Another day in sunny (pah) Swansea!

Oh how I wish it was sunny here. :/ It's so...cloudy and sorta miserable, but I guess that's the office's secret to staying so focused, there's no distraction due to sunny weather. Meh.

I was meant to start pattercutting a design by myself today, but seeing as the toile fitting was late, the head designer is now casually (and slowly) eating her lunch, and I only have 2 hours left till I go, I fear that it won't happen today :( I'm gutted actually cos I was looking forward to this for a week, but meh, what can you do? Shit happens.

Instead, I have been packing up a whole bunch of patterns to send to Hong Kong. I've also gotten to the point in my time here that I'm comfortable enough to can enjoy a bit of cheeky banter with a few people in the office. I'm even confident enought to crack jokes and whoa whoa - I'm getting laughs. So I guess you could say that I am truly fitting in, or at least I feel like I am. That's what counts, right?

[Now those of you who don't really know or care about patterncutting, go on and skip this bit!]
I don't think I've mentioned anything in depth about the Digitizer and the insane patter piece printer. Okay so basically, you print out your block, alter it to go with the new designs, then you put it on this massive digital table. You then pick up this obscure mouse/remote thing and mark all the important points on the pattern piece, you press a few buttons and voila, the whole new and improved pattern piece has been uploaded onto the computer just like that. All you have to do is make sure all the notches and measurements match up on the computer program and then you're good to print out the new pattern. Within minutes you're ready to start the toiling. Boggles my mind. You know how much time that would have saved me and the girls in uni!? Fookin' 'ell. But I am quite glad I understand the manual aspect of patterncutting though. Everyone needs a good foundation, right? :D
[Okay, the patterncutting bit is done!]

I'm feeling tired a lot more though...I need to eat more vegetables and I need to start (dare I say it?) working out. *shudder* Yesterday morning my alarm didn't go off at the right time and I was BUGGING OUT. My heart felt like it was gonna fall out of my butt. (Nice visuals, huh? Eyyyy!) But Trout was totally awesome and drove me to the station. He basically saved my life haha, but its not like a lot of stuff happened yesterday anyway...*sigh* I WANNA PATTERN CUT!!!

Right, I'm off to go find something to do. Harumph.

Signed,
A disgruntled, yet somehow still optimistic and eager, intern.

Delaaaaaaaaaayed post!

Hello, hello. This is waaaay overdue, but I feel as if I should make more of an effort to keep you people up to date. Voila. Sorry about the wait, oh random array of people who read my blog. Much love your way.

Tuesday 25/10/2011

So it’s weird right? As I go through my days at TOAST, I always, for some odd reason, have this narrative going on in my heard so it can be put in this blog. I feel like JD from Scrubs. Alas, by the time I get home, I’m exhausted, resulting in a lack of a week’s worth of posting. What!? Blasphemy, I do know.

But why am I finally blogging again, you ask? You see, I’m writing this down in my trusty notebook so I can just type it up without having to think about my day. It just so happens that on this particular morning (where I failed to have breakfast and my ever-so-important cup of coffee) I somehow feel wide awake…for now anyways. Well no, I’m exhauseted but I just have that much more energy to subject you to my drivel.

Maybe it’s a mixture of Feist and my body going into addict mode. One minute I’m sat all comfy in my seat, and the next thing I know, I somehow made it to the food carriage on the train, purchased a latte and here I am again…sat…watching the sun rise…with an empty coffee cup. I seriously need to learn how to slow down when consuming food and drink. I’m thinking I may need to ween myself off the java too, but when it’s free at TOAST, why the hell should I?

As toast…I do wish I had something to eat before I left the house this morning…*sigh* oh well! But back to actual TOAST related thoughs, this work placement is going rather well! I sent an email out last week saying…

Good Morning, Everyone!

I’m sure I’ve been introduced to most of you last Monday, but if not, I’m Holly! I’m the new intern over in the technical department who is a fresh graduate from UWE in Bristol. If you need anything measured, anything typed up, cut out, ironed, or anything done at all that you just don’t want to do (and think I’m capable of doing), please don’t hesitate to ask! I look forward to helping all of you out!

Holly Pacius
Technical Department Intern

And I got some really positive responses! People kept coming up to me, introducing themselves (much to my joy and dismay as I am crap at remembering names…) and saying that my email was a lovely thing to get first thing on a Monday. La, how nice! Anyhoozle, I’ve had many a garment places on my desk, ready for me to measure all the specifics and see if everything is alright for another prototype or to be put into production. It’s quite nice having a company care SO MUCH about each millimeter to ensure the highest quality of clothing. Loves it, I do.

Went to my first TOAST toile fitting last Tuesday…

“Pinch a bit out from the neck”“Change the angle of the dart…” “..Yes, the dart is awfully long isn’t it?”

Took ages. I thought uni was bad! Haha, and this wasn’t just because of thee quality and things, but because the designers kept going off on those random tangents, quite like my tutors did. Hilarious. I love how stuff like that happens in real life! So about 7-8 garments and 2 ½ hours later, we finish the fitting. Brilliant. Then we have to do another handover for the second drop for SS12, so at 11:30, we’re all waiting for the designers to come over and tell us what’s happening, but we end up waiting yet another 1 ½ hours. Haha We finished handover where Jim and Marieona (the main patterncutters) got about 4 garments to finish ASAP. They’re so good, they finish within hours. They’re both so nice and so skilled, I would love to be like them one day!

Thursday I got a lovely email asking for my assistance from the Studio Assistant, Becky. She’s about my age and has been working at TOAST for 3 years. She also just graduated, but previously worked here part time. How lucky! Anyway, she asked me to help pack up all the homewear stuff on the following Monday. I was so excited! Not so much just to help, but because I was emailed specifically! Woop! Little things….

Packing was fun. I bubble wrapped my heart out! You see, all the homewear stuff was being sent to Italy for a photoshoot and it needed to be there on the 4th of November. All 30 boxes. Not small boxes, no no, they each weight about 20 kilos and were double boxed. From 9:35 – 4:15 all 5 of us wrapped and packed and only just made the deadline. I felt so busy in fact, I actually didn’t have time to sit down and have a proper lunch. I was told I needed to measure 3 things ASAP cos the specifications needed to be send to India in a matter of hours and then Homewear needed me to keep wrapping and packing and then I asked to measure yet more things on top of that. So my lunch was me just cramming a BLT in my face in front of the computer whilst measuring arm lengths and stuff. It was fuuuun I liked being busy. :D

Right…I could keep going, but I’m boring myself haha. May nap…40 minutes left til Swansea! Turrah!

Messy, messy.

Ugh.
My life is basically all over the floor. I am a messy bugger.

I need to get on with with tidying and packing, but the thought of food seems so much more appealing, don't you think? I'm thinking homemade bread yet again with a nice selection of spreads. I feel as if I should start a food blog as well. Would people enjoy that or...?