The Airship Project: V's petticoat - done!

Traditionally, it has taken me forever to finish sewing projects. Add "going back to school" into the mix, and "forever" becomes "forever plus forever". *sigh* But, occasionally, something happens. Like this:

My many thanks to my dear friend Eg who shamed me into finishing this. :)


Of course, now I need a longer garment bag...













Eg has also decided that I need to join the Sith contingent. We'll see how that goes, but I promise I'll post progress photos when that gets underway. :)

Drinking notes: it's summer. Drink cider!

Happy sewing!

Airship project: And back to the petticoat!

Just before Dragon*Con last year, I went back to school. Not too long after Dragon*Con, I realized that being back in school would impact my time for costuming. Turned out it was more like "completely negate any and all hours you thought you could spend working on anything other than studying for class."

*sigh*

But, bowing to peer pressure over last couple of weekends, I pulled everything out and went over to a friend's house in a vain and desperate attempt to finish at least one garment. And the chosen garment was V's petticoat. Why? Because I wanted all of those piles of netting gone.

Now Eg (one of my sewing buddies) is a minor Pinterest deity, and she'd run across a suggestion of how to make gathering long strips of netting easier - run bias tape along one edge, put the gathering stitch into that and gather from there. Like so...






And it does make the gathering a little easier, even if it adds another step in construction. It also has the side effect of stiffening the petticoat a bit. (As it would. I think there are about 12 packages of bias tape in the thing.)

Here's the petticoat with several tiers done. You can see up at the top the three tiers I did at home without the bias tape. Towards the bottom are the two tiers we put on the first Saturday. And it did take us most of the day. Why?

Gathering. When you have a long strip of anything, it takes a LONG time to gather it. And this was with Eg and I working from opposite ends.There was possibly an easier way to do this (like if I could have remembered the correct stitch length to use the gathering foot, for example :).








Anyway, so last Saturday we did the last tier. Here it is laying out on the table.


That's just the last tier. I can't remember off the top of my head exactly how long it ended up being, but it was nearly 40' (yes, feet). I had to add this tier to accomodate my height, and it turned out to be a huge pain. For some reason, the bias tape didn't want to gather at all, and I'd say we probably spent an hour, hour and a half, two hours - something like that - just in gathering. Towards the end, I started settling for random pleats. It's not pretty.

By now, I was frequently referring to this petticoat as my Public Service Announcement: "Ladies, if you can, just buy it."





But eventually it was done, so I took a couple photos to show folks who couldn't quite understand my explanation of the shape it was supposed to be.

Now this is just the netting, so I've still got to put it together with the fabric (we ran out of time). But this is the rough shape it will create. Lord, I hope it all fits alright with the fabric, or I might just cry!



I promise that when it all gets put together, I'll put the entire underwear ensemble on and take a photo. If for no other reason than to prove that I do, occasionally, get something done!

Then I'll put this entire thing away and work on the IO. :)

Happy sewing!

Project the third: Avengers Assembled!

Well, Dragon*Con has come and gone, and with it, the debut of the Steampunk Avengers group costume! So for all of you who are curious how it turned out, here are the piccies.

Here's me, all dressed up and ready to go out on the town. :)


Incidentally, this was probably my best pose of the night. Let this be a salutary lesson to all costumers out there - perfect your poses before you head out to be photographed. I've got one photo of me where I look like a grumpy guy in drag. *shiver* Don't let that be you! :)

 

And here's the whole group! From left to right, you've got Thor, Enchantress, Scarlet Witch and the Vision.









And, close-ups!

Thor and Enchantress on the left. Scarlet Witch and the Vision on the right. I wish I had a better photo of the makeup on the Vision's face. It was done up with gears, and it looked really cool! Folks were coming up all night to take photos of it. :)

And for all you Star Wars fans, here's a pic of the Sith (and one random clone trooper). :)

(Had to include it - they just look so good!)

Anyway, D*C was, as usual, a whole lot of fun. It seemed more crowded this year, maybe because we spent more time wading through the costume floors in the Marriott than in years past. It was my first year to go in costume, and it's definitely a different experience. But it was still a great time. :)

Happy sewing! (And practice your poses!)

Project the third: Enchantress, revisited

And I thought the previous weekend was crazy... nothing is worse than having real life intrude on your costuming. It makes one very sad. Ah well.

Anyway, Enchantress updates. Of course I didn't take any pictures of this process, but the initial idea for fixing the Enchantress (see post here) was to build a small placket to widen the back a bit. I opted to do a rectangle the length of the gap and sew on some snaps so it could snap to the original skirt (because I was too lazy to actually cut larger panels, and I live in hope that someday the smaller one will fit). So, that sewn and snapped in place, I took the entire thing over to my friend's house for the fitting.

(I apologize once again for the jeans in the photos. I promise they aren't part of the real costume! I had to sew some eyes into the waistband of the skirt for the back piece to slot into, and I had to wear the front piece in order to mark out where they needed to go. Since I was then going to sit and sew the eyes in, I didn't want to go ahead and put on the leggings at that point. So we tried it on with the back piece, and then we realized that when you've got a corset on over jeans, it's darn near impossible to remove said jeans. /facepalm)

And here it is! :)

And the back ... please ignore my hideously over-inflated arm. :)


















One Steampunk Enchantress. :)  You can see Eg's Scarlet Witch over at Between I and J. The menfolk are being a bit more camera-shy, but I'll be sure to post some photos when we get the whole group together done up. Everyone should share in our joint insanity. :)

Post-frenetic-weekend updates!

Ever have one of those weekends where you feel like you've not really stopped to breathe? Yep, had one of those this weekend. However, much was accomplished! So, here we go...

First off, the IO caps, otherwise known as my procrastination project. I'd left off at sewing the binding strips on the outside edge of the flaps. I'll say it again, this step is optional, and I only subject myself to it because I'm just that picky. :)

Here's how the binding goes on. You cut about a 1 1/4" wide strip out of your outer fabric, stitch it to the outside edge, fold it over ...

... pin it (or use those little clips - never been so happy with a sewing purchase in all my life!) ...












 ... and hand sew it down on the other side. Repeat with other flap. Binding done!

Note on binding: you'll want to cut this strip on the bias if you're not using twill.

Then you stitch it all together (no photos because there are excellent ones showing how to do this on the pattern I linked in the last post), and you get one Imperial Officer cap.

I think all told, it took me about 15 hours to do both caps. :)

My husband and I modelling our new caps!
With greeblies!

Project number two: the Enchantress. On the agenda for this weekend was, finally, working on the leggings - the last major component of this project. I can't tell you how many pairs of black tights I bought for this, searching for a pair of a large enough size that they would maintain their opacity when worn (I am both tall and have pudgy legs, which is a really bad combination). When neither of the last two pair worked, my good friend who's been in on this since the beginning had the brainstorm: "Why don't you wear two pairs?" Holy Smokes, Batman! Why didn't I think of that?!

So, with the decision made, we proceeded with the painting. This involved my sitting really still for several hours at a time over two days on Eg's dining room table while she painted away. I kinda felt like the central exhibit in some strange performance art show. :)

Here's an in-progress photo from the end of the first day. This picture doesn't really do them justice. They look pretty darn good in person! Eg did a great job just free-handing them. :)















The other part of the Enchantress project for this weekend was working out the wig. LOL! I so totally don't look good in wigs. My head's too big and I have too much hair. But just to show that I'm willing to share all the highs and lows of costuming, here's a wig pic...

Eg says I look like Nellie Oleson!

Feel free to chuckle. Lord knows I did, after I got over the /facepalm moment. We still need to work a little on tucking all my massive amounts of hair under the wig, but we'll get there. :) I'm living in hope that the hat will hide some of that too.








And now the third part of my weekend. The part we like to call "retail therapy". Saturday morning while I was going through a depressed-at-my-fat-legs phase, my husband and I stopped by the local fabric store. My husband's not a huge fabric person, so he decided to pop into the estate sale place next door, and eventually I followed him in. And there I found Nirvana, for in the middle of the store was a large collection of vintage hats. Whoever this lady was had lived very well, as she had hats from all over the world. My guess is 30s, 40s and 50s eras. I love hats, love hats, even though I don't look good in most of them (see previous posts), so I couldn't pass this up. I ended up taking several home...


Thank you godmother! :)

And finally, recommendations! The IO caps were accompanied by a very dry English cider (Crispin) and the painting was helped along by a lovely little Chardonnay (me) and rum & Coke (Eg).

Happy sewing!

A brief interlude ...

Over the weekend I sat down to sew. As I looked around over the clouds of netting, I realized that I had neither the desire nor the will to work on petticoats. So, in the time-honoured tradition of students everywhere who have term paper deadlines looming, I found something else to do. :)


For reference, this is the hat
in question.



A while back, my husband had asked if I would make a black Imperial Officer cap for him to wear around during an upcoming trip. I said, "Sure!", and then nothing else happened on that project. Over the weekend, though, this became the rough equivalent of the aforementioned student's realizing that the bathroom needs to be cleaned or the floor should probably be swept or perhaps those dishes in the sink should really be washed. So I dug through the fabric stash to find something that would work, and on I went...

IO caps are small and finicky, but they're really not all that hard to do. You just have to make sure you have all the pieces, follow the directions and take your time about it. In about 6 hours (with time out for dinner), I cut out all the pieces for two caps, did all of the interfacing for both and got most of one sewed together (in my defense, I only stopped because I was at the handsewing stage, and black on black at night is just not fun - there's probably only another couple hours to get it finished).

Fabric choice here depends on how authentic you want to be. Medium to heavy cotton twill or wool gabardine is closest to screen accurate, I'm told. These are a heavyweight cotton twill on the outside lined with a shirt-weight cotton twill (because that's what I had, and it will breathe :).

Roll photos...

I'm making two of these at the same time, so I thought I'd lay out the pieces in the tan one and show the sewn-together piece in the black. Here's the visor section. It has two pieces - one interfaced with a light or mediumweight interfacing, the other has a sewn-in heavyweight stabilizer.

Here are the pieces for the crown of the hat. Two pieces interfaced in the lighter interfacing and sewn together into a loop.

And the two flaps - one at the front, one at the back. Each flap is made up of one piece that is interfaced and one that isn't.

Note on the flaps: the standard IO hat pattern doesn't include something you can see on close-ups of the movie costume hats: a binding on the outer edge of the flaps. It's a small detail, and something you can add or not as you like or as your authenticity desires. :)

And the most important piece of all - the greeblie!! Without a greeblie, you've just got a cap. The ones with the notches cut out of them (bottom row) are the ones recommended for hats. The smooth ones are usually used on belt buckles. As you can see, we keep a small stock. :)




So, why, when the movie Imperial Officers are all dressed in gray or black (or occasionally white), am I doing one in tan? Well, it's for a group called the RSO (Republic Services Organization), which is like the USO but for the 501st. It's a way for the handlers (ie, the wives ;) to dress up too. So the tan one is mine.

And for those folks who'd like to try this, here's the link to the standard IO hat pattern. It has great directions - follow them, take your time, and you can't go wrong. :)

I'd gotten the crown and top sewn together, but I'd stopped at the handsewing required for putting the binding on the flaps (because I am that authenticity-minded, unfortunately). More when I finish them!

Happy sewing, folks. :)

Airship Project: Still the petticoat

I have discovered a new and very deep respect for all those ladies who make or have made tutus and dance skirts for ballet companies. Ladies, chapeau.

So, netting ... yeah ..... *sigh*

Let's start with the good things about netting:

1) The clips I bought for the satin work like a dream for netting. You can even catch the gathering thread under them instead of trying to wrap it around a pin (because pins, FYI, have a tendency to just fall out of netting).
2) Netting is self-gathering. Run a long gathering stitch across the top of a strip, and you'll find it's gathered itself up very nicely by the time you get to the end. Note: this does mean that you need to leave a very long thread tail at the start of the line just in case you need to take some of that gathering out.

And then there's the not-so-good things about netting:

1) It loves everything. As in, wants to hold it, squeeze it and call it George. And I do mean everything - fabric, thread, your clothing, other strips of netting (oh, it LOVES these!), random pieces of paper - nothing is beyond its loving reach. My personal favourite (not!) is when it grabs the thread coming down out of the machine to the needle and pulls it under said needle so it gets stitched to the fabric, thus creating a thread-based negative feedback loop that immediately locks up your machine and sends you in search of the nearest alcohol-based beverage. My only consolation is that the wig is in another room completely (but I'm only half-convinced that I won't get up one morning to find the netting curled up happily around its newest platinum blonde acquisition).
2) My little well o' sewing is not nearly large enough to handle multiple long pieces of netting.
3) Netting strips, when sewn together, are quite difficult to fold up into orderly stacks (see previous post for a photo of said orderly stack). I resorted to gathering them into piles and placing them in different spots so I'd know which length was where. My well o' sewing now looks like a Spielberg early experiment in special effects:


Yep, it exploded.

Yeah ... I recommend cider for this. Right now I'm drinking the Woodchuck Summer. It's got blueberries! :)