Hello!

My art room has had many recent additions. I got an old adjustable Acme Dress form on ebay, a newer (but not nearly as nice) adjustable dress form, and finally took matters into my own hands and got my serger fixed.

It is an awesome machine, a Wilcox and Gibbs industrial serger that my best guess (which I am getting from the manuals copyright date) dates it in the early 70's.


I bought this thing when I was living in Portland. I found it on craigslist for a pretty good price. The lady said she couldn't figure out how to thread it , but that it worked. We looked everywhere online for instructions on how to thread it and ended up buying a manual from www.relics.com . We carefully followed the instructions and when we had threaded it and unthreaded it several times we still couldn't get it to stitch. Thinking we were threading it wrong we took it in to a sewing machine repair store to have it threaded, and have them show us what we were doing wrong. It took the woman over an just to thread the thing, and when she was done she said that the timing was off on the loopers and then didn't fix it for some reason. It has pretty much sat stored since then.

I ended up going with a business called Adjust and Time here in Albuquerque. His price was the best in town, and on top of that he was a mobile business. AWESOME. He did a great job, and I am very impressed. I also found out that the place in Portland didn't even thread the machine correctly. GAH.


I am working on adding a collection of made to order sewn items to Caustic Threads, hence all of the additions to my workroom. My beautiful and sweet friend amber is going to be modeling for me (in my pictures) so I decided to wrap her up in duct tape. This is a good way to get a very close mold of some one's body, and I can use this duct tape form now to fit the clothes without her having to come in for fittings all of the time- and that is good because we are both pretty busy.

I have also finished two new paintings for the Black Market Gallery.








This one is actually not quite complete in this picture, though it is now.



I haven't titled either of them yet.

I hope you all had a great weekend!

xoxo!
♥Erica

Ebay...

Berfore I share my thoughts on the subject line of this post I would like to say THANK YOU to Sephanie (or in the derby world, Anya Face) for featuring me on her blog! Please take the time to visit her blog: www.hotacrossbuns.blogspot.com and read the awesome post she put up! Also for some awesome derby undies, check out her store www.hotacrossbuns.etsy.com .

Ok, So ebay.

I recently really discovered ebay, it is SOOO addictive. I have purchased some bags, pens, plastic sleeves for my prints, two of the dress forms I needed and now I have my eye on a few overlock machines. Part of the reason I love it is because I can use paypal, and since most of my purchases are business related it is nice to put the money I am making in my etsy stores back in to my etsy stores.

I learned recently that a seller can block you from purchasing thier items. I was bidding on an overlock machine, and then all of the sudden I could not bid on it anymore. I was really offended. The only contact I had with the seller was to ask if the machine worked properly, and if I recieved it and it did not I wanted to know if returns were accepted. How strange.

I dont know if I could SELL on ebay... but I have been having fun buying.

I'll be back later for tonights treasury :)

xoxo

Erica

Some Thoughts and Sketches and someone else's cute baby.

As I mentioned I had some plans for variations on the dress I posted on Tuesday. Here are some very simple sketches of a few of my ideas.

This is a wedding gown, it has the same pleating detail at the french darts, but I removed the collar.

This has the same collar, but the fabric on the halter between the top of the dress and the neck would be sheer in this. It also does not have the pleating on the french darts. This one is also intended to be a wedding dress.

This is like the one above, but it is has a pencil skirt instead of a circle skirt, and it does still have the French dart detail. I dont really know about the red, I was just playing with some new markers. It would look really cute in a swiss dot. I should have rotated the picture before I cropped it, she looks like the leaning tower of endless skinny legs.

This is a circle skirt, no haler, same dart detailing. This could be a pretty tea length wedding dress, or it could be something more casual, and of course I can do it as both.

I have more sketches to draw, but I haven't had the chance yet.

What else? Well my friend Jon, or Jonny Rocketpants, sent me this picture:

Yes, it is another CAUSTIC SIGHTING. Awesome. This is Jon's niece wearing a special onesie I made. Jon and a friend programmed a game called Quarry so I made a few screens. You can download the game for only $1. I still need to make an adult sized shirt for Jon. Isn't his niece ADORABLE?

I also finally got around to looking through the Paris section of vouge collections and I was NOT impressed. All that stood out to me was how BAD everything was. I dont remember the runway shows looking so horrid when I watched them on you tube several months back. I Karl Lagerfeld designed a terrible collection for Channel, and I was equally unimpressed with his own collection. I generally consider him and John Galliano to be the real greats right now. I liked the general aesthetic of Galliano's Dior collection, but I didn't like many of the pieces, and I was much more disappointed with his own collection.

I asked a friend of mine to model for me , so I am looking forward to getting some things done and taking some great pictures to post made to order dresses and other clothing. I think I can charge enough for the dresses that one the first few purchases can help me purchase a the dress forms I need, but I am still going to be on the lookout for a good deal on a used one.

Well, I'll be back this evening for my treasury of the day.

Take care!

Xoxo

Erica

Daydreaming and... Coming soon to caustic threads...

So, I have been doing more sewing and designing the past few weeks and as much as I REALLY LOVE screen printing, it is very revitalizing for me, as designing has been a long time passion. Soooo I have been daydreaming about making some investments that I think would really help me make more of a business out of my designing.

I want to buy two adjustable dress forms in addition to the designers dress form that I already have. I CAN grade (or size) Patterns, but I do not trust this method fully and would like to have SOMETHING to fit my clothing on. Since my business is an Internet business I usually don't get to fit the item directly on the customer (which is ALWAYS Preferred). So I think an adjustable dress form is the next best thing. I need two because they come in sizes sm/m and m/l.

The other thing I want is to either get my industrial overlock machine going OR try to resell it and buy a household one. I am hoping to find all of these things used, but I have a few ideas for coming up with funds if I cant.


I finally got back to this dress, it has been sitting in muslin, really just waiting to get ruined, so I finally made the pattern for it. This is what it looked like in muslin : http://acrylicandsteel.blogspot.com/2010/03/from-workbench.html

I was able to cut and sew most of the pattern this weekend, and I think it is SOOO cute. The problem is that I don't know if I can get this fabric again, so it may be one of a kind.

It has some really interesting details at the top that I just love...


And this Too Cute print in the pocket for a little interest. It helps that I love this shade of green I am sure, and I just swoon over Japanese prints. There are several variations of this dress that I have swirling around my brain, so I hope to get a chance to sketch them out and make the patter pieces soon. On this one I just need to do a little finishing on the inside on the neck and then install the zipper and do the hem for the outer skirt. It is fully lined.

I also want to offer this dress in several basic colors and fabric choices that I know I can always find, and do a version where the halter part of the dress is in a sheer fabric.



I burned two new screens this morning, this is a sample of one of them, of course the real thing will not say caustic threads across it :) the other one is a fox. I am trying to think up some cleaver text to print along with the fox but I haven't come up with anything yet. I am going to print this screen tonight to see how it turned out! I cant wait!


I also made two shirts like this. I whipped one up for autumn pretty quickly and had just enough fabric to make one to sell, so I decided to make another.



and... a bonus picture of Adam and autumn for family, fans of Autumn (fans of Adam???) and anyone else who likes cute kiddo's.

I'll be back late tonight to do my treasury of the day!

Take care!

Xoxo

Erica

From the Workbench

I am not sure if it is really clear what is going on in these pictures but...

This dress is on my form right now. I am not sure what I want to do with it now. I usually design on paper so designing directly on my form instead of starting with a sketch and then transferring the idea to my form was a pretty new experience for me. It was fun though, because it was a much more free way to design. Usually by the time I get to my form I already know exactly what I want to make, and any tweaking is made only to make the dress function properly.


What I am running in to at this point is that I don't know where to go from here. I started without any ideas and I like what I came up with, but now I am stuck! I cant decide what I want to use for fabric, or if I want to go with a print or a solid. I know I want a stiff fabric that will hold it's shape, but that could be anything. I thought a polka dot would be adorable, but then an ochre or pink silk dupioni would be beautiful too.

Other than that, I am designing my logo for caustic threads. I know exactly what I want it to look like but so far my sketches have not turned out the way I want. I want a heart dripping on to a hand like in the corrosive symbol:
:

So, it would only be the hand, and instead of the test tube it would be a dripping heart. The hand I am drawing keeps looking too much like a sketch and not graphic enough.



Also, Autumn is starting to talk! She said "cookie" when we walked past the pastries during our last trip to the grocery store, so I decided that she really SHOULD have a cookie. Adam said she didn't need a cookie, which is true, but I am a sucker for her cute face and gave in. We picked a shortbread cookie that had a mound of neon green frosting on it.



Autumn REALLY enjoyed it.

And now I have several pictures that look like my beautiful baby ate Shreck. Priceless.

Updates on a dress I am working on...

Well, first of all, I am giving away a pair of cute hand warmers! You can enter my giveaway HERE .


I have been doing a custom order for a wedding dress and I have reached a point where I am finally willing to share the progress. This has been an extremely fun project, and I liked having an excuse to spend $70 a yard on lace (even if the laces I wanted the most were all over $100 a yard) . I am only getting about $100 for this dress after materials, But I am so glad to have the opportunity just to MAKE it. I couldn't afford to make it if someone were not paying for the materials.


Just as a reminder, here is the Fashion Sketch of the dress.


This is the top and the underskirt. The top is not pinned on tight to the form. The form is only about a size 2 so the dress is a little bigger than that. The lace is all hand sewn on. I still need to hem the skirt, put the zipper in and cut off the extra netting on the lace.


This is the dress with the top sewn pinned on tighter and the over skirt on as well. The over skirt still needs all of the pleating done and I need to put the zipper in.



The top is fully boned and lined and has these buttons all the way up the back. I need to put some pleats at the top of the corset and then it will be finished.


This is the dress with the over skirt pinned up as it is intended to be. It looks pretty good to me so far!

I also still need to make the veil and the bolero. There is still a lot of work to do, but I am very pleased with the progress I have made.



Also... speaking of weddings.... Adam and I got our wedding rings finally, after being married tor almost 2 years. We got them from http://bendthefish.etsy.com . Mine is very elegant and has a tiny little diamond !I love it!