You Know You're a Design Student When.....

Whenever I talk to someone who doesn't know anything about my school's Apparel Design program, they sometimes get the impression that us design students don't really do anything; that we spend our time slacking off and drawing pretty pictures while the engineering/science students do the real work (aka complex math problems and the like). 

Not true at all. Okay, a little true: I do sometimes draw pretty pictures. But seriously, us Apparel Design majors (and most other artistic majors) have a unique set of problems that most math-y students will never have: we have to produce stuff. Like, real garments, on machines. That's a whole lot different than working out problems with pencil and paper.

You know you're an Apparel Design student when: 

• You run out of pins on your sewing table, so you check the ground.
• Your pain tolerance towards pin/needle stabs is so high, you can make yourself bleed without even noticing.
• You have almost burnt down your dorm room by leaving your iron plugged in for hours at a time.
• Your floor is so littered with muslin yarns that no vacuum could possibly clean it all.
• Your textbooks have more illustrations than real text.
• You have a specific pair of scissors for any given material (fabric, paper, threads, plastic) and if someone tries to cut the wrong thing with the wrong scissors, you will give them a lecture on the importance of scissor sharpness.
• You spend more hours in the sewing lab than you'd care to admit, and when it closes, you go back to your room and keep sewing.
• You've been in danger of burns, stabs, or sewn-over fingers at least 10 times over the course of any given project.
• You have to bring approximately a hundred different sewing tools to class, and you need about three square feet of space to spread it all out in. Or else you just. Can't. Work.
• Your professors are utterly eccentric, and several have thick foreign accents.
• While everyone else is studying in the library, you're still slaving away at the sewing machine; you have no idea what traditional studying's like.

What I've Been Up To

So I bought probably the most appropriate cookbook for a college student EVER. Ramen to the Rescue. There's tons of stuff in there that looks absolutely delicious (and easy to make!), but the first recipe that caught my eye was ramen-crusted chicken tenders with honey mustard dipping sauce. You pretty much just crunch up a bag of ramen (flavor packet included), dip the chicken pieces in egg, then roll them in the mashed up noodle mixture and bake. 

And can I just say? They were delicious. The chicken flavor from the ramen packet wasn't overwhelming, but it definitely added a tasty boost from normal breaded chicken. We served them with steamed asparagus and rice (some part of the meal had to be healthy, after all).

I can hardly wait to try more from this cookbook. I love making time to try new recipes; I feel like most of the time, the things I eat are just quickly thrown together (or else prepared by my parents... Which I can hardly complain about!). Anyway, today's homemade dinner was a nice change of pace.

This is my boyfriend. And this is what we look like cooking.

I feel like I haven't posted in forever, even though it's only been a couple of days. I'm just not used to having a blog, I suppose: on one hand, I really like to devote energy to posting, but on the other I don't want it to take over my life. I never want to be that person who spends more time online than doing real, in-the-moment activities. That said, I'd like to have a blog that's the same quality of the ones I love reading the most, and that kind of thing takes work. 

So what have I been up to? In the past few days I've been finishing up the Ravenclaw scarf I'm making for a friend, working a lot, having an awesome father's day lunch, and watching an embarrassing amount of The Bachelorette. I'm procrastinating on starting my boyfriend's pajamas pants because I just don't want to cut them out: I'll have to match plaid! The last time I did that was for another garment for him, a plaid button-down, and it took FOREVER. The cutting is always my least favorite part of any project; once I get that out of the way, though, the rest should come together in no time. 

That's all for now. I do have one small new project to share in the next few days (and I'm almost done with a scarf!) Until then, have a great week, you guys :)

How do you find time to sew?

As unfortunate as it is, when my schedule starts to fill up, sewing is often the first thing that gets dropped. Even though it's one of my favorite activities, I have a hard time balancing it with non-negotiable responsibilities like work and classes (at least during the school year, I have sewing for homework!). A lot of the time, when I get home from a busy day of whatever, I just don't feel like setting up my sewing machine, plugging in the iron, and resuming progress on my current project. I just want to lay on my couch, and maybe knit or crochet something.... But certainly not sew.

I'm trying to find ways to add more sewing into my schedule, without feeling completely overwhelmed. I have to remind myself that, as much as I'd like to produce tons of garments per month, it IS summer: if I can't relax a bit now, I definitely won't have the time to later. I think I set goals for myself that are just too lofty: for example, last month I wanted to make five garments. Obviously that didn't happen, but I did sew two, make a blanket, and do tons of other small DIYs. I think learning to be happy with all the things I DO produce is important; I'm only human, after all. 

Still, though, I need to set aside a certain number of hours per week for sewing. The only way I can have more handmade pieces in my wardrobe is if I actively sit down and create them. How do you guys fit sewing in to your schedules? Does anyone else encounter the problem I have? Do you have any productivity tips?

Selling stuff you make: awkward, or is it just me?

This is kind of what the new Ravenclaw scarf I'm making will look like, except it won't have fringe all around the edges. 

One of my biggest goals is to own my own business one day, and earn a living from the things I sew (or knit or crochet, as a side project, I suppose). I'd love to be self-sufficient like that, and I hope to one day make that goal a reality. Which is why it's so ironic that I find charging people for the things I make to be so.... Well.... Awkward. 

It's not that I think my handmade stuff isn't good enough to sell: at the risk of sounding a little vain, I KNOW my sewing is ready-to-wear quality (and I'm striving for it to be better than that). I also know I'm capable of producing unique things that you couldn't necessarily find at the local mall. But I feel so presumptuous charging money for the things I make. 

A friend of mine just asked me to make her a Ravenclaw scarf (she's paying for it), and I agreed. I actually made a set of all four Harry Potter house scarves for someone a few years back, and got $80 for it. It's not often someone asks me to make them something and offers payment; a lot of people seem to think that I would like nothing more than to make them a complex dress/top/whatever, completely free of charge. I'm sure this happens to anyone who sews or knits, and it's pretty awkward. You'd think, because of that, that I'd be happy when someone offers to pay me for something.

So why do I still feel weird?

Does this happen to anyone else? I'm always afraid I'm charging to much... But, wait, what if I'm not charging enough? I see alot of stuff on Etsy that I think is far too expensive for what you're actually getting, and I worry about ripping people off. On the other hand, I am putting time and effort into making something, so I don't want to give away clothing for far less than it's worth. Should they pay for the materials? Should I? How do you reconcile this, and do you feel the same way that I do?