Last week was the Face Off 3: School Daze fashion show that I was a part of, and I am very relieved to take a short break from sewing! The show was so entertaining and full of energy from start to finish! Since the theme was “School Daze” each designer got to choose a category that went along with the theme, and my category was ‘class flirt’. It was fun to design with a particular theme and concept in mind! I’m looking for more shows to be a part of in the next year, so keep your eyes open for Christy Ryan! You can contact me or check out more of my stuff on MySpace.

Hi Creative Chicks!

Hope you are enjoying your summer. We just got back from Chicago, where we held our very first DIYStyle Party. It was a lot of fun, and the energetic folks who attended sewed up a storm. Keep watch for an in-depth update complete with pics coming later this week.

We have posted another Quick Take on the homepage (click on the arrow in the big turquoise box!). This time we show you DIYStyle’s debut on live TV! Allyce and Melissa were guests recently on AM Northwest……..get the insider’s glimpse as to how this all came together.

We’re all gearing up to tape for our Season #3 that will start uploding on September 2nd. We’ll have a new vodcast each Tuesday, so make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed or through iTunes to get the latest episode, and to see all the new projects we’ll be adding. And, stay tuned this sumer, as we keep posting more DIYStyle Quick Takes (and a few bonus projects too!)

 Keep cool………Cindy

Have you started planning your trip to the Windy City, yet? While there will be tons of fun things to do at the DIY Style Party…you may want to plan a little side trip to Vogue Fabrics in Evanston, Illinois, which is just north of the City.

Oh, my gosh!!! I was lucky enough to visit there this past weekend and in an instant I knew I had made it to fabric/notion utopia! There were silks, woolens, cottons, knits, bridal, home décor, machines, buttons galore, trimmings, ribbons, patterns from many unique designers as well as the standards and remnants…a whole magnificent area devoted to remnants, large enough to make a garment, all organized by fiber content. Need I say more…I sure could because there was so much more! Well, I did restrain myself and only walked out with two pieces of fab, but I had to use sooo much self control!

So, pencil in our Style Party on your calendar now and treat yourself with a visit to Vogue Fabrics, as well. Then afterwards, head over to the Lake and chill! Are you diggin’ the snappy little beach towel I used? It was a piece of fab I bought at Vogue Fabrics for an “Eco-Friendly” beach tote (episode 6).

I have some great news! I have been accepted as the VP of communications on the board of directors for the AMA (American Marketing Association) chapter at the PSU School of Business. It will be fun next year to be more involved in school and with my fellow marketing peers. I will be in charge of getting the word out for all the events we will put on at Portland State, and I will use my creative touch to make the posters, and talk to business classes helping to get them excited about and coming to our events and speakers.

I did take a break from studying and attended a little party at my mother’s house. She offered the space for a 100 year celebration of the Oregon State University’s (where she went to college) fashion design department. At the party I met this great guy there who will be graduating soon from that department. We sat and talked for awhile about fashion and what we both are doing…he will be going to work for Target very soon. I also got to see some of his designs that he posted on Myspace, including his collection that won the OSU design competition. So cool to meet and be around talented people!

PS. The picture attached is of Ben Moua and his sustainable garment!

Melissa

Melissa and I are proud to announce that the DIYStyle patterns from McCall’s are a success because of you! The May numbers are in and they are awesome! Both of our patterns are in the top 25. The knit top is a top seller and the lingerie has been very popular as well.

Melissa and I are already working on our 2009 patterns, so look for five new patterns to come out in 2009. I know that sounds so far away but don’t be too disappointed….we have two patterns coming out mid-July! Our designs have made it to be on the cover of the McCall’s pattern books in sewing stores…how cool is that??!! I’m particularly excited about our new fall patterns, and can’t wait to make them myself to wear. I hope our patterns, designed with you in mind, will help inspire people our age to sew.

Allyce xxxooo

Hey everyone! My name is Christy Ryan, I’m working with DIYStyle for the summer! I just graduated from Lindenwood University in St.Charles, MO, where I studied Fashion Design. It feels so great to be out! So far this summer I have been working for DIYStyle, in addition to my part time job, and busily preparing for another fashion show. Somehow I find time to relax and hang out with friends, but it’s not always easy!

 The fashion show is called School Daze- The Definition of Fresh: Fashion 101.  It is on July 19th at St.Louis University, and is a charity event for the Ronald McDonald House. I love being a part of fashion shows, especially this one where my garments are being showcased! But first up is the DIYStyle Party in Chicago on July 10th, so I have that to look forward to. I cannot wait to see the designs from Project Design, and I am really looking forward to the Fashion Forecast. Well I’ve got to get sewing, I’m sure you’ll hear from me again this summer! See you at the DIYStyle Party!

Christy

Being in Portland again felt like I was coming back home! Last summer I had an amazing time living there, interning for Pati Palmer and living with Melissa. We were super excited to be back together for the week, in her hometown! I got in on a Wednesday night and the very next morning we had an early appointment!

We were invited to visit a high school in Oregon City where the FACS department (Family and Consumer Science) received a grant for a classroom full of brand new Babylock sewing machines. The teacher had also been using our DIYStyle vodcasts, website and projects to teach the class how to sew.  How exciting! Melissa and I visited and talked to around 30 girls and guys about our experiences working in the sewing industry, what we do in school, and the opportunities you can get in the fashion industry. It was exciting to see a lot of students expressing an interest in design or fashion merchandising after graduating high school. We felt it was also important to talk to them about Melissa’s experience in business school as well as my experience with fashion design school……..every designer has to learn to be a good business person to be successful.

When I was in high school we only had someone come in and talk about fashion design school and not the importance of business school too. I hope that giving them our personal experience about college instead of a school recruiter helped them have a better view of what to expect after graduation.

 Thanks Oregon City High School and Jayne Vetter…..we had a great time……keep watching DIYStyle in the classroom (and at home too!).

 Allyce xxxooo

Hey everyone!
Summer is officially here and our DIYStyle Party in Chicago is right around the corner (10 days ’til the BIG event!). Project Design is one of our features at the party, and we have a “Quick Take” vodcast from the Project Design show held in St. Louis, to give everyone a taste of what is in store for Project Design in Chicago! The indie designers at the show will also be selling some of their creations, so don’t miss out. Tickets are now available online starting today, and are available at the door. The ticket price includes the Project Design show *and* the DIY projects that you create at each of the stitch stations!

We’ll be uploading more “Quick Takes” thru the summer, until Season #3 of DIYStyle goes live in September. So keep watch, and if you can, join us in the Windy City on July 10th.

Keep cool. Cindy

The other day I met a friend of my mom’s, Tricia Crockett. She is a cool, hip, very stylish woman and a teacher at the Portland Art Institute in the fashion design department. We met because we are going to be teaching a class together at Fabric Depot in Portland this summer (look for more info here later) and we needed to figure out what direction we want to take. She was nice enough to offer to give my mom and I a personal tour of the Art Institute. I was very exited. The setting of the school is very urban, the building is extremely new and industrial looking….and high! We met Tricia at the front door and she took us up to the 5^th floor where the fashion design program is housed. The walls were covered with amazing pieces of art.  I had never seen such artistic looking designs and design boards. They weren’t just design ideas, they had an artistic representation, a specific look and an entire style. The idea boards displayed in the hallways were from the top students. I also was allowed to peek in the design studios and sewing room, and some of the girls let me take pictures of them in action. I also got to see some great Computer Aided Design projects that really got me interested in this fairly new aspect of design.  I have not been very fond of CAD before, but now I can see how you can incorporate your creative nature into technology. I would really love to learn how to use Photoshop. Maybe when I’m out of school! 

Best,

Melissa

Who would think that a baby baptism could bring about so many sewing opportunities? Hey all you creative chicks out there! Last time we connected I was very pregnant and ready to have a baby. Now I’m happy to announce the birth of our baby boy, Koen Matthew, born March 27th. He was a whopping 10 lb. 3 oz. and 22″ long (that’s over 2/3 of a yard in sewing terms). Needless to say, I’m still recovering from that one!

We had Koen baptized June 1^st and with that came some sewing opportunities! My parents and uncle came out for the occasion and I had the opportunity to repair a pair of my uncle’s jeans that had torn. Yeah, okay, so that’s kinda boring, but more exciting was the really cool yard sale find he brought me…”The Complete Book of Sewing” from 1943! It gives instructions for practically everything from how to choose your style, draft patterns, sew plackets, and even hand-bind oilcloth curtains. It is certainly a treat to read various chapters and see how sewing has evolved over the years (and how much is still the same).

About the neatest sewing op that came out of the baby experience so far has to do with the christening gown Koen wore. “Now hold on a minute,” you say, “no boy should have to wear a dress!” Well, his father wore the same gown when he was baptized and is good and manly, so no worries there. This gown has actually been passed across the country for multiple baptisms over four generations. It originated in Germany in 1904. My husband’s grandma asked if I could replicate it. So I spent the good part of an hour making detailed drawings and taking tons of measurements and pictures. I plan to draft a pattern and create a duplicate gown…from the six tiny pin tucks around the hemline to the ever so narrow 1/4″ drawstring channels that create the back closure. If only I could find some of the hand-woven German linen and hand-drawn lace it was made with.

Oh yeah, and I still have to stitch up those cloth diapers! Now that Koen’s growing has evened out a bit I know what size to make that will keep him going for a while. Hopefully I can steal a sewing moment or two between bottle feedings and diaper changes! We’ll keep you posted on all that.

Until next time…happy sewing!

Gena K.

Hi Everyone!

I’m finally done with finals and out for the summer! YEAH!! I actually got that tailored jacket done…I never realized how many hand stitches you can fit in a jacket. I also got all my fittings done for wool tailoring next year! I feel like I have accomplished a lot this semester. And, I’m now officially a SENIOR!

Another thing that comes every year around finals time is a meeting with our instructors for next year. As seniors, our main focus will be on our senior collection, so we had a meeting to cover what will be involved in that and expected of us. As an “unofficial” assignment we are to make and keep a senior collection design journal over the summer. This includes collecting items that inspire us whether it be a candy wrapper or a picture of a cool building. In addition we are to start collecting fabric swatches that we like and think may work too. For our collections we are to pick a theme, customer, and market. I am not sure exactly what my theme or customer will be but I will let you know (I hope to get inspired, now that I have a bit more time to slow down). I will keep you updated on how my journal goes this summer…maybe I will even let you have a peek!

Allyce xxxooo

Wow!

Our second season of DIYStyle vodcasts have wrapped, and we are celebrating with a DIYStyle Party in Chicago! We will be having a day long sew-in, at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare, right in the open area of the hotel. Join in the fun on July 10th, from noon until 8pm, and create your own DIY fashions. There will be design labs and stitch stations set up with everything you need to make your own goods. Grab your girlfriends and make some Panties from the new DIYStyle Design It Yourself pattern from McCall’s, distress some of your own Denim jeans, perform T-Shirt surgery, and make an Eco-Bag for all your shopping finds. Project Design will take the stage, showcasing Chicago indie designers and a Fall Fashion Forecast will give you the scoop on what’s hot and what’s not! Upbeat music will keep everyone in the party mood. And….here’s the best part………it’s only $20 for everything!

Watch our website for more info to come soon. And, if you live in the Chicago area and want to help us get the word out, drop us a note. We want to show everyone how much fun we can have “Designing It Yourself” with DIYStyle!

 See you in Chicago

Cindy

Our wool tailoring critique took place a few weeks ago and here are the results. For the guest critic we were required to put a portfolio together of five full ensembles. The coat designs had to have a collar and at least be mid thigh length. I do have to say my designs are quite bright … I wanted to have a coat that was really attention getting.

One of the fun aspects of my design is the use of wool roving, applying it in the princess seams using a needle-punched technique. This is the design the critic chose. And as the critic, he also “changed” the colors of the outfits. The coat is now going to be chocolate brown with bright blue wool roving trim, and he decided that I should find a silk charmeuse print for the dress. In the past three weeks I have patterned the entire coat and dress patterns. I also managed to get many fittings with my model before the school year was over. Next semester we get to come back and hand tailor our coats in the first seven weeks of school out of the real fabric. It will be really cool to see the final coat totally together and see all the hard work pay off. I didn’t really don’t understand how big of a project a coat can be until you actually design it yourself!

Allyce

We just had a fantastic week together in Portland… and boy…was it interesting! Although it was exhausting, we sure did a lot. And here’s our fantastic news: we were on LIVE TV!! On May 16 we had the awesome experience of being featured guests on AM Northwest, Portland’s ABC affiliate, KATU Channel 2. We had so much fun, and the biggest smiles on our faces all day after the show! We were invited by the AM Northwest producer to be interviewed by the host Helen Raptis about our new DIYStyle pattern line with McCall’s. Going to the show we were only told to be at the studio at a certain time and we would then be informed of when to go on. So, we brought samples from our lingerie and knit top patterns and our (out in July) Fall jacket and dress patterns. There was even a live audience, with some kids that giggled (especially the boys) when we talked about how easy it is to sew up panties and bras. And we wore our own knit tops we made from the patterns so we could show the viewers how cute the finished product is and that it REALLY can be done.

I (Allyce) got to talk a little bit about My Style, My Place and explain a few of the featured book projects on air too. Our segment ended up being fairly long, considering the other famous guests that were on the show before and after us. Can you believe we were on the same show as Time Bandit Captains Jon and Andy Hillstrand from “Deadliest Catch” (all of our guy friends thought that was pretty cool!), Dr. Stan Love, astronaut, Oregon Congressman David Wu, and Miss Oregon America?!! We were so honored to be featured on the same show as these prominent people. I (Melissa) unfortunately then had to go to class (Ally is lucky, she just finished her semester–I have a few weeks left this term), and back to reality.

Doing a live television show can be nerve-racking, and definitely not like doing the vodcast where if/when we mess up we can get another chance, but we feel it is a big achievement after having successfully gotten through it. Be sure to check out our interview on AM Northwest’s website. We have more to tell you later about our experiences with at Quilt Market, and something we did with a high school sewing class in Oregon City! So stay posted to DIYStyle!

Allyce and Melissa XXX000

I just got back to Portland from New York. I was there for four fantastic days with my mom. It was also a very productive trip. We initially went so my mom could present her new cookbook, The Food Nanny Rescues Dinner, to IPG (the Independent Publishers Group) representatives. The purpose of presenting it to the reps was for them to learn about the book so they will be able to sell it to the bookstores. We also met with McCall’s so my mom could see their new building and I got to see how a sales meeting works for my mom’s patterns, which is something we have not yet done for our patterns. They also showed me the design picks for DIYStyle’s patterns next year, it was cool to see the direction they wanted. AND the most exiting news from McCall’s…our Fall 2008 patterns are going to be on the COVER of the catalogue!!!! I was so surprised and exited that I screamed!!! It looked fantastic, almost like a high fashion magazine!! I’m still in shock I can’t believe they chose our designs to be on the cover!! So keep your eyes peeled for the Fall 2008 McCall’s catalogue!

I had such a great time with my mom walking around the city, shopping for inspiration, and meeting with old friends. I had a ball walking down Madison Avenue looking and not buying (that’s for sure)! My favorite stores to look in are Dolce & Gabanna, YSL, and I also really enjoy Bergdorf Goodman’s even though it’s a department store. As well as shopping and walking around, we got to go to a show Saturday night, Mamma Mia, it’s based around ABBA music, and the music was great!

Probably the icing on the cake was Monday morning, before we left, I got to see the workings of the fashion house of Jones New York and Anne Klein. It was amazing and also pretty similar to what we do in the pattern industry. I felt right at home! Besides picking the brains of the masterminds of the company, we got a very special treat in seeing the show rooms for next years lines… the clothes were BEAUTIFUL. That part of the trip was an experience in itself! Now before I go let me not forget to mention that… We ate like KINGS!!! Which is something you just do in the city.

Ciao!
Melissa

Hey there!

There’s a new season bursting forth around here, so I thought I would start fresh. With my sewing room, that is! I don’t know about the area you sew in, but mine is small. Granted it is a room, not just the kitchen table. Even though the kitchen table is still a fresh memory…. Anyway, I’m not very neat when I sew and picking up after myself, well, need I say more? I usually continue from one project to the next, mess on mess.

I wanted to show you a snap shot of what I call my “studio” (doesn’t that sound so much more fabulous then the corner of the basement that I happen to sew in?). I had to take the photo quickly because once I get sewing again–you know–disaster!

I love the color of the room, geranium pink, with accents of black and white. But, check out the ceiling…it has a harlequin design that I painted. The center of the ceiling is metallic gold. The killer, I put upholstery tacks at each intersection of the ribbon that outline the black and white diamonds. My thumb was sore for a week from pushing pins in the ceiling.

All that may sound a little over the top, but I love it! When I go to sew, the color inspires me, even on the gloomiest of days. I can escape, surrounded by what I delight in!

So, if you can, carve out a little niche for yourself and be inspired. For me it is back to the studio…

Elizabeth