Sunday, May 19, 2019

Week 4 of Be Green

Blog 4
Magnolia Garcia



        I’m surprised at how quickly this challenge seems to be going; albeit, that may simply be due to the quarter system, but I’m relieved nonetheless. Admittingly, I was beginning to worry that I would have to break the challenge sometime in the last few weeks. With my graduation coming up, I was hoping that I would find a new dress for the occasion, but I truthfully never even had the proper opportunity to go out and search for one anyway. While it is merely a developing idea at the moment, reading about the Hmong culture this week reminded me that clothing can say so much about an individual, and I feel inspired, once again, to get creative.
        The Hmong culture including not only making clothing for larger celebrations such as the Hmong New Year but also for everyday wear (McCall). While I most certainly don’t have the proper skills required to feasibly take on such a project, it’s possible that I attempt to make my own dress. Worst case scenario, I’d end up with a learning experience and something that inspires and drives me to continue trying to design my own clothing, which is something I’ve always dreamed of doing. Best case scenario, I would get to say that I designed my college graduation dress and it would (again) inspire me to continue to chase after a dream skill and potential passion. Even though I already have a dress ready for my graduation day, it would never hurt to try something new; it’s truly a win-win situation.
        As mentioned in my previous blog, creative projects like this bring me extreme joy, especially if they’re all I need to be focusing on at the time. Intrigued by the challenge, I quickly searched up a “fashion-for-dummies” type of page and found a website that breaks down the process of making a dress into six steps. Of course, I’m not underestimating the level of difficulty such a project is going to entail, this site brought me hope that this new goal of mine is very achievable. According to the post, the hardest part of the dressmaking journey may be coming up with the dress you want to create (Instructables). Luckily, that’s the one thing I do have, of all things required for this challenge--I’ve always enjoyed sketching clothing designs and bringing the concept to 2D life. In the event that the end of my quarter is as rough as I fear it may be, I could very well dedicate time to this project over the summer; it will happen!



Ava L. McCall (1999): Speaking through Cloth: Teaching Hmong History and Culture through
        Textile Art,The Social Studies, 90:5, 230-236
Instructables. “Design and Create a Dress.” Instructables, Instructables, 29 Sept. 2017,
        www.instructables.com/id/Design-and-Create-a-Dress/.




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