Couture Weekend was a bust

Posted on April 1, 2014 by susannah

One thing about owning a business is that it is like a 2 year old. It runs your life. You love it, but don’t be naive about who runs the show. I made one dress on Couture weekend and the rest are in pieces. My imagined 3 days of couture dressmaking fell by the wayside, I could almost hear Apron Company laughing its butt off at me.

On the other hand, orders went out. Phone calls were answered and the boring mundane things like accounting were not dismissed. I was dismissed.Well, my plans got dismissed.

But I am undeterred. I will add personal achievements and journeys to my schedule. The Dolls, of which I started as my very first product when I was a teen, are creeping slowly out from under piles and boxes. I love them. I really, really love them.

In my Doll days, I use to have a following. It was the first time anyone described me as an artist. There were people that collected them. I still love them. And I have found that as I age, living a life devoid of what you love is a life that just plain…. isn’t as awesome as it could be…:)

So Dear Dolls and Dresses, I will keep you in my day one way or another, even if you only get 15 minutes, your presence will be there.

And one awesome thing about making art for a hobby. You don’t have to give a crap about sales!…HAHA! Dolls and Dresses can be just that, the dolls and dresses that I make because I want to. when I want to. and how I want to. If something sells, wonderful, isn’t that nice, but if they don’t, who cares? It’s the art and the journey that I adore.

And having that in place is important as it keeps me fresh for everything else I do…like designing Aprons, my other love.

Above is the one gown that got completed on Couture Weekend. And lets not forget to notice the photography! Not bad for someone with no real time experience, just a Canon Rebel and Utube how to’s…:)

Couture Weekend

Posted on March 12, 2014 by susannah

As we grow, we morph to what surrounds us. We can stay true to ourselves but who that self is, like it or not becomes altered in ways we didn’t expect. Sometimes we become what we don’t recognize; amazing, good or surprisingly bad.

I remember being young and craving to sew (who craves to sew?….:)…me.) I remember having no money for fabric. On the other hand, I remember having fabric and no time, or no peace.

I know now that the pieces of you that lay passionately inside you exist decades later, you just have to be still and listen…. or play Led Zeppelin 4 to bring them out.I live in a peaceful place now. I have fabric and a studio that nurtures me. I can hear what I want to say and maybe the courage to say it.

This weekend I have declared Couture weekend. I have fabric that called out to me so I purchased it and brought it home. I have peace. I have stillness and can hear the bits of me that so long ago ached to express themselves.

I have my favorite music, when I was young, Led Zeppelin 4, available for free on UTube, gorgeous fabrics and a quieted soul waiting to seep from my fingers.

Couture weekend awaits.

Putting it all together….

Posted on March 9, 2014 by susannah

I buy pieces of trims and fabric I like with no real plan. I spot something that I am attracted to and wham! It’s in my bag, after payment of course. Wicker baskets fill with these pieces and when the mood hits to play, I drag out the basket and dump it on the cutting table.

I never have a plan in mind or a sketch. For me, they are like puzzle pieces that fit together or not….even I am not quite sure what will become of it all. I thought my vintage lace and linen would look great. I was wrong. It didn’t.

I was forced to move onward.

The black stripe taffeta had possibilities.

The brown silky netting was definitely a marriage worth exploring.

The golden ruffled taffeta held brighter promise.

Add in the embroidered floral sheer organza’s and silken plaids and I see at least three Gowns. Does anyone like a quilted boned corseted bodice? I ache to make one, with a large flowing floral embroidered skirt. But this isn’t Apron Co. Here I get to make what I want and not care if it ends in a sale. Here in the studio, its just me, in frumpy clothes, a pony tail, Led Zeppelin blasting and a way too cool basket filled with fabric that I can’t wait to devour.

When is it about me?

Posted on February 3, 2014 by susannah

I sew for a living. I design for a living. And I live in the same few outfits. Which actually I find designers don’t dress themselves very well. I remember the first board meeting I ever went to, an establishment I won’t name that was build on the talent of artists, it looked as if few owned a hairbrush and everyone, yes everyone, showed up for board meetings in old worn jeans and black sweatshirts or tee shirts. You would think black was the official color of artists.

This was explained to me by someone with a degree from a Parisian art school, “artists see outward and not inward” I was told. Partly true, I thought, as a dressmaker I can dress others better than myself. That’s true.

I realized, I have no interest in what I wear except how it feels, but I can dress anyone else. Thus the board meeting was filled with messy hair and black clothing. I felt like I had found my people.

But now I do need clothes, so I collect fabric. I buy pieces that go together and will make a great pairing. But then I have orders to fill, errands to do and the basket grows.

But soon it will be summer and the wonderful collection of browns won’t apply to the joyousness of spring. Its February, I have maybe 8 weeks at best. I tell myself to at least get the skirts done, that wont take more then a few hours. The tops will be easier to do then as it will feel like I am halfway there. Now if I can just apply my creativity to my personal needs instead of solely to my business.

*Sigh*

Old, Worn and Loved

Posted on October 7, 2011 by susannah

Wow, has it been a year since I have posted ?? Really? It doesn’t feel that way….hmmmm….

I recently went on a fabric purchasing tour which led me into the bowels of a particular warehouse. I love the dark, creepiness of the battered wood shelving where old remnants lie awaiting their fate. Here, bundle upon bundle of fabric lay tossed into heaps as if unloved and forgotten. I have not forgotten them, I love them. They are attic treasures and I get to sift through their bodies in quiet solitude for few others bother to search these darkened aisles, feathered with cobwebs and old hanging lightbulbs to dimly light our way.
This trip, I found wonderful, soft blue ticking, over dyed by misfortune and tainted a soft fawn brown as if covered with stains. Yards and yards of this mis dyed and stained stripe lay there. It looked like it could be the fabric of my Grandfathers Apron, old, used, worn and loved. I walked out with armloads and on my way out on a different weather beaten shelf, I found the floral match. I smiled. Here was Grammy’s old Apron Fabric.

Great clothes begin with great fabric, or at least, fabric that inspires the designer.

Fabric

Posted on September 21, 2010 by susannah

Every piece of fabric that lays upon my hand,

causes my mind to drift

into a stream of imaginary images

of all that the fabric could be.

Image after image,

stream after stream,

I imagine all that I want you to wear.

~Susannah

..as fingertips caress the woven threads before me..

Posted on August 22, 2009 by susannah

I adore fabric. I love its variety of textures, its courseness or silkiness, its softly fallen drape or its stiff as a board stubbornness. I adore the brightly colored cottons and the faded, muted tones of old linens. I adore the heavy weight fabrics that land with a thud onto the cutting table and the soft silks that blow away on the breeze that sneaks in through the window. As a designer, I love to blend them in their many weights and tones, like the sum of parts, like an artists palette, I blend and paint them into a new choir of voices, more beautiful together then alone. I hope I have given each piece a richer voice then it would have had alone.

Thank you for visiting. I hope you find peace in your day and the nightime to come.
~Susannah

Susannah Allen

needle, thread and cloth

Category Archives: Fabric