Doedel Design on the web!

So I have disappeared this week to finish my first launch of my company's website!

www.doedeldesigns.com

This lovely site was designed by the talented Nissa Ellison-Walsh of Dutch_SF Design located in Brooklyn, NY. Check her out - she is amazing http://web.mac.com/nme3

This is by NO MEANS the final final... or even the "finished" version, but I wanted to get something out there for all you who ask "What sorts of clothing do you design?" "What have you been designing lately?" "Great business card, does the website work?"

I've been meaning to publish the rest of my awesome road trip with Sara, but things have just been so damn crazy the last few weeks! Especially working overtime to get a bunch of projects off the ground and completed. Never mind that we had our very first staff meeting for that thing in the desert. Holy CRAP! It's FEBRUARY.

Things have been flying past me at a record pace. My 34th birthday is in a matter of days and I sit here and contimplate how fast the year has gone by for me. (Conversely I think how slow so many aspects of this year have been for me!)

A new year and a month into it I start thinking that maybe it's ok. Maybe it's not all that bad... maybe, just maybe, things are coming up Amber.

That would be pretty rad huh?

Looking at the past, pondering the future...

Oh jeez louise! Would you look at THAT. About a month since my last post. How crazy is that? I realized the other day why my posting has been so lacking - my computer lives at work until I get a "work" computer. I can't blog at work so that means I get home at night and - well, not blog.

So this is a wrap it up kinda post. The one that I think a lot of people with Blogs write about this time of year. The best and worst all sort of laid out to look over and then, with a little luck, some intentions for the New Year. Oh - FYI... "resolutions"? Yeah fuck them in the neck. I've decided that I'm never making a resolution again. Instead it is all about intentions. They have all the power of a resolution with not of the guilty stress associated. It's so 2009. Try it.

So this year. Oh man oh man oh manischewitz. What a CRAZY fucked up year huh? It really was the 200-seventies wasn't it? We decided it was so on December 31st and it really turned out to be TRUE. So what did this year bring? Let's take a looksey shall we? (Cue music, phonograph)

January
New Job (good!)
New Cat (good!)
Father has heart attack (bad!)

February
New House (good!)
London Fashion week (good!)
Father dying in hospice (bad!)

March
Father makes recovery (good!)
Accept new position at Burning Man
(Sweet! No bad this month!)

April
Make it into the testing rounds for Project Runway (good!)
Start writing for Sew Green (good!)
Work gets stressful because of some issues with another jean company (bad!)
Get a creative depression that severely crushes me (bad!)

May
Get notified that I'm not on Project Runway (bad/good!)
Father is home (good!)
Father needs 24 hour care (bad!)

June
For some reason I can't think of anything that happened in June that was either good or bad. Maybe because...

July
Totaled car (bad!)
Broke up with boyfriend (bad!)
Both my bicycles stolen (bad!)
Cell phone lost (bad!)
Car I borrowed towed! (bad!)
Cell phone returned! (good!)
Defer student loans due to "economic hardship" (read - I'm broke) (bad!)

August
Burning Man - best burn ever (good!)
Get new bike (good!)
Ex moves out of house (good/bad!)
Matthew and Matthew move in (good!)

September
Paris Fashion Week (good!)
Asshole Parisiennes (bad!)
Skirt I designed is a hit (good!)

October
Dating again (good?)
Seeing Tom Waits (good!)
Work gets really stressful and I no longer bring my computer home(bad!)
Find out one of my closet friends (and his boyfriend) are moving out of SF (bad!)

November
Work gets even more stressful (bad!)
Thanksgiving with a best friend (good!)
Panel speaker for eco-fashion at SFSU (good!)

December
Cirque for the first time (good!)
Awesome Burning Man office party where copier hijinks occur (what?My ass on the copier? Noooo!) (good!)
Production stress at work hits all time high (bad!)
Stress with my ex in very uncomfortable run-ins (bad!)

So it seems that all told I had a pretty even year in the good/bad department. Par for the course I guess. It was more of a little chance for me to look over everything and sort of realize that for all the bad there was a fair portion of good. For the time that I was so depressed I couldn't get out of bed there was a sunny day with Jeremy watching Tom Waits kick so much ass it hurt. Realizing that my breakup with K was the hardest thing I ever had to do but it was the best thing that I could have ever done. Finally, after a year an a half out of school, getting to the point where I feel like I'm a fashion designer and I'm ready to create again.


Intentions for 2008
Make. A lot.
Use all of my fabric stash for clothing for me.
Sketch something in my book everyday.
Create a fashion line for every season even if it never gets made.
Blog more.
Take more pictures (I'm manifesting a camera for my birthday goddamnit!!)
Screenprint once a week.

I think that's pretty good for a start - don't you?

Check me out! Literally

Hey everyone!

So I posted almost the exact same post over here... but really - I mean, come on, who cares

Tomorrow, Friday, November 30th I'm speaking on a panel for Sustainable and Organic Design at San Francisco State University. The talk begins at 7pm and honestly, I would be honored if any of you could make it. This is the first time I've spoken in public about what it is we do at Del Forte and my experience in Organic and Sustainable design.

I'm going to be talking on the subject of our business (fashion, specifically organic cotton denim) and how this is sustainable specifically and, in a larger sense, what is sustainable for the world and for future businesses. I will most likely also talk about how to go about being sustainable, what sustainable means to me, and how to bring this sort of mentality and knowing to a broader scope.

A University Map may be found on http://www.sfsu.edu/~sfsumap/, The event is on the top floor of the Ceasar Chavez student center, located in the center of the campus. If you are driving, parking is best in the one large parking structure off of Lake Merced Blvd. You can also take BART to Daly City and take the SFSU shuttle to campus.

Again, the event starts at 7pm and there will be three of us talking and answering questions. My fellow panel-mates will be including Gail Baugh, Textile Specialist from San Francisco State and Jeffrey Bletcher, founder Yam Street. If you ever had any questions about sustainability in fashion, textiles etc here is a great opportunity for you to ask them! One of my favorite teachers always said that there were never stupid questions in the world. Only people too stupid to ask. I always liked that.

So yes, that was my shameless self-promotion. I hope you don't mind... and I hope even more that you can all come down if you have the time. Thanks!

Anthemic Rock Blasting My Brain

I'm realizing a pattern... not the one that the sun makes across my sheets in the treehouse, or the one that I see in emerging from my mind for a sweater that I think would just be *smashing*, not even the ones that form when my fingers intertwine with his... actually that is part of the problem... er ... pattern.

Anthem Rock. Not the kind you're thinking about I'm sure, though Boston's "More Than a Feeling" does fall into this category at times... Not "Freedom Rock - turn it up dude" or the kind that has Frat boys and girls everywhere chugging beers and wishing for that moment to drop the roofies... no right now it is certain kind of music that is purely Anthemic in an emotional state for me. The kind of music that pulses through my veins that causes me to turn my iPod to ELEVEN. The music that makes me want to get on my bike and just go - anywhere but where I am. It is the kind of music that causes my roommates to pluck me from my studio to drink beer with them and dance about in our socks in the living room. It isn't just "rock" or "indie" it is a bunch of different genres but they all have the commonality of driving baseline, a chorus that calls to you to raise your fist in the air - in anger, sorrow, happiness or confusion, a swelling of music till bursting, and a ringing deep in my heart that sounds like a penny being dropped in a milk can.

It could be the lack of sleep the last couple of days... the whiskey that has been coursing through my bloodstream as of late has me a bit concerned not only for my liver, but for the emotions that are below the surface of my drinking. Phone calls in the middle of the night telling me things I don't want to hear - but so desperately want to believe... you really want me around? You really miss me? I'm dreaming... the sheets are a torrent around my body as I wrestle out of sleep. The phone is in my hand - was I just speaking? The line is dead and I look out into the trees. My leg has a bruise on it and I press it to feel something other than sleep. I need sleep but I dread the stillness. I fall asleep to wake a few hours later to the course sounds of radio static. I don't listen to a station anymore because I find the black noise such a better accompaniment to the crunch, crunch, crunch of my sleepless nights.

But this isn't about Anthemic Rock is it? Or patterns... it's just backstory... the important thing here is that you ask me what kind of car I have...

I listen to Anthem Rock when I feel like my body is going to burst. Emotionally and physically I crave a release that I just don't feel entitled to... so I listen to this music and suddenly feel back in a space of normalcy. I've been doing this for years... when I was 13, 18, 21, 23, 26, 30, and 32... These moments when my heart is exposed and raw. Moments when it is easier to pump my fist in the air and sing "STADIUM LOVE WOOO OOOOOEEEEE OOOOOO!" than say... "I think I'm falling in love with you." or "I don't have the answers you need from me." or "I'm so vulnerable from all the hurt that I can't even look you in the eye."

"YOU CAME TO TAKE US... ALL THINGS GO, ALL THINGS GO."

So what? It's just a pattern... something as innocuous as houndstooth or as easy as plaid. It isn't an eye-opening "ah-ha" or something that will make or break my psychological make-up. It was just something I realized tonight. When my heart has a hard time processing things, when the emotional is just a bit too much, when I feel like that ten year old girl just trying to be noticed, out comes the Anthemic Rock to cover me like a blanket. To make the emotions just a bit more palpable.

"I'LL GIVE YOU CANDY, GIVE YOU DIAMONDS, GIVE YOU PILLS..."

I have no answers... but I have tons of questions. So I sit and make mix-tapes and hope that through them I might find the right road to take - or at least - find a song that will let me cry for 3 minutes and 20 seconds.

"SO LET'S DO IT, JUST GET ON A PLAN AND JUST DO IT. LIKE THE BIRDS AND THE BEES AND GET TO IT. JUST GET OUT OF TOWN AND FOREVER BE FREE."

Small notes . . .

So once again I have slipped away from my blog, left it to rot in the nether world of internet brou-ha-ha. It has been a crazy crazy time for me lately. I realized that because I leave my computer at work I never blog anymore. Lugging the thing back and forth is a pain in my arse. So the blogging has become more and more sparse. Forgive.

To try to bring my Sew Green blogging up to snuff I finally posted there again. Check it out. It isn't groundbreaking but it is talking about one of my favorite eco-designers out there.

I promise I'll return for more about me. Because it is all about my bloated sense of self importance right? Right.

Look at this showroom, filled with fabulous prizes

I feel the compulsion to write a million things. None of them making any sense. Forgive me for the blather and don't even try to make sense of this. I can't.

Cooking risotto and having your dreams come true wearing a pink slip and a DPW sweatshirt.
All of them, all of them, all of them, all of them, all lined up.
How?
When can I finally let my guard down?
I dream of vultures in the trees around my house.
Steering, gas, ballast... three things you need on a golf cart
Everywhere I go I get told it doesn't get better than this.
It doesn't?
I hope the fences we mended fall down beneath their own weight.
Perfect couple? Does that exist?
Nobody changes.
I hope people change.
I want to change.
Why do strangers keep telling me that I've got the perfect boyfriend when I don't?
I hope when you think of me years down the line you can't find a good things to say.
Am I too old to make mix tapes?
1" Buttons are the way I tell you I like you.
Knitting a hat for someone I care too much about sometimes.
Wanting to knit myself a hammock for my heart.
Ma na ma na!
By hook or by crook I'm gonna get you girl.
My house has never been so wonderful and roommates so awesome that I can't possibly open my heart up any more to them.
I've never been lonelier.
I love the loneliness.
When I'm next to him my breathing increases.
Hands grasping and groping seizing opportunity right where it lies, the sky will fall but we will rise.
I drink a lot of coffee.
I like the smell.
My cat's birthday is tomorrow.
I keep thinking of the cat I lost and wishing that he was here.
I wish the friendship I lost over that cat would have survived.
I have known my best friend for 25 years. She makes my life worth living and never chides me for when I misplace my moral compass.
My love is like a powder keg, in the corner of an empty warehouse. Somewhere just outside of town, about to burn down.
Seeing Tom Waits for the first time?
Wondering what to do.
The stillness of my house makes me wonder what would happen if I was murdered here.
I eat fried chicken with my neighbors and wonder if I will ever have a family.
Every day I move one step closer to thinking I won't.
You and me laying on the tile floor, trying to keep cool. Restless all night.
I can't stop.
54321 Contact
I watched my father die of cancer but I'm still compelled to pick up cigarettes 10 years after I quit smoking them.
They really do make you look sexy... the bras - not the cigarettes.
I bought the most expensive piece clothing in my life last week. There is not a penny I regret.
I'm a fashion designer. I have to keep reminding myself of this.
I will walk down to the end with you, if you will come all the way down, with me.
I don't miss him at all.
I miss him so much.

Oh oh oh... three little things.

So this is just a brief little hello. Things have been a whirlwind of activity since I've been home. It's weird to think that it has only been two weeks. I look back and I think "How in the hell have I crammed so goddamn much into two weeks?!"

I've been running Del Forte since Tierra has been gone. MAN do I understand what she must have been going through while I was gone. This is one hell of a job to try to do on your own, let me tell you! I feel as though I have been put through the ringer of fashion, and that it putting it lightly. Between production, sampling, trying to find new manufacturers for a specific style, orders, merchandise coming in, handling reps needs, client needs... supplier needs... press inquiries, sample sales, closeout sales, and ... and... and... holy shit batman!! Never mind the endless stream of emails, tech packs, and computer work that needs to be done all at the same time. Add the phone and really - I was about to pull my hair out at certain times.

I do have something to show you though (oh #1):

Ladies and Gentlemen!! May I introduce to 優美!

What? Miyabata! Or Miya for short. (That would be Japanese for graceful by the by.) Half of my amazing fabulous roommates gave me this lovely bike for screen printing lessons. How amazing is that? She is so lovely... I don't want Miz Molly to feel under-loved or under-appreciated... but they are just two totally different bikes. Molly is pure winter. Rugged and thick - ready for the rain and potholes. Molly has spring and summer under her garters. She is speedy and sexy. She hugs curves and is seemingly weightless. I feel lighter riding her. I curve over the bars and lean down close.

It has been such a pleasure and such a difference to ride a bike like this. Totally different than everything I have been used to for years. Appropriate in so many ways.

Then there is this (oh #2):

Hello I'm cute and in the treehouse!

Here is a shot of the vulnerable Jesse Owens on my bed. This in and of itself isn't so extraordinary really. He's cute. My bed it made. It is the new room that is the big OH really. I have recently moved into a new room in my house and I'm trying to figure out colors for it. As you can see the walls are the most UNFORTUNATE baby-shit brown. Or the sort of "dark khaki" that is really only to be seen in Banana Republic circa 1989. My new room has about 6 windows (7?) on two walls. It is almost as though I look directly into trees. My friend has dubbed the room the treehouse which I really like. The adjoining room is my studio (I know I know I know... I never posted "after" photos of the redesign. One day soon I swear!) Half of my room is painted this bright Japanese fern green. I'm trying to think of something that can, at one point, compliment while adding a "pop" color to the green. So ... Blue? That is the color family I'm leaning towards... any ideas?

The new room is taking a little getting used to I must say. The morning sun comes pouring through the windows and there is nothing I can do to really stop that from happening. To put the sort of curtains up that would block the sun would be to really destroy the sort of wonderful airiness that the room has because of all the windows. Right now I have a series of smaller curtains up to soften the blow of Mr. Sun, but let's be honest, bitch got a blow like Cassius Clay and no $25 sheers from Anthropologie is going to stop that shizzle.

And why I love Oakland (oh #3):

This man was big pimping and it was only Wednesday!

As I rode down the street is was an AMAZING day. The sun was just blanketing Oakland with the sort of Indian Summer heat that makes you think it is the beginning of June and not the end of September. I was riding my bike down the street when all of a sudden THIS GUY catches my eye. I have my iPod blaring my morning mix and I literally screech my bike to a halt. This guy is at the bus stop and he is singing and lovin' life. I flip a bitch and ask if I can take his photo. He asks why and I say "Because you just made my morning." He responds that he can make me dinner too if I let him... I laugh as I take the picture. "No thanks. I have two men at home to do that for me." As I drive off he yells "Two? My kinda woman!"

Who cares if those two guys are gay and my roommates? Pimp daddy doesn't need to know that!

So yes... three little things. Hopefully in the next week or so I can finally give a sneak peek into my house. It has been a long time coming for sure. I've just been wanting the final touches to be on before I share. I'm weird I know.