Present Joys

Motion graphics was cancelled on monday, so I stayed home. I’ve got a lot of different things going on, so that was fine.

Tuesday, I frantically worked to carve some waxes. Literally nobody showed up to our customary friendship lunch at the Hills (busy times!) but I met up with Dana to look at a few fine arts thesis shows, so the time was redeemed. Mr. Mohr brought a bunch of MaKey MaKey devices into Senior Ad, ostensibly to encourage us to consider including interactive technology component into our thesis projects. We spent an hour or so playing around with the things, which was fun. He let us out of class a little early so we could enjoy the warm weather. It felt irresponsible to relax outside, even for just twenty minutes.

Wednesday, I worked all morning on sweater-making for thesis. I dropped by the CCAD Archives office to meet with Leah. We had a really great conversation about my progress. In motion graphics, we messed around with camera tracking in After Effects. I came home and kept working on thesis sweaters, then stayed up extra-late working on materials for Directions. It was a satisfying day.

Thursday was rainy and dreary. I discovered a pea-sized hole in the sole of my loafers about 5 minutes after I got to school—bad news. In jewelry I cast some doodads in bronze. After that, Jason and I had lunch at Hubert’s Polish Kitchen in belated honor of his birthday. All three hours of Senior Ad were spent watching presentations of some sort: Mr. Mohr talked for a while about job interviews; Julia shared about a business trip she’d taken; we spent the rest of class watching classmates brief us on their thesis projects and engaging in unusually rancorous discussion. Everybody’s about to explode, I think.

Remember how I said I was going to make a bunch of sweaters? That’s how this whole thing started, after all. I love this collegiate sweater I made and I wanted to make more.

I bought a knitting machine at the very end of january. I’d wanted one for a long time, so that was great. At the time, I tentatively planned to use the machine to produce some unknown quantity of sweaters.

Much of february was consumed with another intensive project. That’s not to say I’m trying to pass the buck; only that I didn’t put much time practicing with the knitting machine or familiarizing myself with large-scale production techniques. Despite my lack of productivity, by the end of february I’d done some patternmaking research and produced a fairly detailed plan of the sized garments I hoped to make.

By the beginning of march, I’d started to realize how little time I actually had; if I was going to produce sweaters all my myself using my own knitting machine, I’d have to get my act together fast. I had my yarn supplier make me six pounds of yarn according to some vague specs. Last week, I went and picked up the yarn. This past weekend, I started trying to create production-ready sample garments with the yarn, and everything completely fell apart.

As I began knitting, the crushing weight of my overambitious planning fell on me like a load of bricks, and my stress level increased 200% in an instant. Who am I kidding? This yarn is not what I wanted! There’s no way I’ll be able to make more than two or three of these things in a month’s time! This machine is a total drag! Everything is terrible!

So I’m going to restructure my project a little bit. Instead of foolishly thinking I’m going to actually make tens or hundreds of finished garments myself, I need to outsource production to a serious knitting mill. Instead of planning to deliver sweaters by the thesis exhibition on may 1, I’m going to do a Kickstarter-style project. I’ll create a few prototype sweaters beforehand and use the thesis exhibition as an opportunity to get people excited about the project.

Instead of putting all my time into hastily producing a bunch of sweaters in the next few weeks, I’m going to focus on three things:

• finding a great knitting mill to collaborate with
• developing my overall brand (“CCAD is Ours”) and creating a compelling brand story—getting people excited about the idea of this brand; finding ways to conceptually tie all my products together; advertising my offerings effectively
• designing an engaging exhibition experience for the thesis show

I should have been more realistic about the sweaters. If I’d spent a little more time thinking, I’d have realized how unrealistic my original goals were. Perhaps I am being over-dramatic. Either way, I think things are back on the right track. I’ve got a lot of work to do.

What’s next?

Thankfully, all my eggs are not in this sweater basket; I’ve been conducting interviews and curating photography for that “CCAD family scrapbook”, and even if the rest of my project is a complete wreck, I think the book will turn out okay. I’d love to have these books printed and bound and ready to sell in person at the thesis show on may 1, so I’m working hard to finish the book and to find a good printer.

I’ll also be working to complete the few prototype sweaters. Once I have these, I’ll be able to shoot some promo photography. I will also be working to maintain healthy sleep schedule!

Stay tuned for more mental breakdowns and progress.

After I got my knitting machine, I practiced quite a bit. I made a sweater vest on it. Then I got distracted with other parts of my thesis and trailed off practicing. And now look at the calendar! It’s already march and I need to get my act together. Last week, I did some retail investigation into grading and sizing of commercial pullover-style garments. I combined my findings with my own notes about the pattern I want to create. At this point, I have a solid sweater pattern in sizes s, m, l, and xl.

Now that I have patterns, I’m ready to start making test garments. A few days ago, I called the people in South Bloomfield who will be spinning and dying yarn for me, and I made a small preliminary order—just enough yarn so I can create one sample sweater in each size.

I’m not anticipating a lot of trouble with the pattern, but it’s high time to have the final materials in my hands and to start making finished garments. Once I iron out any difficulties, I will essentially be ready to start producing en masse!

What’s next?

Speaking of en masse, I’m getting a little anxious about all the sweaters I need to make! While I’m not interested in making thousands of sweaters, I would like everyone who wants one to have one—and I don’t want to be running a sweatshop to get it all done. I really need to find a way to produce the knitted pieces I need offsite. When I go pick up this first batch of yarn, I’m going to ask Toia about outsourcing some of the machine-knitting work so I can produce more overall garments!

Day 82: thu, 6 mar 2014. La-Neka gives me some machine-knitting advice, despite dirty, broken-down equipment.

I’ve got a couple thousand photos from CCAD archives on my hard drive. They’ve been surprisingly easy to flip through, so I’ve looked at them all several times, tagging them in Bridge with lots of keywords and ratings. Besides the ones I’ve looked at, there are many more libraries of other old photos: architecture, student work, construction projects, etc. I could spend an eternity looking through everything.

But that’s totally distracting! My plan is to celebrate CCAD by making things. As of now, I’m planning to make a book. I don’t know if the book will ever actually get made, but I’m thinking about it in those terms. Ideally, I’d love to create a list luxurious coffee-table-style book that would be printed in a small edition and sold as a premium item. But I want to be fastidious about the quality of the printing, I know I don’t have time to oversee that. Instead of a physical book, I may opt for some kind of interactive website. Who knows at this point? Time is going by so quickly and I’m feeling stressed!

Leah and I made a list of people with a long history at the school who might be fun to talk to. Some of them I know but many I don’t! I love nothing more than to contact all of them and spend a lot of time in conversation about the way CCAD used to be. I’ll be working to track them down and schedule meetings soon.

What’s next?

Oh yeah, I’m making sweaters, too! I’ll be buying a small batch of yarn soon so I can get started with test garments. Beyond that, I still need to find a mentor. I’ve reached out to some people at Homage, because I think they’ll have some great wisdom about my concept.