You Can Call Me Picasso

     I usually don't write much about my job, but I promise I'm loving it! I've been assigned some really interesting projects at work that I'm very excited about, and I think they're worth sharing. This past month was Chinese New Year, which meant that our factories in China were closed so that they could celebrate. At the office, we also celebrated Chinese New Year because we had a nice, long break from receiving and checking in samples from China. The owners of our company even took our whole office out for a day of bowling in Times Square during work hours!
     During our "break," we focused on organizing the office and doing any work that had been forgotten about before Chinese New Year. I spent a lot of time going through old samples (which meant I could snag a few) and sample yardage. Going through the sample yardage was my favorite part because I found and got to keep a beautiful piece of fabric with an image of multicolored brush strokes printed on it! The printed image was one full repeat of the pattern, so it has a thin white "frame" of unprinted fabric around it, so I am planning on framing the fabric as if it were a real painting. Since our factories in China were closed, we got to focus more on samples we were making in India. This means a lot of embroidery! I did a few embroidery layouts, but my favorite project was when my boss let me create a pattern and do the embroidery layout for my very own jacket. I had never drawn my own pattern before, so this was very exciting for me. I drew the full sized pattern completely from scratch, with only SPEC measurements and a rough sketch to go by. Once I finished the pattern, I made a copy of it so that I could create two different embroidery options. I was so proud of myself for learning something new, and it was a big milestone for me to be able to design my own garment. I can't wait to see my embroidered jacket go through production!
     Today, I got to start another exciting project: the color wall. One of my bosses has loads of color swatches and interesting fabrics that she uses for mood / presentation boards. She's been wanting to organize them for awhile, but we've been so busy that she's put it aside. She thought of a project where I would create a huge collage of all of her colors, almost like a fabric painting, on a large cork board. This way, she would have them displayed artistically, but it would also be convenient when she needed to pull certain colors. I love fabric and art, so what could be better for me?! I'm having so much fun combining fabric, color, and art into one through making this collage, and I can't wait to see how it turns out!