Winter wonders after a hectic Summer!

Right so I know it has been too long since my last post... Womad was wonderful, as always! Almost sold out of my hooded waistcoats and my plan is to focus on using the fleece to create a variety of waistcoat and jacket styles for next summers festie season.
I am even considering testing out a few mens waistcoats, as I made my first ever mens pattern to make Sam a waistcoat this summer and it went down well! Watch this space for some Mens sizs coming soon hopefully!
I met a lovely girl called Shanti this summer and she is starting her own stall selling homemade hoops and a few clothing things... she has asked me to make a few things for some christmas markets this winter, so I am currently working on a jacket design using the hooded waistcoat as a base and adding sleeves. If successful You will see this design out and about next summer! I am also working on a shorter frilled edge waistcoat which is great as it takes much less fabric to make and I am getting to use some of my scraps up! As always it is a rush to make all this... I have until next friday November 11th to make 8 jackets and at least 6 waistcoats, as well as hopefully some fingerless gloves out of the scraps!
Hopefully it won't be as long until my next post... busy as always!

Coaching sessions are very inspirational!

Yesterday I had the second of my coaching sessions that are part of my involvement in the Striding Out program that is employing me at the moment. My coach is called Emma and she is so positive, its very refreshing! Basically the idea of coaching is to push my ambitions to the highest point by boosting my confidence in the work place, and making all my everyday tasks count towards my future career goals.

I am currently working as a Design and Marketing Assistant for a lovely ethical fashion designer called Eloise Grey (www.eloisegrey.com) and so my coach Emma is getting me to make the most of my time here, a limited 6 month period, to learn and contribute as much as possible to the business, to make my day to day life exciting and inspiring!

Emma has really got me thinking about my future career plans, and pushed my ideas to the exciting extremes of maybe one day having a leadership role within an influential ethical fashion charity or organisation, promoting the necessity for ethical fashion in the UK, and thus benefitting many small scale producers worldwide! I would love to one day be involved in creating trade and employment opportunities through fashion, hopefully in Africa as i feel i have a strong connection to the colourful continent! Plus it would be a real bonus to absolutely love my everyday work, feel like i was making a difference, and possibly get to travel and meet some truly inspirational people along the way!

Hopefully all that i am learning through my work in the ethical fashion world will be put to good use through my own ventures someday soon!

Currently busy busy... work and play coincide when it comes to festival design!

I am spending every waking moment thinking about my current design work... I feel I am doing too little too late for this year's experimental Tassia.B. designs! Yesterday I spent a beautiful sunny day wishing I could be outside doing nothing, but actually busily toiling, pattern altering, more toiling, dying metres and metres of fabric, and finally feeling like I am getting somewhere! (despite the yearning for sunbathing!)

So my achievements yesterday consisted of perfecting all 3 Tassia.B. Summer 2010 festival designs, with the ambition to have 4 colours of each design, in 4 sizes (thats a total of 48 garments!) made up by July 13th when I will be escaping the material world and retreating to 2 weeks of nothing but wonderful music, grass between my toes, and yummy food!

So as it stands I have 2 weeks ahead of me where I will be frantically sewing, and yearning to be doing nothing but sunbathing! I love the final push... every year I end up being just as unorganised!

Wish me luck!

(pictures of the new Tassia.B. Summer 2010 ethical festival designs to follow shortly!)