Project the Third: Bodice, Assembled!

Sometimes you find motivation in the strangest of places. I can be terribly lazy at times, thinking to myself, "Hey, I got all those pieces cut out, it won't take me any time at all to sew it together. I can go play WoW (or watch this British mystery marathon, or whatever)." And we all know what happens then. Now, I go to lunch at the same place almost everyday. And there's a woman there I'd been talking to about this Steampunk Avengers project. Last week I find out she's moving away and she'd asked if it might be done so she could see photos before she leaves. And I thought to myself, "Hmm, dunno. I'll see what I can do!" So Tara, thanks for the motivation! :)

This weekend I sat down in my sewing area (which looks like this, by the way):

Yep, no large open areas here! That spot is just big enough for me to sit down in, and I sew with the machine peddle under my thigh. I know, I know ...

... with the piles of fabric I'd cut out a while ago...







 
... and I started sewing. Much, much basting. Much, much hand sewing (I will be a master at slip stitch when this is done). Many moments where the in-progress texts you are sending to your co-conspirators become a little strange (note: even though texts are all about brevity, under no circumstances shorten the update that you are putting all the boning into the bodice of your costume to "boning the Enchantress" ... that's just wrong.)

By Saturday night, I had this:

That gives you a pretty good idea of the size of my sewing area. The bodice is laid out in the "well" where I sit. Yes, really. Anyway, that's the bodice all put together with those fantastic little clips holding the bias tape over the neckline edge that I'd still left to sew. This was about 7 hours work, I think. There are three layers in the bodice and a fair amount of sewn-in structure. You can see a piece of the boning by the small scissors at the top of the picture. By the way, those are titanium scissors that my husband gave me. He'd discovered them while working on his clone trooper. They so rock.

Anyway, so Sunday I got back to work. At this point all of the machine sewing I could do on this was done, and only the hand-work remained. Remember how much I hate hand sewing? Yeah, still hate it. But now I'm better at it! End of day Sunday:

I have it laid open here (ie, the zipper and neck tie at the back aren't closed) because I was working on the fringe. In some of the depictions of the Enchantress, she has this long fringe skirt, so we opted in this costume design to fringe the bottom of the bodice and also to fringe the bottom of the front of the skirt. This was probably another 4 hours of work or so, then my fingers got really mad at me and rather insisted that I stop sewing.

Anyway, on Monday, the gloves I'd ordered showed up. :)
 

Yeah, I know it's not exactly the same shade, but you know what, I'm good with that. They aren't the same shade in most of the drawings of her either!














And that's the update. :) I still hate hand sewing, and I really suck at zippers (yes, I'll admit it), but the bodice is together! And now my co-conspirator (that would be "Scarlet Witch") is back from her vacation, so hopefully I'll soon get an opportunity to make sure it all still fits (luckily, it's worn over a corset, so there's a secondary fitting mechanism that does not involve, hopefully, my taking this thing apart again).

No wine recommendation, I'm afraid. It was terrifically hot here this weekend, and my sewing spot is right by a window, so I was pretty much on ice water and the occasional Diet Dr. Pepper all weekend. Besides, handsewing needles + titanium scissors + alcohol = much blood. :) Safe sewing, people!

The Hat, Con't.

And here's an update on the hat. :) I was horribly lazy and didn't work on it at all over the weekend, so this is really "the hat through Friday", but meh, that's just how it is.

This particular construction method has you leave the brim piece as a complete circle (ie, not cut out like a doughnut) for covering. So here's the fabric stretched across the underside of the brim (with the crown sitting on it for scale) ...

And here's the same shot with the fabric for the upper side clipped on. Nothing's sewn yet here. BTW, a note on those little clips all the way around the edge. I'd seen them in a sewing magazine and thought they might come in handy but hadn't managed to get hold of any until they showed up in my local sewing store just before this project took off. They absolutely paid for themselves with just this hat!

That said, they are a PitA to sew around - they love to grab the thread. But they are otherwise so terribly handy, I can work around that. :)


So here's the hat with the brim all sewn together.

There are spots where I didn't get the stitches quite right (see "well of fail"), but I remind myself that most of it will be covered by the netting and trimmings and brim shaping, and then I don't feel so bad. :)

Note that the pieces aren't actually sewn together in that photo, but that's roughly how it will look before all the aforementioned netting, trimmings and shaping.  I still need to cut the "head hole" out and stitch it up inside the crown piece - a process for which I finally procured some curved milliners' needles (which, btw, I should have recommended way back in the beginning - ah well!).

As a random sidenote, in case you too are comic-book-challenged, here's the Enchantress:

This is the photo I received randomly on my phone during lunch one day with the appended note: "How about her?" From such small things do such mighty projects spring!

(Good Lord, wherever will I find a wig with that much poof!)







Happy sewing!

The hat, day 3.

Well, I've learned a fair few things from this project so far. :) The most important one being that satin, due to that beautiful sheen we covet it for, will "reflect" anything and everything that's underneath it, including the stitches of your frame wiring efforts. Ah well, guess that's why we have trimmings, yes?

So on to the photos.

Here's the frame completely wired and stitched together. Now here's where I kinda messed up. See, I failed to check the diameter of the opening at the top of the crown when I pinned the back seam, so when I went to stitch the top piece in, there was a gap. Not a huge gap, but a gap nonetheless. So, we fall back on the "they won't see it when it's done" doctrine and sew it in with slightly looser stitches, so it holds, but it's tied down like a trampoline. 

Important note here: neither buckram nor wire will stretch, but you can use them as bracing for taut, but open, stitches. :) In the end, it looked like the picture to the right (that's a quarter for scale). Ah well, not perfect, but it will do. The second important note: hats don't usually require the rugged construction of clothing - they just don't get that much stress, so you can get away with things that you can't with clothes.

Remember that, and it will save you much sanity. :)

Next up, start covering with fabric:

Here's the top piece of the satin pinned loosely over the top of the hat. I decided I would just tack it in a few places and then smooth the fabric out as I stitched around the edge.

And here's the top all stitched down. I went around the edge right up close to the top first, figuring that's all that was really needed. But satin is pretty stiff, and it stood away from the frame a bit when I'd finished, so I opted to take some extra time and do a second row of stitching right above the bottom edge of the fabric with the idea that that would keep it from bunching up under the fabric on the crown (it kinda did).

Then I pinned the crown fabric all the way around. You can see just below the top what I meant about satin "reflecting" what lies beneath it - the bumps are from the stitched-down top piece. *sigh* If I were to do this again, I'd probably a) not use satin, and b) line the frame first with something like light flannel to cut down on the framework showing through to the outside (you're really suppose to do that - I'm totally lazy).

And finally, the covered crown (yay!!!). Here's my admission for the day: for all that I love making hats, hand sewing is my personal well of fail. So anything that requires "small, neat stitches" as this does tends to make me giggle nervously and go looking for the nearest bottle of cider (random side note: if there's anything I've learned from hours of dungeon-healing on WoW, it's that cider is the best calming agent ever invented. True story). You're seeing the pretty side of the sewing here. The other side is .... not.

So, the growing list of rules for hatmaking:

1) Patience, grasshopper.

2) The "they won't see it when it's done" doctrine: if it won't show when the hat is done and you need to do it, do it, even if it's ugly. :)

Up next, finishing the bottom edge of the crown, covering and adding the brim. Then ... trimming! :)

(I wonder if there's a cold cider in the fridge.)

Tip o' the 'at to ya, guvnor!

I love hats. Love hats. Back in the SCA, I would make entire outfits just so I could make and wear the hat. I don't necessarily look all that good in hats (at least, I know plenty of people who look much better), but I love making them. I think it's the fact that they are finicky and nit-picky. Anyway, I love 'em! So in designing the Enchantress costume for our Steampunk Avengers group project, of course there had to be a hat. :) I decided on a Victorian-era hat in the same green satin as the costume. There will probably be netting and a gem-type centerpiece. We'll see when I get there!

So, to gather the pieces:

The hat will have a wired buckram base, and those pieces are already cut out and lying on the folder there. They need to be pressed or backrolled to get out the curl. I've had the buckram a while (I buy it in rolls), so I'm not sure but I think it's double-weight buckram.  The dark circle is the top of the hat, already wired (forgot to take a photo before I started!).

You also need:
- wire (I'm using 19 gauge wire I get from Home Depot)
- wire snips
- needlenose pliers (WAY too handy!)
- needles (I have milliners', but any sturdy needles will do)

- buttonhole twist thread (again, you want sturdy)

- scissors

OK, so essentially you then set about wiring the edges of your pieces and anywhere else you think might need some support. For example, the crown has support wires running from the top of the hat to the brim to make it a little less "smashable". Sewing wire to buckram can be extraordinarily frustrating - the wire wants to curl, the thread wants to twist, and nothing wants to play nice. You also need a fair amount of hand strength. Patience is most definitely required, but stick with it. It doesn't last forever! :)

Here's the wired brim and top. It's not pretty, but it doesn't really have to be - no one will see the frame once the hat is done (yay!!). You'll note that the center of the brim isn't cut out yet (it doesn't look like a doughnut). I'm using a Truly Victorian pattern (TV550) for this since it's the right era. The designer also puts her hats together differently than I've done in the past, and I'm always interested in trying new methods. :)

Here's the wired crown. For some reason, the wire hated me for this piece, so it was much more frustrating than I'd planned. But it looks pretty good, so I'm happy with that. :) Note the vertical support wires I talked about earlier. Next step will be closing the open seam at the back there and sewing the top piece to the top of the crown. Then ... fabric! :)

At this point, I've put about 4 hours into this hat. :)

More later! I'm off to enjoy a nice glass of wine to negate all the sewing needle pricks and wire scratches. :)

A Wine Post!

It occurred to me that I'd not posted anything in a while, and I did, way back at the beginning, promise wine comments from time to time. So, while I'm getting the photos and everything ready for the next costume post, here's a wine review. We'll call it

What I'm Drinking Now

And there are two wines for today, courtesy of a little grill-out my husband and I threw a couple weeks back. The first wine is a Pinot Noir blanc (that is, a rosé) by a Californian winery called Belle Glos. It's their Oeil de Perdrix ("Eye of the Partridge"). Rosés are a great summer wine, especially for folks who like reds but want something a little lighter for the hotter months. They also rock with grilled foods. :) I'm a big fan of rosés, and I feel they're often underrated. So, there's wine #1.

Wine #2 I discovered at our local wine shop. It's an absolutely brilliant place with very knowledgeable staff and a tasting bar where you can sample three or four new wines every day. (Speaking of the folks there, that's how I found wine #1 - just asked one of the guys there who knows me (ie, that I appreciate good wine and I'm cheap!) and he said, "try that one." So, thanks Ben!) Anyway, one day I was at the tasting bar and there was this wine that I'd never heard of. Let me clarify, while there are many wineries I've never heard of, it's very rare that there's a varietal I've never heard of (for folks new to wine, a varietal is the type of grape a wine is made from - like chardonnay or merlot). But here was one. It was a white grape called Falanghina which is primarily grown around the Naples / Vesuvius area in southern Italy. Alright, I was curious. So I tried it.

Now here's where my taste in wine and that of a lot of my friends (and my husband) diverge. I love dry whites. My all-time favourite white wine is Sancerre, which comes from the Loire valley in France and is grown on the limestone there. It is flinty, suck-the-moisture-out-of-your-mouth dry, and I love that. This Falanghina is kinda like that. Not quite as dry, but pretty crisp with some citrusy flavours. All in all, pretty good for sitting out on the front porch on a summer's evening. :) The one I had was the Vesevo Falanghina Beneventano 2011, if you're interested. (And if you like sweeter wines, try the Rosa di Bianca sparkling wine. :)

Happy sipping! :)

Project the Third: Avengers, Gather for Tea!

I think I mentioned that our friends sometimes get us into trouble with their ideas for group costumes, like the Steampunk Airship. Well, this time it was ...? Steampunk Avengers. Now before y'all think we're just jumping on the movie bandwagon, I should mention that this idea was the brainchild of our acknowledged "comic book geek" friend. He's the equivalent of my "Star Wars geek" husband (and believe me, that's kinda scary).

Anyway, it quickly became apparent that we would not be able to stick to the movie Avengers - too many women, only one Black Widow, for example. So, we branched out, or rather I should say, our friend branched out and gave us choices (because I, at least, am fairly comic book-challenged!). So our friend became The Vision, his wife (obviously?) Scarlet Witch, my husband (being the tall blond amongst us) Thor, and I got The Enchantress, who was described to me as "Thor's Catwoman". So yep, I get to be the one and only baddie. I think I can do that! :) (Other folks have other costumes, but since I've been sewing over at Scarlet Witch's house, she gets the shout-out! :)

Since my husband was opting for a bartender-esque character concept for Thor, I decided on a saloon girl for Enchantress. So the plan is to modify the Simplicity saloon girl costume pattern to incorporate some of the character's defining motifs (the gloves, the leggings, the fringe skirt, the headpiece). First up, make up the interlining (cotton poplin) to check fit:

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of us checking the fit on the underlining when it was all together (sorry!), but that pile of green stuff on the bag there are the pieces once fitted and taken apart (and it's also a good idea of the piles of supplies dragged around for this project!). Should also mention that this was the first time I'd ever experienced fabric that had been twisted on the loom. It wasn't fun. You know how they always tell you to check the fabric before you buy it to make sure it hasn't done that, but you never do because you think it won't happen to you? Well, children, it does happen. Learn from my mistake! Anyway...

Next up, the lining. It needed to be green, and we'd found this cute green roses pattern that I'd decided would make me feel "pretty on the inside". When we laid it out to cut, it became apparent to me that green roses look an awful lot like cabbages.


Hmmm.






And finally the outer shell in satin. Yep, satin. I really am that much of a glutton for punishment.

Assuming I manage to get it all sewn together without committing ritual suicide, I'm theorizing that wearing it will generate enough water loss through sweat that I can lose at least a couple of dress sizes. :) Gotta be a silver lining somewhere, yes?





So there it is, the start of the third (of four) projects. I have a feeling that number four will be a LONG time in coming! :)

Oh! And the wine suggestion. This one is easy. Rosa di Bianca. It's a nice little sparkling wine that tastes kinda of oranges and has a low alcohol content. Perfect for hot days (and it was very hot the day we were doing all of this), and the low alcohol means you can still see the scissors. :)

Happy sewing!