Lynn's Style Avenue

Happy New Year to each and everyone of you. Wow, can't believe that 2017 is here.

Well, 2016 was quite exciting and nerve wrecking at the same time.  I finished my final project, which was an 8-Piece collection and I am ecstatic to begin working as a fashion designer in South Africa.

The Director of Apparel arts, Suzy Furer said that "Overall an excellent job, Lynn.  I am really impressed with your skill in pattern making.  Your...

I know, I've been extremely quiet, but things have been insanely hectic.

As you know I am working on my 8-Piece collection as my final project to complete my studies to qualify as a Fashion Designer and Pattern Maker.

I have finished 5 out of 8 pieces and my final collection presentation takes place on December 9th, so 17 days away .... One of the 3 remaining pieces is a tailored jacket, which contains 86 difference pieces.  So...

The main purpose of this blog is to share my journey as a fashion designing student and later as a designer.

On Friday September 23rd 2016 I finished the formal Pattern Making and Design syllabus. The last module was pants. So now I have 3 electives, which is Tailoring, Manufacturing Practices and Design Principles. And things have gotten insanely busy, oh my goodness.  As the name suggests, Tailoring is about the techniques us...

So this week I decided I would design something in 1 hour, do 1 single mock-up and then sew in final fabric.  I wanted to design a simple top that would look good with a jeans, but comfortable enough to take my kids to a play date in it.  I wasn't 100% satisfied with the mock-up so I made changes to the pattern after fitting on the mock-up, but decided to not make another mock-up to check whether I was happy with the changes....

After finishing my blouse and jacket I was taught how to draft and sew different kinds of pockets.

I drafted and sewed a standard patch pocket, envelope patch pocket, cargo patch pocket, accordion pocket, sweatshirt patch pocket, a standard in-seam pocket, a patch pocket in a seam, pocket in a curved seam, pocket in a side seam, single welt pocket, double welt pocket and finally a double welt pocket with a flap.

And guess what,...

After finishing my first 2 dresses, I was taken through the various collars found on women's apparel, namely the Chinese collar, shawl collar, camp collar, collar with band, partial roll collar, peter pan collar, sailor collar, ruffle collar, the hood, flap collar, roll collar on a v-neckline, napoleon collar and finally the notched collar.

I was taught how to draft and sew these collars onto a bodice.  Then I was taught how to...

The pictures below shows my second dress, which is a day wear dress in cotton with princess lines.  And I found the perfect occassion to show off my latest creation, I wore it on Mother's Day the past weekend.

So after learning all about skirts, I moved on to moulage, which is basically creating a tight fitting top that moulds the top section of your body.

We then created slopers for a bodice up to the waist and a sloper up to the high hip.

After learning dart manipulation techniques, all about princess lines, necklines and facings we need to design 2 dresses, a cocktail and a day dress.

The pictures below is the first one I complet...

We had a design contest at college and we had 2 months to design a garment using some knit fabric the college received as a donation towards the end of 2015.

It was sort of fabric that nobody really liked much, so everyone needed to be super creative about their designs to make the fabric look good in their design.

My design entry can be seen in the images below.  I was inspired to design a princess line dress using the lines...

So 1 year ago I embarked on a journey of Pattern Making and Design.  And what a fantastic experience it's been thus far.  I've been loving every single minute of this journey.

I started out in skirts, everything is done to my own measurements and we basically get taught the architecture behind various skirt designs from Flares to Pleats to Pencil skirts.

After completing all the different skirt designs, I needed to design...