**Note: This post discusses some aspects of the first episode of the new season of Project Runway. If you are a fan and haven’t seen the first one yet, you might not want to read it.
So Wednesday was the first episode of the fifth season of Project Runway. I am a total dork since I checked the DVR timer about fifty times to make sure that it was scheduled to record…
I’m not super interested in the fashion aspect but I find the entire concept amazing: get a topic, come up with an idea in half an hour, shop for materials in same amount of time, get twelve hours to complete project while allowing ample time for lying on design room floor weeping and gnashing teeth.
I know I couldn’t do it. I tend to let my ideas “marinate” for a long time. I pretty much build an entire project in my mind and then make it. I used to think I just procrastinated like hell but really, its just the way I work. Once I get going it flies like the wind.
And occasionally there is weeping and gnashing of teeth so I guess I have that in common with the designers on PR.
So being the ultimate geek that I am, I made sure all my have-to-do tasks were out of the way last night so that I could drag Dooley up on the sofa with me and watch the first episode.
And it didn’t disappoint. They have got quite the mix of characters on there and I get the impression (mostly based on next week’s preview) that they will begin to snark at each other pretty quickly. It’s a byproduct of trapping fifteen creative people in one room and forcing them to work in teams on a project.
The first challenge involved shopping at a grocery store for supplies and making something from that. When I go shopping for food on Saturday I’m going to be looking around at that place in a whole new light.
The designer, Kelli, who won the first challenge, did a really cool surface design technique on vacuum cleaner bags. She dumped little capfuls of bleach on the bags and then dipped sections quickly into dye. It was pretty cool, mostly because of how well the fiber in the vacuum bags responded to the whole thing. (I can just see umpteen million art quilts constructed of vacuum bags now. They will probably need their own category.) Here is the finished product:
So Wednesday was the first episode of the fifth season of Project Runway. I am a total dork since I checked the DVR timer about fifty times to make sure that it was scheduled to record…
I’m not super interested in the fashion aspect but I find the entire concept amazing: get a topic, come up with an idea in half an hour, shop for materials in same amount of time, get twelve hours to complete project while allowing ample time for lying on design room floor weeping and gnashing teeth.
I know I couldn’t do it. I tend to let my ideas “marinate” for a long time. I pretty much build an entire project in my mind and then make it. I used to think I just procrastinated like hell but really, its just the way I work. Once I get going it flies like the wind.
And occasionally there is weeping and gnashing of teeth so I guess I have that in common with the designers on PR.
So being the ultimate geek that I am, I made sure all my have-to-do tasks were out of the way last night so that I could drag Dooley up on the sofa with me and watch the first episode.
And it didn’t disappoint. They have got quite the mix of characters on there and I get the impression (mostly based on next week’s preview) that they will begin to snark at each other pretty quickly. It’s a byproduct of trapping fifteen creative people in one room and forcing them to work in teams on a project.
The first challenge involved shopping at a grocery store for supplies and making something from that. When I go shopping for food on Saturday I’m going to be looking around at that place in a whole new light.
The designer, Kelli, who won the first challenge, did a really cool surface design technique on vacuum cleaner bags. She dumped little capfuls of bleach on the bags and then dipped sections quickly into dye. It was pretty cool, mostly because of how well the fiber in the vacuum bags responded to the whole thing. (I can just see umpteen million art quilts constructed of vacuum bags now. They will probably need their own category.) Here is the finished product:
(Photo from Project Runway website.)
I was happy to see someone tinkering with altering stuff like that but what really floored me was my mom’s response to the whole thing. She kept telling me before we turned it on that there was a part I was going to just love. All I could think of was maybe there was finally a straight male designer on the show who was hot and showed off his butt or something.
But she kept rewinding the part where the chick was dipping the fabric into the dye bath and she looked at me and said, “She’s probably using Rit dye, don’t you think? I mean, she got it from the grocery store, it can’t be the good dyes that you use. And look at how well its streaking.”
*sigh* My mom has been assimilated. (I get all choked up just thinking about it. *sniff*)
My mom is not a fiber artist, she always tells me about my grandmother’s sisters who won awards for their quilts and she is convinced that the fiber art gene lay dormant until I was born.
She’s been a real sport about having my junk all over the place. Currently the dining room table has been commandeered for working on my QN entries and she hasn’t uttered a peep. She also puts up with people sending me their artwork en masse for exhibits and magazines and books on knitting and mixed media art and just generally all the mess that comes from being an obsessed artist.
I guess it never really occurred to me that she was paying close attention.
I’m so proud. *sniff*
1 comment:
Sometimes you wonder if you brought your mother up right, and then she goes and surprises you! (*sniff*)!! My mom's a died-in-the-wool (sorry for the pun!!) traditional quilter, but she does love it when I send her FPCs or email pix of my work (she lives in Maryland, I'm in TX).
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