Monday, August 25, 2014

Its All A Puzzling, Balancing Act

"Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place." - Kurt Vonnegut



Company: Vera Wang
Week # __3___                Date of report:  ______8/23/14__________
Log work hours during past week of internship:  60.25 hours
Monday __9:00AM-8:15PM__   Tuesday   _9:00AM-7:45PM__   Wednesday __9:00AM-8:00PM__ Thursday __9:00AM-7:30PM__ Friday  __9:00AM-6:15PM__Saturday__9:30AM-5:00PM
SUMMARY OF LAST WEEK’S ACTIVITIES:
·         Cleaning the Design Process room where Vera Wang does all her decision making
o   Organize things pinned onto the 8 Boards
o   Organize the fit model’s dressing room
o   Organize the fabrics of the season that are hanging on the in its specific order
o   Re-hanging up and organizing the garments hanging on the hangers in the design process room. 
Vera Wang has an amazing design process.  Visit a vidoe about her design process by clicking here.
·         Errands:
o   going to companies in Midtown to collect fabric swatches and fabric rolls
o   going to midtown to pick up supplies
o   also going to Midtown to drop off returns and garment samples
o   finding a nail polish that matched a fabric swatch in order to paint hook and eyes a matching color
·         Sarah (the other intern) and I scanned lace which had the outline of the pattern basted with red thread.  The entire pattern piece had to be scanned, printed and then tapped together.  It was like a giant puzzle.  We had to make sure the lace motifs matched up with one another.  This was done so that the designers could then draw on the printed lace pattern piece where the embroidery needed to be placed.  This pattern was then sent out to the manufacturer that would be embroidering the gown. 
SPECIFIC SKILLS/TASKS DEVELOPED OR INTRODUCED THIS WEEK:
·         Pressing organza along the bias and cutting out rectangular strips of various sizes as well as half circles of various sizes and thicknesses.  These were then pinned onto a tool canvas to create floral shapes. 
·         Hand sewing snaps onto a ribbon
·         Creating fabric samples:
o   I used the grommet machine to create rows of evenly spaced grommets. 
·         Copying patterns and also altering patterns to extent the length.  Shirts where extended into a dress and then some into a gown.  The patterns are very large and needed to be extremely accurate as well as done quickly. 
·         Assisted in dyeing a zipper


SELF-EVALUATION OF WEEK’S PERFORMANCE OF INTERNSHIP:

I was faced with new challenges this week and I had to use my past experiences/knowledge and creativity to overcome them.  One task I faced was a project involving creating a sample of manupulated fabric.  I needed to make a sample of fabric with rows of grommets that had to be evenly spaced.  I executed the task once and it was not accurate enough.  I was asked to re-do the sample.  I was so frustrated at first and tried marking the points where I needed to put the grommets, but for the life of me I could not get them to be evenly spaced.  Then I had the idea to pin a piece of paper with a grid drawn on it and then punch the holes with the intersections in the center of the hole-punch.  It worked super well and I was so excited! 

This week was a puzzling, balancing act.  Struggles I faced this week were putting together pattern pieces and extending them accurately and making sure they match up.  I learned that accuracy is extremely important so that the cutter knows the direction of the grain and the sewer knows which pieces fit together; where and how.  Another struggle I faced was balancing which projects and errands where more important than others and which I needed to execute first.  I am beginning to get the hang of accurately copying and altering patterns as well as managing tasks and their level of urgency. 


This week was definitely the toughest week thus far.  The long hours of continuous standing and running errands were very exhausting.  
I was so lucky to have Taylor and Verretta there for me.  
They were continuously there to help and encourage me this week when things got tough.  I was leaving to come home one day and the normal train I take was not working and I got as close as I could on the train.  Then they gave me a ticket for the bus; however the next one coming that would take me close to my home was not going to get there till 10PM!  I decided to try and wave down a taxi along with everyone and there mom.  I called Taylor and she helped to calm me down and gave me the number for a car service.  Luckily, a taxi dropped someone off right in front of me and I got in! FEWWWW!  When I got home Taylor had brought a pizza home for me for dinner.  It was so sweet.  Also, on Friday I lost my phone at a store and I had to work the next day.  That same night a guy decided it was ok to grab my butt in the subway and with everything piling up, emotionally I lost it.  I started balling till we finally got home.  Thankfully, I had Taylor who let me borrow her phone the next day for work and Verretta who made me coffee in the morning for work and surprised me with chocolate when I got home.  They are seriously the best roommates that I could have asked for.  Luckily, the woman who took my phone when she saw it at the store decided to contact a girl that I work with so she could return it to me.  I am so grateful to her as well.  

It is always so sweet to get home-sweet-home!


I know that with all the excitment and sparkly new adventures in New York City, also comes along with it the bad days.  Days when people will let you down and you will start to see the imperfections behind the seams of the city, but at the end of the day when you surround yourself with good friends that are there for you...it makes the bad days not seem so bad!  It makes all the difference in the world.  It is so important!  It is what will propel me to do my best at this internship.  


WEEKEND FUN!

On sunday Verretta, Taylor and I went to brunch with our friend Jamie who lives in Brooklyn as well and is from CSU.  It was nice to relax and catch up.  We got to see the Green Point.


Love Always,
Sydni Norie

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