Star Wars meets Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution

it's wednesday, which means it's iron craft time!

i had the perfect project in mind for this week, the theme was exactly the motivation i needed to make something that i'd been planning on making for months, but it didn't materialize. i spent the latter part of last week trying to finish a quilt so that i could baste it on friday, then had a very awesome day on saturday (which i need to blog about, and will asap!), slept most of the day sunday, spent most of monday prepping for a class that night (i should blog about that too, it was really good), and then a busy day on tuesday, with a massage appointment in the morning, a bank appointment (i got an RRSP! and a tax free savings account! i'm a real grown up now!), way too many errands, and dinner with a friend.

after my friend left today, i had great plans to watch the movie again while working on the project. yes, i'd left it to the last minute, but i was confident that i could do it. and then i sat down on the computer, and realized that i felt like crap. and not just my usual chronic crap, that i'm generally pretty resigned to, except when it flares up, but icky-ucky-sinus-cold-that-makes-my-eyeballs-sting-and-a-cough-that-won't-stop kind of crap.

that pretty much caused my motivation to run away, and i spent the rest of the day feeling sorry for myself and looking at pretty crafty pictures on the internet to cheer myself up - i couldn't even motivate myself to get up and go into the living room to go watch the new episodes of criminal minds, okay? i definitely wasn't motivated enough to actually unpack my sewing stuff and draft a pattern!

HOWEVER! my sister made an AMAZING project this past weekend, that fits perfectly with the Iron Craft theme (which was to make something inspired by a movie), and since she doesn't blog, and completely neglects her flickr account, no matter how much i harass her to photograph the things that she makes, i'm going to post about it for her.


Andi was invited to a party this past weekend with a combination theme of Star Wars and the French Revolution. i still don't fully understand WHY, because i am not sufficiently geeky, unlike her LARPing friends*, but it had something to do with a photo found on the internet that combined the two, though google images isn't inclined to find for me at the moment. it was like Star Wars meets Marie Antoinette or something. (i'm sure she'll correct me if i'm wrong!)


anyway. Andi being Andi, and being much like myself, decided that she needed to make an entire outfit for the party. two days before.

and because she's so kickass, she actually managed it, and it was amazing.





(though you may be inclined to think it, since she can throw together an outfit like this in 20something hours, she really isn't the devil, i promise. my camera just gives everyone red eyes, even when the red eye setting is on.)

the outfit consisted of a dress or chemise with 3/4 sleeves that end in a flounce, a matching boned stomacher, a fully boned brown stays (the word "stays" was replaced by the word "corset", but in the 18th century, stays was still used) with tabs and laced straps, pannier hoops/hoop skirt, and the star wars petticoat.





all of the fabric she used was thrifted. the overdress is made out of a curtain (nod to Sound of Music!), the stays are made out of several layers of twill, the petticoat is obviously a sheet, and the lining of the overdress is and the hoop skirt are both a lighter weight twill. my sister has the most AMAZING luck thrifting fabrics! you should see all the incredible silk that she finds! (remember the 10 yard skirt that i made her out of thrifted silk?)





it obviously isn't historically accurate, though i do think that she is intending on making a chemise to be worn under the stays in the future, and i think she's going to make a different petticoat for non-star wars events!




the ribbon on the tied straps matches the overdress more than the stays itself, because they're slightly visible under the wide neckline of the overdress.



she didn't bind the edges of the stays in time for the party, because she didn't have time to do it properly (ie, by hand)



the stays actually have two layers of boning - the more obvious vertical boning, and a smaller amount of parallel boning across the upper chest, to maintain the proper silhouette.









*no offense to LARPers, we just like to make fun of Andi and her friends by declaring that SCA is just a form of LARPing. so basically that line was just an inside joke designed to make fun of my sister. that's how we show love in our family.

batlove!

i'm working on a couple halloween projects right now, and they're all in varying stages of completion.

but! today a new group was started on flickr for bat crafts, and i realized that there were some bat-themed projects that i'd never posted here.

last year i machine embroidered bat necklaces for myself and for a friend, using the free standing lace design from urban threads.


and i think i did post this pendant, which i made using a fsl design from embroidery library. it was one of the ones i made for a pendant swap on craftster.


but i'm certain i never posted this, because i made this costume many years ago... for halloween 2004 i was a bat! it was totally a fun costume. i made hairfalls and batwings, and a little headpiece to wear.

the wings were made out of vinyl, and they held up super well.

in progress


complete


a closeup of the little vinyl headpiece, with ears and a widow's peak -


and the yarn hair falls






my hair was longer then, so i could put it into little ponytails/buns to attach the hair falls to. they were made out of 2 or 3 different types of yarn, black gimp, black pony beads, black bat rings, and rubber bats that i drilled holes into. the hair falls were so awesome to dance with - it's been so long since i've had long hair, i forgot how fun it is while you're dancing!

Silk 10yd Skirt and my sister the sewing genius!

you're wondering what the fabric was that was so distracting yesterday, right?

silk! mmmm, silk. gaaah, silk!

my little sister is, as usual, incredibly overbooked and frantically busy. about a week and a half ago i took pity on her and asked if there was anything i could do to help her. she's finishing up several custom projects, including several weddings, and still needed to finish her own costume for a big annual costume "ball" that friends of hers organize every year. considering that a lot of her clients are within the same social circle, she tends to really go out with her costumes (plus, she's like i used to be, when i had the energy - any excuse to make an elaborate outfit!) she asked if i would make her a gathered belly dancing skirt, commonly called 10 yard skirts, because the bottom tier is 10 yards around. it was something that i could do without her corset making expertise, plus i have a ruffler foot, so it would take me much less time than it would her.

i, in my typical procrastinating way, left it to the last minute. not entirely on purpose, because this has been a pretty crappy week, but i could have started the first steps on wednesday or thursday, but didn't. i kept thinking "it's just a skirt. how long can it take?"

a LONG LONG time!

first, math is so not my strong point. since i was using the ruffler foot, i needed the gathering to be about the same amount for both lower tiers. i added up the total length, considered that i had 3 strips that long once i'd cut them, and then figured out how long each tier should be. it took me way longer than it should have, but that was partly because i couldn't find a calculator and everytime i sat down on the computer to use google (i love using google as a calculator, i'm a geek, i know!), i'd get distracted by other things. plus, i tend to forget how many breaks my body needs now. you'd think i'd have learned, but i'm in subconscious denial or something.

anyway, i wanted the difference between the layers to be x2, so the final measurements were 86" for the top tier, 172" for the middle tier, and 344" for the bottom tier. not quite 10 yards, but pretty close.

the fabric she had was a 6yard length of sand washed emerald green silk. GORGEOUS. (sandwashed silk is sometimes called sueded silk too) she found it at value village for $5 or $6. she has amazing luck finding fabric at value village!

so super gorgeous, super soft, and super duper slinky and slippery. i had to pin every 1/2"-1" all the way along the selevedges, and even so, it didn't cut straight. the last time i sewed with sandwashed silk was cutting up my parent's worn out shirts to make barbie clothes, at the height of the sandwashed silk trend - late 80s, early 90s!

eventually i just went with it, because there was nothing i could do. luckily with a skirt like this, minor curves are minimized by the gathering anyway. the ruffler foot worked super slick once i had the setting and the stitch length down, so that was awesome.

this morning she came over, and we realized that the silk had really stretched from the weight of the gathers, and the skirt was way too long. blegh! i had to unpick the waistband and redo it and the buttonholes 4" lower before i could put the elastic and the drawstring through.

but i got it done! and it looks amazing. i went through 3 needles (i used fine sharps needles, but even so, the silk seemed to dull them really fast, and the fabric pulled once they were dull), and a crapton of thread, but it turned out gorgeous.



none of the pics i took managed to show the colour perfectly, so just imagine a super deep emerald green, okay?





it is so so full! it doesn't look super bulky, since the silk is so thin, but it billows out fabulously behind her when she walks fast.



i'm really happy with it, but slightly rethinking my plan to make myself a knee length tiered skirt....


while she was here, i took some pics of the custom corset and chemise that she finished up this morning. (she made an awesome period accurate pair of bloomers too, but i didn't get a picture of them)


(we were in such a rush to take the pics, we forgot that the chemise seams and hem hadn't been pressed yet, so ignore that!)











isn't it gorgeous? her corsets are AMAZING! the amount of work that goes into each one is mind boggling. she does have an etsy shop, if you'd like to see more of her corsets,but she keeps selling them locally, so there's only a few left in her shop. i keep telling her she needs to take pictures and show them off more!

costuming work experience

when i was in grade 12, i did a work experience program that was basically designed for the kids who were barely passing, probably just to get them out of the regular classes, but i joined it because i really wanted experience. i think i was the only person in it who graduated with honours AND with the work experience certificate. at that time i'd been doing community theatre costumes for a few years, and had been sucked into doing the costumes for school plays that year as well. i'd won an award for costumes the summer between grade 11 and 12, and i was seriously considering it as a career choice. they had no idea what to do with me, since they were so used to finding mechanical jobs and such for the kids who joined the program, and i actually had to find my own placement for the first one (working in a vintage clothing store, true value vintage. that placement actually led to a job i had later, working for their vintage wholesaler.)

however, they figured it out pretty quick, and the teacher running it turned out to be pretty awesome (she was awesome after i graduated too, she brought me in to do anti-homophobia and HIV/AIDS talks to all her classes! she was great!). my last placement was working as a PA (production assistant) on a movie set (a really cheesy straight to video horror flick!), which completely cured me of my idea to go into costume design. i hated the film industry, and i was SO glad i got the opportunity to figure that out BEFORE i went to school for it!

the middle, and best, work placement i did was with a professional costumer. she had a studio in east van that she shared with 3 other artists, another seamstress, a jeweler and someone who worked with wood. when i went there with my teacher to see if it would be a good fit, everyone seemed pretty "normal" and "appropriate" and friendly. when i went back by myself for the actual work, they were all still friendly, but the other seamstress had put her images of nude women back up on her bulletin board, and bitched about the new dykes who moved into her co-op with their rainbow pride bumper sticker (she hated pride stuff), and the jeweler told this story about how she and her lover had such loud sex that one of the neighbours kept leaving notes on their door offering her help if she was being abused! it was a great first day, i was instantly much more comfortable than i would have been if they'd been the way they were for the first visit!

anyway. it was really cool. her name was sue, (i think, it's been a while!), and she primarily made costumes for shows up north, goldrush, can-can style, etc. i learned so much about how she designed the costumes, how she determined fit when the performers weren't there to try things on, and all about the different suppliers in vancouver. we'd go shopping and spend the day going to dressew, checking out the options in little india, and my favourite, going to this awesome little millinery store where you had to be buzzed in by the VERY old lady who ran it, and only people she knew and liked were allowed to shop there! i'm sure it's gone now, i can't imagine that she would be able to continue running it. she was really old 10 years ago, so....

i also learned to use an industrial sewing machine (eventually, i broke it my first day! i felt sooo terrible, but it was easily fixed!), and how to use a ruffler foot, which i LOVED! sue moved to one of the islands with her family, which i'm sure was awesome for them, but it sucked for me, because i would have loved to continue working with her.



i found this on my computer today, i'd forgotten that i'd scanned it. i found the ad in a tourist guide when i was living in the yukon, and it's the only picture i have of the outfits that i worked on while i was there. lots and LOTS of ruffles! aren't they fun?


(click the pic to go to flickr and see it bigger!)

more halloween goodness!

before i move on to catching up on craftyness, i wannted to post a few more pictures from saturday night.

there were shrines set up all through the parade route, but since we didn't follow that, i missed them. however, i DID get to see the shrines to lost things in the park! sadly, there was a ledge right in front of them that people kept sitting on, and i hadn't quite figured out my new camera, so the pics aren't all that great. but you can still get the idea of how awesome they were!






this one was set up in the children's water play area in the park, where the ground is all rolly, (i just made up a word!), which was perfect for the skeleton swans!













as you can see, some were better than others, but the thought behind all of them was fabulous! there was also a shrine to lost languages, and unfortunately i missed that one.

they also had chloroplast bird silhouettes in all the trees. i loved that!


there was also a lot of projection art onto big sheets throughout the park, and fire dancers performing, but i missed most of that. i think if i go next year, i'd like to go earlier to see the shrines and stuff before the crowds get too huge, because it was kind of overwhelming!

i did get to see some really fabulous costumes though!

the yipyips! i spent way too much time on monday morning watching old sesame street clips on youtube thanks to this costume!


there were lots of robots wandering around!


this cupcake costume was AMAZING!


and this one was just ridiculously cute! i was so sad that i didn't get a clear picture!

happy halloween!!

dearest blog,

i know, i know, i've been neglecting you TERRIBLY! i can't seem to master the art of crafting AND blogging, and the last few weeks have been full of crafting, to the point of ridiculousness. i have so much to catch up, atcs sent and received, altoid tins sent and received, and a jar of whimsies sent and received.

but first i'll show you what was occupying all my waking hours the last week or so....




i made a halloween costume! as much as i love halloween, i haven't done anything for it the last couple of years, i just wasn't up to it, and i haven't made a halloween costume in even longer. i'm quite proud of myself!












i made everything except the shoes (which are from no sweat)! the hoodie, the skirt, the pinafore, the crinoline, the bloomers, and the tights. the hoodie and skirt are fleece, made out of a queen sized fleece blanket that i purchased for $20 (SO MUCH cheaper than fabric by the yard), the pinafore was made out of exactly 1 metre of fleece (i have two teensy strips left) that i purchased after searching my stash for anything purple and coming up empty handed, the crinoline is made out of a pink sheer from my stash, and purple lacey curtain fabric i found at the thrift store on thursday, the bloomers are 1 yard of flannelette that i bought to make baby bibs out of, and the tights are a 4way stretch cotton/spandex blend that i bought for this purpose. the big goals of this costume were that it had to be WARM, since i was wearing it to the Parade of Lost Souls, which is an outside event, and that i really really didn't want to go into vancouver to get any of the supplies! and it had to be pink and purple - i made the wig several years ago, and i think i've worn it once, so i needed another excuse!

the hoodie is based on my basic hoodie pattern, with the sleeves altered, the skirt is an almost circle skirt, made using this awesome skirt pattern calculator, the pinafore and crinoline were made up as i went along, and the tights are my basic tight pattern that i developed several years ago, but apparently i've never posted pics of my tights before!

i did the gathering on the hoodie and the skirt by hand, and then decided that it was totally ridiculous, i needed to use a ruffler foot, especially considering that i was running out of time to get the costume finished, and the crinoline would need A LOT of ruffling! i knew i had one that a coworker had passed on to me, so i hauled it out, only to discover that it was for a high shank machine. ugh. so into the crawlspace i went (did i mention this was at 1 am?), and checked all of the machines i have stored under there, and found ONE high shank machine. i have 9 or 10 sewing machines, and only ONE of them is high shank. so i hauled it into the studio, cleaned it off, opened up the bobbin case.... and realized it takes some strange shaped bobbin, very low and wide, which i didn't have. argh! i sent my sister a frantic e-mail asking her to call me the next morning. at 7:15 the next morning my phone rang, yes, she had a low shank ruffler foot, it was 60 or 70 years old, an accessory for her singer featherweight, but it should work. so i hauled my butt over to her apartment at 8am, right in the middle of morning rushhour.

i came home, and huraay, it fit! i gathered up the ruffle for the pinafore, and it was great. and then i started on the crinoline. urgh. my needle kept breaking, it was making bad sounds... so i called around, and it was determined that i really should have been using an actual brother brand ruffler foot, and that continuing to use the singer foot, even if i could get the needle to stop breaking, might throw my machine out of alignment, which i definitely didn't want! so off i went to the brother dealer, and came home with less room on my visa card, and a new ruffler foot. damn, this thing is so cool! there are a few tricks to using it, and i'll post about them later, but overall, very damn cool!

i finished the pinafore, crinoline and tights on friday, and cut out the purse and the bloomers. saturday morning i slept, then got up and finished the bloomers and the purse, and decided to add pockets to the pinafore to hold my camera and stuff, so did those as well. i finished the costume, including hand sewing the buttons on, by about 2:30, and i didn't even have to leave the house until 5! i was quite impressed with myself, actually.

and it worked wonderfully. it was a really great night, just a little bit brisk, my face was a little cool, but the rest of me was cozy warm! and i love the sensation of being warm while my face is cool - it reminds me of being a little kid!