term garment-spring '10

dear all:

this was my term garment for the SPRING '10 semester.

I worked on it during my 2nd year abroad(in Milan, ITALY) for my knitwear design and knitwear draping course. It was part of my "trans-automa-sitosys "collection, of which i will post pictures (that was the project we did for our fashion art portfolio class) soon.

I wanted to combine hand work with machine work to "humanize" it a bit. The main pieces of the dress(pewter blue) were machine knitted on a brother machine using plain knit stitch and dropped needles to create "water bubbles". I combined 2 yarns: a cotton one, and a metallic one to give some sort of sheen. The whole collection was about the irregularity of nature and how its beauty is perfect in a very imperfect way... so I didn't want to create any pattern- to do that, I changed the amount of needles to be dropped every three rows and after having used 3 sizes i created 3 vertical lines that resembled the evaporation/natural cycle of water purification...

the drape of the dress changed a lot while i was assembling it- and ended up being a very very open armhole. I crocheted the "straps"with a bulky/irregular cotton yarn and let some loose pieces hang to add movement.

FOR THE BOTTOM...

i suspended from the dress, a part of "moss" by crocheting mustard yellow loops into the hem of the dress... the moss was alluding to the "creative moulding" process and was made by combining both the machine techniques and by hand....I changed yarns, dropped needles, used ottoman, fisherman, and other combination of stitches to create the most irregular/imperfect look!

whalah!

NYC... i am back

my fellow blog readers:

after 2 years abroad- I AM BACK!

i am back to the city that never sleeps.

Italy is far now, and so are my Italian habits:

• taking breakfast at the bar [caffé marrocchino+pastry],
• cooking a full meal every evening and actually sitting down with my roommate for a couple of hours to chat
• running to the gelatteria a couple of blocks away to get some home-made gelatto before they close at midnight
• Taking the train to other regions, especially to Florence where my italian step-mom/mother in law cooked amazing (I REALLY MEAN AMAZING) meals
• asparagus and wild berry picking
• not going to schoolLABS on the weekends
• getting out of school by 6:00pm
• buying smaller portions of things at the supermarket (the kind of one person portion that stays fresh without a million preservatives)
• hand washing the dishes, hang drying my clothes and NOT having a microwave, a toaster or an air conditioner...
• having to blow dry my hair because they wont let you leave the house or go to sleep with a wet head.
• having a HUGE room
• not paying more that 5 euro for an AMAZING bottle of wine
• and others that i'm too sad to tell about

Although its been a rough transitory period... I'm all moved in now and just need to make my loft bedded (minuscule) room look decently cute and start the routine. I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and things are happening! I'll be starting my LAST year at FIT next week and I am very enthused... senior collection coming up!

Im hoping to freelance so please keep me in consideration...

for now... just a quick salute!

ciao

Repositories and CRIS article

An article has been published in the latest issue of Ariadne about the Repositories and CRIS event we ran in Leeds in May this year. ‘Learning how to play nicely: Repositories and CRIS’ is available from http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue64/wrn-repos-2010-05-rpt/.

The full contents of the journal issue, which may also be of interest, including articles on e-books, Library 2.0 and data management is available from http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue64/#main-articles.

Theodore DeReese "Teddy" Pendergrass (March 26, 1950[1] – January 13, 2010[2]) was an American R&B/soul singer and songwriter. Pendergrass first rose to fame as lead singer of Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes in the 1970s before a successful solo career at the end of the decade. In 1982, he was severely injured in an auto accident in Philadelphia, resulting in his being paralyzed from the waist down. After his injury, the affable entertainer founded the Teddy Pendergrass Alliance, a foundation that helps those with spinal cord injuries. Pendergrass commemorated 25 years of living after his spinal cord injury with star filled event, Teddy 25 - A Celebration of Life at Philadelphia's Kimmel Center. His last performance was on a PBS special at Atlantic City's Borgata Casino in November 2008.

Source: Wikipedia

this guy was the ultimate lover man. i believe he was such a lover man: he did it even if he was on a wheelchair...

Turn it on!!!!!

Annual growth figures now available

Just a quick post to let everyone know that I have now collated our latest batch of statistical data which means we now have growth figures covering a full 12 month period. Overall, we have seen a very healthy 43.73% growth in the number of items within our repositories over the past year - well done all!

UKCGE Report on PhD Theses Confidentiality

Interseting report from Tina Barnes, UK Council for Graduate Education looking at the issue of confidentiality and embargo requests on PhD theses: http://www.ukcge.ac.uk/Resources/UKCGE/Documents/PDF/Confidentiality%20of%20PhD%20Theses%20in%20the%20UK%20(2010).pdf. Report based on a survey conducted in March 2010 with refelctions to previous 2005 survey on the same topic.

Barnes reports that the most commonly cited reason for an embargo is the protection of 'commercial interests.' However, the number of requests has not increased since the first survey in 2005 despite the progression of open access and e-deposit. This, it is claimed, is due to e-submission and repository deposit not yet becoming standard practice within UK HEIs.

The report also comments on alternative approaches to the e-presentation of embargoed theses such as 'embargoed appendices.'

New IPR discussion papers

Two new IPR discussion papers have passed under my nose in the last couple of days that others may find of interest:

Korn, N and Oppenheim, C. July 2010. JISC IPR and Licensing White Paper: A Discussion Piece. Version 1.0. http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/3553

British Library. Driving UK research: is copyright a help or a hindrance?- a perspective from the research community. http://www.bl.uk/ip/pdf/drivingukresearch.pdf

Both of these pieces question current IPR and copyright practices and the detrimental effect they may be having in the digital age and to current research and research practices.