feel her skin tone may be more flattered by something in a more golden, creamy tone or possibly even a golden khaki.

So I collected some swatches in colors I thought would work for her and did a few rough sketches (practicing my illustrator and usong scans of the swatches to fill in the color) I usually do rough hand sketches, but I felt doing it this way would help her visualize the garment in different colors against her skin tone which I approximated in the illustrations.

I wanted to kept the line clean & much more flattering to her curves than the original “concept” garment. I did not add much detail at this point because I wanted to get something that would be more directional than finished in design.

Shiza, I give up, I have been trying for hours to get these thumbnails to display equally in either 2 or 3 vertical columns – I’ve tried several variations of .css  in styles. in media, in god know what else. and it has done absolutely nothing, nada, zipola. Nowhere can I find any info on showing ONLY ONE thumbnail to a gallery and I do not want to load plug-in on top of plug-in since some seem to have very little documentation as to what they can or cannot do.

My columns keep getting broken up, I specify 2 and it goes to one, I make thumbnails smaller- try 2 columns, try 3 columns, try 4 columns I get either one column or split columns- 2 on first row, one on 2nd row then 2 again etc…I am way behind and aggravated. Ugh.

Ok- that’s more like it!- Hope it works like I’m expecting…

I think I took on too much at once and worse I completely spaced on our move, so now I am really behind.  On sleep, on work, on homework. Arghh! I actually scheduled a fitting on moving day!  I didn’t mean to, but boy was I glad to get the heck out!  The breakables and kitchen stuff was packed, my computer was packed- D was on his own! He kinda freeked, but I’d stayed up the whole 2 nights previously packing all stuff we needed to be able to find- since D was starting to pack boxes and forgetting to mark them!   I really didn’t leave too much for him to deal with and he realized it later.

So, moved Tuesday & spent Wednesday and Thursday, cleaning apt # 1 within an inch of it’s life- LL was  always very nice but a bit of a cipher- could not get a bead on her and every other thing she said lately got D paranoid about the deposit.  We are replacing the insane exploding glass shelf in the fridge- crazy thing the lady at GE said to me when I told her it exploded when I took it out of fridge to clean it. “Oh yes they do that some times- the change in temperature does it”  Nice- the change from the veggie drawer to an unheated room?  This is supposed to be tempered glass?  Nice too that it’s probably the single most expensive part in the darn fridge.

At least it happened to us and not to the new tenant with a toddler. Oh,  and  does GE make a plastic version of the shelf?  NO. I would not be surprised to hear of a lawsuit in the future- that stuff is not safe and it does not break “safely” we spent over 45 minutes getting all kinds of needle sharp shards off of  every single surface within a 10′ circumference.  It went everywhere.

Anyhow,  we did love that apt. It was the first place either of us ever lived with a view. Here’s a pix from early Tuesday morning:

Manhattan Bridge View 3/31/09

But,  All is not lost!

Our new place, just  a few blocks away has it’s own special view.  But instead of being vacuum sealed into a tower, it’s attached to a huge outdoor space!  Are we excited… now if it would only stop raining.

The New View

This post has to do with the class I am taking to get me up to speed with WordPress.  Having your own business today necessitates  a great deal more than it used to do in order to get it out there and promote it.  But it’s well worth the effort as you can be more in control of your branding and not at the mercy of say, PR reps, Sales reps and other often nefarious creatures that abound out there, particularly, it seems  in creative fields.

I have my blogger blog, which was started when I first got the main site up, I am not insanely comfortable with blogger, but it has been very,very  helpful.  So I wanted to try WordPress, and see how I like it.  I did not want to struggle like I did learning my shopping cart, my blogger blog and all the other internet based stuff I’ve had to learn so far, since getting my site up.

So I am taking some online classes  (Link to them is in my blogroll) and so far I am very happy with them.  So this  blog should evolve quickly.

(Plus a class is always a great kick-in-the-pants, which I will be the first to admit I  really needs sometimes!

Once this blog is public, I am hoping that  people who have questions about custom made clothes and what it really means to have something custom made,  will find the information here helpful.

… I hope, of a new addition to my site that will provide some insight to the creative/ developmental process of my custom made work. I hope that this will eventually evolve into a helpful place for my clients and prospective clients and others who want to learn more about the process of  creating a custom made garment or other sewn item.