Summer Internship: Day 17

Onto project two!  Except this time, I am on my own!  Today was a day for me to take an independent day in order to find my materials to construct a similar garment to the one finished yesterday.  I ended up going back to S.R. Harris, which is a wholesale fabric company located in Brooklyn Park, MN.  If you have not read my previous post from when I went last week, this place is HUGE!  A quarter million bolts of fabric line up floor to ceiling.

 As you can see above, this is only one aisle out of the many throughout the store!  And the fabric is not always the easiest to pull out either...

 It actually requires some muscles:) Thankfully, I think I won the battle with this bolt of fabric!

I carried on in my search for materials nonetheless.  I was hoping to find warm red and orange tones for the next sweater.  The bolt located above is a textured polar fleece.  It is important to note that when a designer is in search for materials, they have to please the consumer's needs.  In this case, I would be considered the consumer.  I purchase based upon my preferences.  Designers have to research heavily sometimes to find out what end results the consumer is hoping for.  They often times require trend forecasters (and yes, these exist) to determine some of the variants.  In my case, it is easy because I know exactly what I want...most of the time!

At S.R. Harris, the customer is the one to cut their own fabric unless it is bigger than 5 yards.  I bought 1 yard of four different materials and ended up with...

I have a paisley print as well as red-orange and burgundy fleeces.  The white sweater roll above is reversible and has a heather brown on the other side.  For the rest of the evening I am going to gather my inspiration pieces and create some sketches which I will post tomorrow!  By the end of the week I should have at least one more garment complete and ready-to-wear!