4 Days Later...

...I FINALLY let everyone know what I've been doing.
(Note: Our textiles teacher's name is Susan, not Anne. I know that that's what I wrote in the last email.)
Wednesday started our 3-day draping extravaganza (OK, more like beginner's crash course). Our teacher's name is Anne (and I KNOW I have it right this time). She brought in a bunch of patterns for 18th-century patterns, and asked us to choose one jacket from the materials that she had brought to make our jacket. Ashley and I chose the same one, and Liz and Andrea chose the same one. (I was glad to have the same one as Ashley, since she's had about 2 years of draping already.) We got assigned patterns to our jackets, and took a trip over to the copier down the street to copy the pictures of the jackets for reference.
When we got back, Anne taught Ashley, Ana and I how to drape. It took me a little while to get the hang of it, but it was definitely helpful to learn (I just felt that I was so behind since I had never done it before). We worked on our jackets until lunch, and then came back and worked for another 2 hours.
At 3 pm, we had our French lesson with Nolwenn. (Next week, I'll be in level 2 with Ana, taught by Nolwenn, and Andrea, Ashley and Liz will be in level 1. I'll have a free Wednesday afternoon!...that will most likely be used to do work.) We worked within our respective levels, so Ana and I did some exercises dealing with future verb tenses, as well as speaking roles using the imperfect tense. It made me feel like I was back in high school French class. (It was interesting to see that: I had initially thought that I had lost a lot of it, having not taken French since senior year of high school. But it's definitely starting to come back a bit. It sometimes takes a little bit while speaking with someone, but it's still there!)
After dinner, the four of us hung out in Liz and Ashley's room.
Thursday, it was back to draping. I took awhile to get it right, with Anne correcting me every step of the way (but at least I'm learning). I got to sketching the lines on the pieces after the jacket (still intact) was off the mannequin. I still felt that I was behind everyone since everyone else had already progressed to cutting the perfected pattern pieces. (I kept feeling like I've learned more here in less than a week than a semester at school. I like it, it's just getting over the adjustment of thinking differently. Andrea was saying that a friend of hers attended the semester here a year or 2 ago, and now she's incredibly efficient at getting stuff made and can just hold up pieces to her body and judge if it will work. I hope I can get that good here.)
In the afternoon, we met up with Agnes, our art history teacher, to go to the Christian Lacroix exhibit at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, by metro. The displays were divided primarily divided by color palettes and historical reference, and I took about 5 pages of sketches. At one point, I was sketching something, and two older ladies were standing beside me and looking at the same exhibit, and they asked me about my drawing (in French). I said that it might be for a future project, they asked me where I went to school, I told them the Paris American Academy in the 5th, and they wished me good luck. So that was really cool. I also got my Grandma a couple of postcards from the exhibit, as she had requested that I get her postcards from the museums and write what we did on the back of them.
After getting back from the museum, the four of us went to a brasserie to eat dinner, since it was Valentine's Day. I got the pesto pasta, with tiramisu for dessert. Afterwards was the usual: hanging in Liz and Ashley's room.
Friday was race-the-clock-to-get-the-jacket-done day. (We were told that we'd start making a 19th century jacket or corset the following week, when school actually begun.) I got the pattern pieces cut out just, but sewing them together was the problem. The ones in the lab are the same ones in the apparel lab at State, also the ones I avoid using in favor of using my own machine. Since I obviously don't have my own machine with me, I have to use the lab ones. I also dislike how the machines go so quickly, and it's harder to control. The first time I tried to sew with it, the seam veered off. Anne observed, "Your pattern pieces are perfect, and your fabrication..." Well, she didn't explicitly say it was crap, but it was understood.
Another thing was that Anne had showed us earlier how to thread the machine and wind the bobbin, and I thought that I had gotten it. I was sitting there for a good 30 minutes attempting to figure it out, and getting continually more frustrated. Anne eventually came over to help me, and it turned out that I had threaded the machine wrong. (I think part of this was because I had moved to another machine that was differently structured...wow, that sounds like "differently-abled" there, doesn't it?)
I didn't finish sewing up the jacket, and I felt bad about that, like school hasn't even technically started and I'm already behind. Anne also showed me a more effective way to iron seams flat that are on curves (I've never been able to get those before). I was really happy that I got it right after she showed me, but at the same time, there was a sense of, "Wow, I have so much more to learn".
At 3 pm, we again met Agnes, this time to go to the Annees Folles exhibition at the Palais Galleria. The exhibit was from 1919-1929, so it was really cool to see all the flapper dresses with intricate beading and drop waists. (Incidentally, it seemed that all of the ones I liked were by Lanvin. Hmm...) I took maybe 3 pages of sketches. What was really interesting was that a lot of the museum attendees were elderly ladies, usually in groups of 2 or 3, and they would talk about the designs. (If I was standing nearby, I could usually pick up a good bit of what they were saying.) I saw one grandma there with her two little grand-daughters, and she was telling them all about the clothes on display and how pretty they were. (I could imagine her saying something like, "I wore a dress exactly like that to a dance where I met your grandfather, and I was the belle of the ball".) It was really cute, and reminded me of what Erin and I must have been like when we were little (since I hardly have an objective viewpoint here). I also purchased a couple of postcards for Grandma when I was finished.
Today, Liz, Ashley and I set off for the library specified by our teacher to get images to form our research file for the majority of our projects. (Andrea would have come, but she was visiting her uncle, who was in town for the weekend.) I took charge of planning where to get on and off the metro stops. Unfortunately, Port Marie, the one right near the Bibliotheque Forney, was closed for construction, so we went to the next one down. It turned out to be really far down, so we had to walk awhile in the cold, cold wind. We decided to get something to eat before settling down to research, so we stopped in for a light lunch down the road from the library. We got to the library, and I found a few books through the library search engine dealing with 1930s screen fashion and surrealism. Unfortunately, I was told that they didn't have the ones on the screen fashion, and that if I wanted to order them, they would be here on Tuesday. So it looks like my dress will be more surrealist than goddess. (That's OK, it'll still be cool.) Andrea came in later, and she, Ashley, and Liz got their stuff done early, and left. (It took me awhile because I kept getting bad copies.) I was there for about 2 more hours, making a few more bad copies, but also because I happened to get stuck behind people who seemed intent on copying every friggin' page of a 458-page book, one page at a time.
I finally got out of there at 6 pm, and took the metro to Maubert-Mutalitie. I had checked the map before I left the station, and thought I was going the right direction. About 10 minutes of walking later, I highly doubted that idea. Sure enough, I was going the wrong way (shocker). I walked for what seemed like a long time without hitting Rue Saint-Jacques, and so ducked into a bookstore to check my trusty map-book (seriously, this thing is uber-handy). It turned out that I was only one street away. So what did I do? Of course, I turn and go the opposite direction, getting further away from it. Fortunately, I realized this only another street over, and was able to correct my mistake.
I got back to my apartment about 7 pm (after first stopping to get a croissant), and met Andrea's uncle, who was really nice. She left, and I'm just relaxing right now. I might attempt to call Grandma later with the AT&T card I got before I left. I think tomorrow we're going to H&M to get bras to embroider (we were told specifically to get them there), and I'd like (actually, need) to do some laundry. I'll try squeezing that in when I have about 20 sketches to do and embroidery to finish (for Tuesday, but still).