Screen printing Newbie

               I am taking a screen printing course this quarter. Finally! In the last few days I finished my first yardage in repeat. I chose one of my designs that is repeated very tightly and I decided to use 3 colors. A little difficult for my first time, but sometimes I like to dive in head first when I do something new. I arrived at the screen printing lab in Pepe Hall at 11am on Saturday. After preparing everything, mixing colors, and having to re-burn a screen that presented problems, I finally began printing around 2pm. I left the building for a very short dinner break and then got back to work. I unfortunately had to leave the building at midnight (closing time) with the fabric almost finished. So, I was finally able to finish the project today in class. Not too shabby for my first time :)

Colors ready to go

Ready to start Part 1: Gray

In process of covering the fabric with the Gray layer

Part 1 finished

Part 2: Blue. Finished.

Ready to start Part 3: Mustard Yellow

All three colors done!

Close up

 All finished on the drying line!

Website Launch!

My website has finally launched!! I hope for it to be a place where everyone and future employers can take a look at my work. I'm very excited, check it out!

                                   www.aguilardesign.com

Coming soon to Etsy...

I've been working on a few products I would like to sell in my (soon to be) Etsy shop. I'm going to stick to small fashion accessories and dining decor to start out. I still have two busy quarters left at SCAD and I can't compromise my school work with too much side work. I'm planning to make new products during winter break to add to the shop. For now I want to give you a preview of the headbands and hairclips I've been working on and will soon be for sale. All of them are made out of my original prints on cotton fabric. I would love to hear your comments and/or suggestions before they go on sale.

Hope you'll buy your original Brenda Aguilar hair accessory soon!

1) Adjustable bow headband. You can move and adjust the bow to wherever you want it to lay on your hair.

2) Rosa hairclip. Made out of my Roses print on cotton sateen fabric. Will be available in three sizes: small, medium, and large. This is a sample of the large.

3) These will be limited edition Rosa hairclips made out of batik fabric I designed and sampled during my time in Ghana. I will have the pattern printed on cotton sateen when the limited batik fabric is finished. These are samples of the small and medium sizes.

Summer Internship

          I am back from my summer internship in Ghana. I can't even begin to describe how amazing of an experience it was. You can read all about my trip, see pictures and videos here. I worked on a lot of new home decor batiks and product ideas for the 2011 Global Mamas catalog. Unfortunately, due to confidentiality, I can't show you anything I worked on, so you'll have to wait until the catalog comes out.

         The rest of summer break will consist of working on my website and some products to sell on Etsy by Fall. My family has also cornered me to work on some projects around the house and the office. So I'll have to schedule my time well.

Three Identical Objects

The assignment was to create three identical objects. We could implement different colors but the construction and details needed to be the same. I wanted to keep challenging myself and my sewing skills so I took on the task of creating a handbag or purse (what is the right term anyway?). I was happy to find the gold and blue linen on sale at Joans Fabrics, mostly because I am in love with this yellow! The lining a pattern of mine that I had printed on cotton sateen. I really enjoyed this project and all the problem solving that came with it. Consider this the first handbag collection from Brenda Aguilar Designs.

The flower is a broche that is pinned to the purse. You can take it off and pin it to an outfit or maybe even use a bobby pin and put it in your hair!

This one is made with silk taffeta making it a little more expensive ;)

The bag turned inside out to show the lining.

Blender Cover

I had to make a product with the objective function of "eating" and a subjective function of "being able to pass down or give away without getting to attached". I like to think of traditional Nicaraguan things or ideas and find a way to modernize them or give them a new contemporary twist. With this project I took the idea of the blender cover and thought about Nicaragua's outdated and tacky design for this object. Throughout the years in Nicaragua it seems that the only design used to cover our blenders is that of a doll wearing a seemingly traditional dress. I love tradition, and I also love our traditional dresses but it's time for a change.

So I had some fabric printed at http://www.spoonflower.com/ with my 'woven' pattern and proceeded to design a cute reversible blender cover. I would like to come up with different designs in the future...

Check it out:

Spring Collection

My Computer Aided Surface Design class concluded a couple of days ago with the completion of a small collection of designs which we would all submit to the Surtex design competition. I LOVED this class and I cannot wait to work on more patterns.

Check out my first (small) collection:

The Dreams of Spring collection sprang from a personal anticipation of spring’s arrival. Tired of cold winds and sunlight deprived days, there is a longing to receive the blooming of flowers and leaves on the trees, leaving the bleak weather behind. These feelings are portrayed in the collection through literal and abstracted floral motifs, roses being the most prominent. The color palette comprises of cool shades of winter and drops of warm hues symbolizing the transitional period between winter and spring. Spring is making its attempt to come into our lives, shun away the cold, and joyfully bring the sun along with it.

Summer Internship

This is the first of hopefully many more posts to come and how great that I get to begin with a very exciting note. I got the summer internship that I wanted! I will be spending 8 weeks in Ghana, Africa starting in June and I will be a textile design/product development intern for Global Mamas, a non-profit and fair trade organization assisting women in Africa to become economically independent.

For a while now I have been feeling like this sort of work may be my calling in the future and I am so excited I get this opportunity to jump in and gain my first dose of experience. I can't even describe how excited I am!

http://www.globalmamas.org/