Naka-Kon 2015

I spent the weekend out at Naka-Kon, Kansas City's Anime convention.  While anime is not really my thing, I've been involved with this convention in one capacity or another for going on seven years now, so it's always held a warm spot in my heart.  The con has been growing by leaps and bounds lately and this year, they had over 8500 attendees - and that's without counting hundreds of badges handed out to staff and volunteers and guests and vendors and press...  So yeah, it's gotten kinda big.  I went out on Thursday night and helped out with registration, and took the opportunity to wear my "angel and devil on my shoulder" bobble head get up.  Yes, that's Captain America and Iron Man.  No, you shouldn't have to ask which is the angel and which the devil.

After I went home on Thursday night, I got the itch to make up this yukata that I'd bought a lovely water lily cotton for something like $1.99.  It was one of those "simple" projects that I always meant to do up, but never seemed to get around to and I found I was just annoyed with myself enough to power through it.  From sketching out the pattern and doing my math (had to get creative with the cutting layout, as I only had 3.75 yards to work with), the whole project took just under six hours to complete.  But as I was approaching that third hour, disaster struck when I realized that I had cut one of my front panels upside down.  The left front panel, to be precise.  The exact panel which should be folded over on top of the right in a properly worn kimono.  Cue minor bits of swearing.  However, genius idea struck.  See, the major faux pas in wearing a kimono wrapped right over left is that wrapping a kimono in that fashion is how the dead are traditionally dressed for burial.  Soooo, I decided to be a ghost.  And let me tell you.  Googling for pictures of Japanese ghosts for makeup ideas at four in the morning does not prepare you for a restful night of sleep.  But, a lovely You Tube tutorial was found and all was well with the world.

People seemed to fluctuate between staring and being unable to make eye contact.  And let's be honest here.  I scared the crap out of myself whenever I wandered by a mirror.  Creepy veiny eye bruising aside, my wig was BLONDE!

Creepy bottom-lit cosplay photoshoot for the win.

Saturday was eaten up as a workmanship judge for the cosplay contest.  I swear, workmanship is my favorite kind of judging.  I get to see all of these amazing costume up close, and then they TELL ME HOW THEY DID IT!  I am still amazed by all that can be accomplished in the world of faux armor, and got several ideas for painting techniques that I hope to one day take advantage of.

photo credit to Satoshi Inoue

I always have trouble deciding what to wear when I'm judging a contest.  There's a part of me that thinks that need to "wear my credentials', but sometimes hard to balance.  It has to be a costume that I can drive to and from the convention center in, as well as comfortably sit in for hours, and that eliminates pretty much all of the corseted costumes.  I don't want to wear anything that has lots of makeup or body paint when I expect to be fondling other peoples' costumes.  And at an anime con, I'm always afraid that the historical garb would be completely lost on anyone.  So, kimono it is, then.  I ended up over-sleeping on Saturday and just threw on my hand-painted haori jacket over street clothes and had to make do with that.  Felt a little odd being the only non-character, unwigged person on the judging panel, but perhaps I got lucky and they all just thought I was super confident, or something.

Now I just need to find myself an anime character that I can make a cosplay of for next year.


edited to add on 3/06/16: basic kimono pattern manipulation to accommodate wide hips.

Sideless Surcoat - Historical Sew Monthly Stashbusting Challenge

Building on the generic Medieval fantasy costume that I started working on last month, I made up a relatively straight-forward sideless surcoat.  Went the easy route and again brought out the Burda 7977 for this instead of using one of any number of fabulous tutorials that are out there.  The goal here was to bang something out quickly so that I could show off the kirtle at Figments & Filaments here in Kansas City next month.

I was already planning to avoid buying anything new for this project, so it fit in nicely with the Historical Sew Fortnightly Monthly challenge for March which was "Stashbusting".  I found a five yard section of wool suiting that had a subtle brown and tan twill weave to it that I picked up at a steep discount eons ago with the notion that surely I could use it for something.  Thems dangerous words right there.  Well, to make it a little less 'shiny suit' and a little more Fourteenth Century, I serged the raw edges and dumped the lot of it into the washing machine on warm, and dried it on medium heat.  This resulted in an every so slight bit of felting which softened the overall hand and color nicely.  The contrasting was done in black silk velvet that was leftover from my Queen of Hearts project, and plus the thread, that's all there is to it.

Lol.  My neighbors must think we're so weird.

Not sure why it's riding up like that in the back.
Must have caught on the belt I'm wearing over the kirtle.

Another shot at that paternoster and the decorative edging on the sleeves of my kirtle.

You can almost tell in the close up shot above, but for the velvet, I just laid out the pattern pieces and cut strips about four inches in from the arm hole openings.  The velvet was sewn to the WRONG side of the arm openings, then folded to the outside, encasing the seams.  I then top-stitched about 1/4" from the edge, then again about 3" in from the edge and trimmed off the excess.  The top stitching largely gets lost in the pile of the velvet, so I didn't think it detracted from the historical look too much.  To finish those raw cut edges, I just used black silk thread to whip stitch and short intervals all the way around.  The collar and hemline were treated in much the same way

Thrift Store Finds: making a 1920s Flapper-worthy hand bag from a ladies blouse

A bit of a 'quickie' project to help me feel accomplished in between finishing off bigger fish.  One of the things I made time for on my trip to LA last summer was to hit up some thrift stores.  One of my finds from the Goodwill of Los Angeles (just west of Beverly Hills and south of Hollywood) was this blouse, a Hale Bob beaded silk burnout tank top that I practically tore off the hanger and hid under my arms.  It's the kind of top that, while pretty, I could never personally wear and do justice.  But as luck would have it, it was just enough fabric for a kick ass purse.

The color.  The beading.  The pattern... there was nothing about this that I didn't love.

Blouse was lined in a bright yellow habotai silk, and so I cannibalized that to be my purse's lining.

Only $2.99.  Considering similar blouses on the store's website were running around $140, I got off pretty light.

I happened to already have a ball clasp purse frame in the stash, so I used that as the foundation.  The lining and fashion layers were separated, and a bit of scrap yellow cotton was used to sketch out a pattern (and later as an interlining to give the finished bag some shape).  Basically, from the hinges up, I added a half-inch to the finished dimensions to allow for seams to be folded down.  Then I free-handed a basic purse-like shape that was wider than the handle, but would end up being gathered in at the top edges to meet the hinges.  I did the whole thing over top of the lining to remind myself of what my absolute limits to the dimension would have to be.

I took the cotton pattern and folded it in half before cutting so that I'd end up with something a bit more symmetrical that what I could manage by hand.

I treated the interlining as a sort of flatlining for the lining silk.  I did this because I wanted to install pockets and they needed something of structure to attach to.  I made up the template by pulling out the things that I knew I wanted easily accessible.  By having the heavy phone anchored to the wall of the lining, I could avoid having a bag that sagged in the center under it's weight.  The pen and cash/card pockets were for things easily lost in a big bag.  I just approximated about a half inch of space around each of the items for ease of use.

  

I folded the lining fabric over the edges of of the interlining once on three sides, and folded down twice on what would be the top edge.  The bottom corners were turned in to keep them from straying into the seam allowance on the bottom edge.

Finished pocket attached to the lining, flat-lined to the cotton interlining.  I put a row of stitches across the bottom of the cash n cards pocket to raise these items up a bit to make them easier to retrieve. 

The fashion and lining layers were assembled separately by laying the right sides together and stitching around the bottom/sides to within just over a half inch of each top corner.  The lining was sewn on the machine, but the delicate burnout velvet fashion layer was done by hand (mostly to keep my machine from eating the bead).

So sheer!

The fashion layer was attached to the purse frame first by folding the top edge over the bar and hand-stitching in place.

Then the lining was inserted and the top edges folded under, then whip stitched to the fashion layer just under the bar.  The outer corners were folded under and whip stitched as well, and then the points of those corners were tack stitched to the insides of the corners near the hinges to give the bag a bit of a gathered effect.  I made sure to  put the tag back into the finished purse, as a reminder of the piece's former life.  It makes me smile.

Slap on a beaded tassel and TA DA!  We're done!  Now to find an excuse to wear it.  :)

Medieval Fantasy Kirtle and Paternoster (Rosary Beads)

So I made myself a second kirtle for a medieval fantasy group project that I got roped into and I found myself wanting to come up with an outfit to wear it with.  Hence the non-specific Medieval fantasy-like project was born.

I used Burda 7977 for the kirtle and ended up fitting it with bust darts to give it a bra-less snug fit, so not terribly historically accurate, but comfy as hell.  Darts were a much easier fix to do when fitting myself, as opposed to trying to re-work the armscye.  There is not enough yoga in the world that would let me do that properly and I was too impatient to wait for help.

The dress is a mid-weight (4.7 oz) linen from Dharma Trading Co, dyed a pale green to match the details in the as-yet unfinished overdress.   Machine sewn for all weight-bearing construction seams, since learning when to say no to hand-stitching is one of my goals in life.  But I did cave and tack down the felled seams by hand.

This is the second time I've made up this pattern, but the first time that I attempted the double sleeves thing it has going on.  They actually turned out pretty nice and I think I'll leave off the lacing on the over sleeves so that they hang open a bit for some flair.

Here you can see the hand stitching to finish the seams, as well as where I used gold silk thread embellishment to hide the top-stitching around the neckline, which was also how I treated the lower edge of the cuffs of the over sleeve.

Once it's on me and I'm wearing shoes, the hem will sit just off the floor.

While I was fitting with the back safety-pinned closed, I realized that I could slip the dress on and off without un-pinning it.  Therefor, the lacing didn't have to be strictly functional.  So to save a truly epic amount of time, I skipped binding the eyelets and just gently used an awl to help thread a rayon yarn through the edges.  I was able to keep my lacing intervals much narrower this way, so to avoid too much puckering of the center back when worn.

I came across the idea for a paternoster while browsing through medieval costume sources online, looking for accessory ideas.  While not a particularly religious person myself, I latched onto the notion of the rosary being an acceptable way for individuals to express their tastes and show off wealth, without being considered "too flashy" in doing so.  As the outfit I was making was gearing up to be an upper class representation, the rosary became an essential accessory.  Sarah Edgecumbe has put together a fantastic pinterest board on the topic, with LOTS of references from paintings.  Also, paternoster-row.medievalscotland.org, as well as this SCA paper were super informative.

I ended up making mine from materials that I already had on hand.  Fifty 5/16" light red beads meant to resemble coral, separated by larger beads of "jade", also quite decadent.  Christ Laning has an entire blog post devoted to the red beaded paternooster that helped cinch my choice of beads.  My fantasy lady apparently has expensive and exotic tastes.  I strung them all on gold silk cord and I made a small tassel from the same.

The whole thing isn't large, but just enough to wear wrapped around the wrist and offer me something for my fidgety hands to play with.

Life catching up with you

So... apparently, I haven't published anything since mid-September.  Opps.  I'd say, how did that happen, but I think I already know.  I got side-tracked from historical projects when I scrapped my initial plans for Halloween.  And then work got the way work tends to do, sometimes, with looming inspections and an unimaginable quantity of new responsibilites.  Stress means that I started spending my free time immersed in my preferred avoidance technique, reading fanfiction.  Combine that with a shiny new fandom obsession (hellooooo, Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Where have you been all my life?)  Then there was Arisia coming up and my responsibilities there were more focused on the planning of programming than the making of anything new.  So, yeah.  A creative dry spell and falling off the face of the blogosphere was bound to happen, as I always feel like I have nothing to say if I've got nothing to show.  But things have sorta kinda settled down with work a bit, and I'm ready to stop avoiding the craft room and get back to work.  So I share with you an overview of what I've been working on.

Scrapped Halloween Plans
My original idea for Halloween fit into the Alternate History challenge for the Historical Sew Fortnightly.  The spousal unit and myself were going as 'Victorian Spiders', inspired by some of the fantastical fancy dress costumes of the late Victorian era.  I already had the black underskirt, but I was able to bang out a black widow themed over-skirt and most of a brown gentleman's vest that was due to have an inverted fiddle applique on the back.  But this was the project that just stalled out on me and ended up getting shelved.  Nice part is that when I come up with another event needing something along these lines, it shouldn't take too much effort to polish them off.

Halloween 2.0: Marvel Superheroes
When the motivation to work on the Victorian spiders dried up, I decided to pursue a wild hair inspired by my current fandom obsession.  I made the Captain Marvel on the left for my bff (well, cannibalized a zentai suit and attached the mantle, hip scarf and accessorized), and my fem Captain America on the right (in which I Frankensteined a dress set out of a pair of stretch, textured tube skirts off the rack).  Wolverine in front and Star Lord in the center back completed our haphazard team.

Quilted Jumps
They were originally plotted out as an entry for the HSF challenge #16, Terminology.  Then they took a little while to get from drafted out to cutting and so got pushed back to #17, Yellow.  Then I found a funny reference in a poem while I was doing some research and they were totally going to be done in time for the challenge #18, Poetry in Motion.  But even on the machine, the quilting took FOREVER and I was like, that's it.  I know I've seen SOMEBODY do jumps in the last 18 months of HSF, I'll just write it in for inspiration and call it good.  Well, yeah.  They're still a work in progress.  I'm just about done with the binding, having left a few gaps to put in the boning that I ordered the other tnight.  So there's really very little left to do at this point.  I wanted a set of jumps to use as an alternative to stays worn under my chemise a la reine.  The yellow should be light enough to not be TOO obvious under the thin white cotton (or at least less obvious than my current gray and navy stays).

And what's coming next?

- Well, I've given myself permission to set aside the HSF challenges for now.  As much fun as they were, I was stressing myself out about getting to every single one of them and screwing myself over when it came to prioritizing projects.

- Figments & Filaments (a costuming convention here in Kansas City) is coming up and I've gotten a few panel ideas in for that.  I've not let myself be in charge of anything big, but I've found lots of little ways to get involved and hopefully make the experience a better thing for all involved.

- the deadline for getting in class proposals for Costume College came too soon after Arisia for me to be able to devote a lot of energy to them, but I was able to get one proposal in at the last minute for a workshop that would be uber fun to do, should it get selected.  Plotting for costumes for that, however, will just have to wait.  Before that is...

- Costume Con, which I had to miss last year and I was totally missing it.  Costume Con has a strong competition element to it (among a lot of other things), but as I'm one of those people that thrive on competition, it's totally my thing.  I find that having a hard deadline and knowing that someone is going to be looking at my costumes VERY closely really spurs me on.  I do more research, make my work neater and really put the extra umph into it, which results in a better finished project.  I've lucked out in that I have only one new 'from scratch' project in mind for this year, and that was being an extra in someone else's big group project, so I don't really have to do the stressful plotting and planning for it.  Just make a dress and show up for rehearsals, which is oddly relaxing.  I have a couple of pieces that were long languishing works in progress that I've brought out to finish up for this.  And a finished costume that totally fits a theme.  And my historical masquerade entry was 'finished enough to wear' but totally needs more work and the collation of all of my documentation.

So I've got enough to be getting on with, me thinks.  Mostly I wanted to get all of this down to swing myself back into this blogging thing.  As I wrap projects up, hopefully I'll remember to do the show-and-tell part that should come after them.

Mama's little sewing helper.

I'm thinking this must be what it's like to try to sew with kids in the house.

Costume College 2014: Studio Pictures

I'm going to start by saying that the photo studio set up for Costume College is perhaps the most brilliant I have ever seen.  For those of you unfamiliar with it, the convention arranges for a professional photographer to come in and set up their area.  Attendees can then purchase a pass in the form of a badge ribbon for $1.  That pass allows them to come to the studio as often as they like, getting professional shots documenting all of their costumes (excepting those worn on Thursday night, before the con properly gets underway).  Then you go to the photographer's website to view the proofs of yourself and everyone else who visited the studio, purchasing what you'd like a copy of.  The "low res" copies cost just $2 each.  Being one of those people who isn't too great at getting around to getting nice pictures taken of me at con, this set up was brilliant.  Meaning I now have great documentation of all of my costumes in excellent lighting, while I was dressed up with the hair and makeup and all the accessories.

So now, a PROPER summary of what I wore to Costume College:

Thursday night Tiki Pool Party
Hibiscus kimono and hand-painted haori jacket
(not from the studio, but I wanted a complete lineup)

Friday Night "Club Ice" Ice Cream Social
1920s Mr Freeze

Victoria and I had the same idea on Saturday morning; we both showed up wearing white neckerchiefs over hair that was half-done up for the Gala that night.  The fact that we also ended up in green tops and jeans was just too funny not to document.

Saturday morning: oh crap I have a class to get to and my hair is only half-done!

Saturday Night's Gala
18th century court ensemble

Sunday Morning Breakfast
18th century short gown w/ cotton petticoat and whitework embroidery apron

Sunday Afternoon Tea: Ladies' Day at the Ascot
18th c Chemise a la Reine

Ah.  And NOW I'm finally done posting about Costume College, at least until we start plotting for next year.

HSF 16 Terminology & HSF 17 Yellow - 1880s Tea Gown

Sooo... I had all of these grand epic plans to make a tea gown for the HSF Terminology post, but I ran into a bit of a demotivating wall when it came time to put the sleeves on and I couldn't commit to a trimming scheme.  Lucky for me, the fabric I ended up making the gown out of was a lovely, buttery yellow gold and the next HSF challenge in line was yellow, so not all was lost.

I've been in a decluttering mood here at the end of the summer, so I thought I'd try to focus on a couple of projects that would help me make a dent in the stash.  Do you remember that dye fail project from back in February?  The one where I realized that the yellow/gold rayon faille that I bought turned out to be a rayon/acetate blend and attempting to dye it red just left me with ten yards of fleshy pink nonsense? 

Yeah, that one.

So I had the bright idea that I'd make a tea gown out of it, because hey, what the hell.  I've made up enough Truly Victorian bodice patterns that I felt comfortable just making the necessary adjustments to the pattern on paper and skip the mock up.  Easy, one piece project, cheap fabric, no mock up... I was totally going to get this done in the two weeks that I had until the challenge was due.

I was wrong.  I took a break from cutting pattern pieces to dye up something like 12 yards of nylon velvet ribbon for trim.  The goal was to get a nice, deep burgundy color to complement the fleshy pink.  But the ribbon had been dyed and bleached once before in a failed attempt at making ivory by my sewing buddy over the summer and it didn't quite take up the dye the way I wanted it to.  In fact, the ribbon wasn't burgundy at all, but a nice, grapey purple.  Seriously, we're talking grape jelly here.  Well that was definitely going to clash with the pink.  So I tried to darken it into a more brown color, but that didn't work, either.  Eventually, I ended up with a rich, deep eggplant color that I totally loved... that also totally clashed with the pink.  So I scooped all of the pink fabric up and dumped it onto the floor, pulling out the five yards of undyed yellow gold that were left.  This was a bit shy of what the pattern stated that I'd need, but as the faille didn't really have a nap or directional pattern pattern to it, I figured I could get away with it, and so I started cutting all over again.

We'll start with a split pic, because the flash was doing absolutely nothing polite to the color of the faille.  The cutaway on the left was done without flash and, although a bit blurry, is much a truer representation of the actual color of the gown.

Some people are the sort of person that they can plot out a project to the end, complete with what trim they want where, so that the ends of trim can be inserted into the appropriate sleeves as they go along.  I am not that visionary.  I personally have a lot of trouble imagining how I want to trim a garment until I can look at it mostly assembled.  But sewing the ribbon onto a garment that I couldn't lay flat would have been nearly impossible.  So I sketched and I pinned and I stared and I waffled and re-pinned and then set the whole project aside for a bit instead of finishing it off over Labor Day weekend as I'd planned.  My biggest stressor was the pointed bits on the front and back of the bodice.  I couldn't figure out how I wanted the points to meet.  As is, the center of the points is ever so slightly off center from the front of the gown, which is along the line of buttons.  It took looking at a lot of asymmetrical gowns in order to convince myself to be okay with (and perhaps a glass of wine or two in order to find the courage to start sewing), but once I got over that hump, the rest of the trimmings just fell together.

The finished gown is floor length in the front, with a sweeping train in the back.  I'll probably stick a bustle pad under the petticoat to help fill it out a bit in the back.  And a faille petticoat over the cotton one will help hold the train out and keep it from collapsing in the back.  (also, an actual butt instead of my broken, hip-less dress form will help, too,)

Hmm, I'm good with the front, but that's an awful lot of
blank space there in the back.  But bow, perhaps?

After the points on the front of the bodice, I kind of wanted to embrace this asymmetrical theme that I had started.  I made cuffs that were not a uniform depth, so that they wrapped around the cuff and looked as if they buttoned closed, encasing the narrower end.  The same style was used on the tops of the pockets.

Pleats seem to be one of those things that I just can't not do.  They consume so much time, but damn if they don't just define the late Victorian look for me.  I sped up the process a bit with these in a couple of ways.  They are only finished on the lower edge, and I used hem binding tape to avoid the bulk of double turning the edge.  Then I inserted one three inch space after every three one inch pleats.  You can't really tell, because I hung the pointed ribbon tabs in the center of each of these wider spaces and unless you're looking for it, you probably wouldn't notice.  The tabs were cut into points and then treated with fray check.  Lastly, I avoided finishing the top edge of the pleats by sewing them directly to the hem and sewing the strip of ribbon over it.  Since the velvet ribbon is dark and bulky, you can't see the added bulk that it hides.

Gasp!  Sneaky cheating.  Also, I was running low on matching thread at this point
and went with a "close enough".  Luckily, I only had to do this on the hem

I was able to use up a spectacular amount of the hem and bias tapes that I inherited from my grandmother.  Since no one would see them on the inside, I felt no shame in using up whatever odd colors I could come up with.

I had just enough fabric left over to cut a partial front panel for an underskirt that I'll doctor up with the leftover bits of ribbon so that I'll have another option if I want to wear the tea gown open over a matching skirt.  I'll utilize some of the pink fabric to finish the top four inches of the front panel, as well as the side and back panels of the skirt.  As it'll be hemmed to a couple inches shorter than the tea gown, I'm not too worried about the pink sticking out.  As it stands, the cotton petticoat I made back in May doesn't give quite enough boost to my bustle-less bum, so making an underskirt with a good bit of yardage gathered into the back of the waistband will certainly help, regardless of whether or not I unbutton enough of the tea gown for anyone to see  it.

Hmm... now what to do with the remaining scraps of ribbon?  Surely the dress needs a bow somewhere.  ;)