critiques are so much fun just kidding.

Photos of my dress from my draping final. I quite like how it came out. I chose a navy toile an cream lace. All I had was stark white lace so I tea dyed it with Harney and Sons Vanilla Comoro.
It looks a little funny because I don't have a petticoat large enough to fill the whole skirt. The necklace was made by me too. I've never made jewelry before so it took a while for me to get it done. Instead of stringing the beads, I used wires so make links. Might do a tutorial on that.

While it wasn't necessary for the presentation, I included an illustration with different colorways the dress would come in. It made me a little sad after making it because I would personally rather have the pink colorway than the navy! After our critiques, Emily and I tried on our final dresses and took pictures in them. I took it back home and showed my mom. Then my dad came in and I told him to check out the dress I made. You made that? he asked. And your teacher didn't give you an A? Nope. Then what IS a A?! Beats me. Nothing I make, apparently. Bummer. It's break but I'm busy being sick and going to doctors and doing applications and business things and other fun things like that. Love, Kaia

countdown one two three over.

Today is the last day of the semester. Boy am I glad it's finally over. On Sunday, I pulled a late night to finish my dress for my draping final. On Monday I pulled a late night to study for my art history exam. On Tuesday I pulled an all nighter to finish my tailored jacket. On Wednesday I pulled an all nighter to work on my design final. Yesterday I was supposed to study for costume history and world civilizations until late, but I crashed an burned by 2:30am, because I reached the end of my line. Five nights without sleep is far too long.

This is what I spent all wednesday night working on.
It's for my design class. Required for our presentations were at least 10 looks, flats, swatches, inspiration board, research on designers, two phases of croquis, and a mock up of one of the looks. I usually take pictures of my presentations during design critiques, but I forgot this time.

I'll be posting pictures from other critiques, probably tomorrow. Tomorrow is my first official free day in a long time! I think I'm going holiday shopping tomorrow. After my last final today, I went to the mailroom to see if I had anything waiting for me. Surprise! My friend Jeff, who is an artist I respect highly, did a kickstarter this past summer and it was super successful!
In total he has over a thousand orders to send out. I couldn't be more excited to receive mine! The artbook is a compilation of works he did over the years. With the success of the kickstarter, pledges over a certain amount also get a pair of plushies. In the package, he also sent me mini prints, buttons and three t-shirts!


 I haven't really slept at all these past days, but I took power naps in 30 minute intervals a few times. They don't help.
I had so much stuff on my bed that instead of sacrificing the time that I had to clean it off, I moved my bed to the ground and power napped on the ground instead.

With the little amount of sleep that I got, you might be wondering why I'm awake.
I'm not.
Goodnight. As soon as my bed and maybe some parts of the room are cleaned up.

Love, Kaia.

international lolita day.

Happy December! Yesterday was International Lolita Day, which takes place twice every year, once in June and once in December. I bought a lucky pack from Angelic Pretty during their 2nd anniversary event online, hoping I could wear that yesterday. I've never bought a dress from Angelic Pretty before, so getting one was pretty exciting! The only thing is that I'm not a huge fan of sweet styles and Angelic Pretty is all about sweet. I was just hoping I wouldn't get pink.
First reaction: welp bummer, it's pink. Which isn't totally unsuspected, since pink is often the color left over. Pink is my favorite color. Just not Angelic Pretty pink. Or Baby the Stars Shine Bright pink (I like Victorian Maiden or Innocent World pink).
I looked it up, and this one is called Polka Dot Chocolate. It's cute, but I didn't quite get that lucky with my lucky pack because I was hoping for not-pink not-satin not-onepiece. I'm a jsk kind of gal.
Needless to say, I sold it for about the same price that I got it for. I figured a cute dress deserves an owner that would wear it. I snapped a couple pictures of it tried on.
On an unrelated note my hair turned kind of reddish in a freak accident. I flipped out the same way Howl did when his hair turned black. There was a New York tea party event with the other lolitas in the area yesterday, but I didn't go because money, the lack of, and time. I had a field trip and a bunch of errands to run in the city that I didn't make it back to my dorm until 11. I forgot to put into account that several trains are under construction on weekends, so I ran around transferring all over. Hectic. So I didn't dress up because I'd be running around and also because it's like 30 degrees.

Welcome back, colder weather!

Love,
Kaia

quick rewind.

A couple weeks back the GSA at my school had an event so I attended. It's called Genderfu*k, "an informal open mic to commemorate the LGBTQA Community." I wanted to more outgoing this year and join some clubs. I'm a member to a couple clubs but club meetings are so awkward that I just don't attend except to the club events. I attended the first meeting of comic club and it was just all around awkward because I was late because I got lost in the building looking for the right room, and when I arrived there were tons of people and no chairs left and I stood around in a corner for a while till more chairs were grabbed out. Then they were playing a drawing game and I couldn't join because I got there too late and just. I didn't go back for a meeting, just the events. For the event, crossdressing was encouraged but it's a little harder with my long hair so I wore a beanie. I think I just looked like how I normally dress.

Jacket from Forever 21, Free People sweater free from swap box, button up shirt from Goodwill, Zara pants, Converse, hat and scarf from Beacons Closet

I didn't take too many pictures at the event. Quite a few people attended. The whole back table was food and refreshments. There was a lot of food! Sandwiches, donuts, jello, lots of food. I wish I'd been more hungry. I bought a shirt for $5. They're hand printed and the money that's earned is donated toward Sandy relief. Those who stayed till the very end got this neat keychain ornament. I wasn't a speaker or performer (I wanted to sign up to dance but I'm a terrible dancer. I've tried), but it was great and worthwhile to go to see other people express themselves and speak out about identity and struggles and acceptance.

prototype

I had a critique last monday in draping for our dresses. Can you guess which one is mine?
If you guessed the one on the far right, you are correct! There are some things I need to tweak, but I'm overall satisfied with the end result. I haven't worn lolita in a really long time. Not since I moved coasts last year, because I didn't have enough luggage space to bring any dresses over. I keep thinking how I want to buy another one, but there hasn't been one that's come up that I really wanted. I thought about how much I wanted a dress all last weekend that I ended up making one for my critique.

This one is just my muslin sample, but it fits pretty alright so I might end up dying it to be worn. I don't know what color, though. For the final fabric, I'm hopefully going to find something with a nice print. Otherwise, I'll be revisiting the pattern and doing something more interesting on the front.
I got a little white to work on my final. Hopefully it'll come out nicely.

Love,
Kaia

seasons a-changing

I used to post all of the clothes that I got from thrifting and shopping trips on this blog. I wonder if anyone noticed that I haven't done that very much this past year. The reason for that is pretty straightforward. I haven't done much shopping at all since I got to college. It's been getting pretty chilly lately, and I've been wearing the same jacket pretty much every day for the past month. I think that was a sign that I needed to get some new jackets, so I went to Goodwill to check up on outerwear.
From Goodwill, I got the two items on the bottom, a knit vest and a cropped coat jacket. The knit jacket and bear hat are from Beacons Closet.
Some sweaters! I love sweaters more than anything. The one on the right is from Goodwill, and the other two are from the swap and drop box on my dorm floor (freebies!) Overall, I didn't get much that's think enough to substitute for my everyday jacket. Probably have to keep my eyes out. Something else I got recently, this t-shirt by EmmyC on threadless. It has a cute allover design with businessmen all over it. I like to stop to read it sometimes.
I need more long sleeves.

Love,
Kaia

think pink.

Pink hair with kool-aid and food coloring. I felt like a unicorn. I didn't like it that much.

Love,
Kaia

working backwards.

Happy Halloween! Today was the third day we had off from school due to hurricane days. The hurricane is over, but the reason we didn't have class today or yesterday was because of the damage of the storm. For the most part, the subway isn't running and getting from Brooklyn to Manhattan and vice versa isn't easy. My dorm was fortunate enough to not have our power go out and our school faced minimal damage. We got pretty lucky.
For Halloween, I went door to door for 15 floors with my roomies, knocking on everyone's door and handing out candy. Reverse trick or treating.
CC dressed as a woodlands girl. I dressed as a deer, and Ems is a character from Paradise Kiss. The original plan was for me to go as a butler. I tried out my hair and makeup yesterday, but getting my hair right takes a lot of time and effort so I didn't go through with it today.
On another note, this is the most silver my hair has been! It was an accident, actually. I first tried getting it silver in April, without too much success. I did another attempt last month, which turned out alright, but there was as much blond as there was silver. When I dyed my hair pink for my birthday, it faded within a week, but faded nicely into an even, ash blond. Because my roots were growing out I decided to re bleach them and then dye my hair brown with the ash dye that I had.

After I dyed it and washed it out, I was more than surprised to see that what I got wasn't brown, but after-toner, AKA a mix of yellow, violet, and silver. It was pretty astonishing. It looked like a bad mistake, and I went out that same day to buy a box of Clariol Natural Instincts hair dye in brown. I didn't want to dye my hair twice in a day so I decided to wait it out for a week. In the past week or so, the violets have faded and now I have the most even silver I've ever had. Probably the most successful mistake I've ever made. I'm someone who has always been terrified of having hair in a color too light.

Sometimes I surprise myself at how light my hair is. I think once the yellow starts taking over, I'm going to Kool-aid my hair and dye it brown once that starts to fade. Hair is fun.

It's November here already!! Happy November!!

Love, Kaia

calm before the storm.

Super tired today. Yesterday was Comic Thong, which is my school's comic club's comic drawing marathon for the Fall 2012 comic submission deadline which is coming up next month. It went from 8pm to 8am, and I had been planning on going at 8pm and staying until maybe 12. I ended up going at 9:30 and stayed until 6:45. I think by that time I wasn't functioning anymore.
I took some work that I needed to get done first, and then thought about what I wanted to do for my comic after I finished my work. I was working on some children's designs for a scholarship opportunity.

I think I finished around 1:30 or 2, and started brainstorming ideas for my comic. Nothing I thought of seemed to work out, so for about two and a half hours I sat there thinking of what to do without getting anything down on actual paper. Once I started coming up with ideas, nothing I drew came out how I wanted it to and I ended up drawing silly comic strips about things I suck at.

 Love, Kaia