Wednesday morning

Greetings!

Well, here we are, the day before Thanksgiving in the USA. It will be a joyful holiday season I hope. My sister-in-law is doing well after her surgery for ovarian cancer. We have been told it looks good so far, and so we all continue to hope and pray for her.

I have a lovely new Victorian ball gown out in the shops. It won for Best Dress at a recent event, and I didn't even know we were entered! I was wearing the gown at the time.










This picture doesn't really do the gown justice. It's one of those things that you need to see!

I have to take a little bit to talk about fashion design and fashion designers. Charles Frederick Worth has had a lot written about him. The first time I ever heard of him was when I was 13 and reading a Barbara Cartland novel. Sweet romance with a kiss at the end, that was my style. But in those books occasionally a heroine would get a Worth gown. That was the first time I heard the name.

Fast forward some 30 years later and the invention of the Internet, and see me surfing through web sites and I come across a picture of a Worth gown recently sold for fifteen thousand dollars. And that's cheap folks. Some have sold for over one hundred thousand dollars. I saw this blue gown, and sat there absolutely stunned by the beauty of it.



I had to bring some version of it to Second Life.

This was not easy. Anyone who has done any building in Second Life knows there are certain constraints with what can be done. There are prim limits, shape and size limits, and movement limits. One can be clever with textures, but even that cannot overcome all the issues. After some experimenting I knew I could not reproduce that gown exactly. The gorgeous flow of the train, the sheer beauty of the piece, could not be an exact copy. So I sat back and thought for a while, staring at the pictures, and finally decided what made the gown so gorgeous, beside the cut of it, was the fabric. From that I made some textures and went to work, fighting alpha flickers and shape issues. Two days later, and some 25 hours of work, and the final product swished joyfully as I walked. I wore it less than an hour later to the New Babbage Autumn Mystery Ball.



The gown, as I mentioned earlier, won for Best Dress, even though I was unaware of it at the time. I adore this gown and made small matching slippers and gloves for it, though they need not be worn. All I could think to call it was 'Elegance' as that is what I thought when I saw the first picture!

Now we move on, I'm doing other gowns for the winter/holiday season. I will have most out by this weekend. Today is one of my work days and so I'll be busy working on gowns.

For anyone who is curious, a really lovely and intricate gown can take some 20-30 hours of work. Yes that's a lot, but then I have found myself more and more making my own textures. That's also why you won't find five or ten colors of the ball gown for example. I don't believe in recoloring the original texture. If the color does not suit you, then wait for another gown that does. :-) I do not believe in one size fits all! I believe you should buy what flatters your avatar and suits your tastes!

Now, I'm stepping off my soap box for this morning. I've half a dozen gowns I wanted to finish today and I know I'll only finish one or two! It does make life interesting and fun though.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you, and may you find joy in your day no matter where you're from!

Cordially yours,
Kembri

New price ranges and gowns

Greetings!

It's a lovely Friday morning in my neighborhood, I hope it is in yours as well. Today I wanted to write about the new price ranges and other things affecting Greenwood Designs as the year comes to a close.

As of today all gowns in the Old World and Medieval Fantasy lines have been permenently slashed to $350 lindens each. It has always been my intent to have a broader price range of gowns, and this is part of my efforts in that direction. These are all good and lovely gowns, but they're also last seasons and pre-GIMP. So they're less detailed than I would have wished them to be at the time. I have improved on my skills and it's reflected in the new ones just released. All newly released gowns in the Victorian collection will be at the standard $695 price, and of course the Boudoir gowns will stay the same price as well.

With my new GIMP skills I've been making more intricate outfits. It's been a lot of fun seeing these new outfits manifest themselves! I have two new Victorian outfits out already and another one coming out this afternoon. I do hope that you all will enjoy the new offerings!

That's it for now. I have only one last thing to say: Life is short, Break the rules, Forgive quickly, Kiss slowly, Love truly, Laugh uncontrollably, And never regret anything that made you smile.


Bright blessings,
Kembri

Relay for Life and my personal connection

Greetings all,

today has been a difficult day in some ways. I found out a week ago that my real life sister-in-law probably has ovarian cancer. They will know for sure after surgery, which is scheduled for a week from tomorrow.

Yesterday I got the invite for Relay for Life's March Fashion show, having been a designer for them last year. I've accepted, and Greenwood Designs will have a store there.

I have mixed feelings. I love my sister-in-law and I don't want her to have cancer, but as hard as it is for me, it's worse for her. Just the sheer terror of knowing you have something like that isn't easy to deal with. For us, her extended family, it's been a week of disbelief with a lot of tears. I would ask for your prayers for her, her name is Mary Ann, and that today you take an extra moment and tell at least one person you love how much they mean to you.

Bright blessings,
Kembri

November firsts

Greetings my friends!

Wow, last night a very exciting thing happened for me. I finished my GIMP course with flying colors! We were supposed to create one men's shirt complete with buttons, pocket, and placket. But last weekend I had a falling off the fence or lightbulb moment. I finally understood how GIMP worked for making clothing. Finally! That moment is like falling off a fence as a teacher friend of mine once told me. That's when the knowledge hits home and everything makes sense!

I spent the last week making clothing. I made four new corsets, three new outfits, one complete one called 'Scarlet Fever', and another one that's still in the works. The second one has a black and bronze brocade corset along with all sorts of other nummy little things. That's called 'Steam Punkin' and is Victorian and done by request. The third outfit is still being finished off, and if I want to be very technical about it, I have a fourth as well.

Oh yes, and I made a shirt to finish the course.

So last night I graduated from the Gimpster's course in Second Life, and will be continuing to work with that set of people to keep abreast of updates to GIMP. There has been a major one about two weeks ago, and GIMP is quickly becoming as powerful as Photoshop and the like. If you're a beginning dressmaker or designer on a tight budget, I recommend you go to www.gimp.org and download the latest GIMP. Then go into Second Life, look for the Gimpster group and take the course. It's well worth the money for it. It lasts ten weeks, and by the end you will have an excellent understanding of the program. That's my plug for today!


The Ghost Hunt was a great success. I had two outfits in that hunt. "Blood Lusty" and "Twilight Screams". Yes, I'll put them for sale in the vendors. I figure you all had your chance to get the outfits for free!



Some other very exciting things are in the wind as well. I realize I've said for about 90 days that I have something very special coming out in SL. Well so I do, but it is taking time to make sure it all works properly. Time and a LOT of hard work! When the time is right, all will be revealed. Until then, look for something around Thanksgiving week.


I'll post some pictures of outfits in a bit. I hope you all step outside and enjoy some small bit of lovely autumn weather!

Bright blessings,
Kembri