A Short-ish Update

So I wrote a whole post on Steampunk World's Fair prep that I had done and fully intended to photograph my costumes before leaving.  Then I decided to add a costume about a week before the event.  I tried really hard to pull it together and actually got most of the work done on it, but the night before I had to leave I was in my sewing room at 11:30 PM getting ready to do the final few steps when I realized the sleeves and waist were too small and would need to be adjusted.  I gave up, packed up the outfits that I had finished, packed up the car, and called it a night.  I got to bed around 2 AM, worked all day, then drove up to Piscataway for the event. 

My costumes from Steampunk World's Fair have still not been photographed and, in fact, are still in my car.  It's been about a month since the event, so you can see how on the ball I am about this.


The almost-but-not-really-finished costume is still in my sewing room and I haven't even gone up there in a month.  It's so messy that I'm totally overwhelmed and am trying not to even think about it. 

I have every intention to take the outfits out of the car, clean up the sewing space, and photograph them all in the very near future.  In the meantime, here I am in the Dig This Real video from Steampunk World's Fair in my hottest outfit on the hottest day right after doing a(n amazing, but hot) self-defense class with Mark P. Donnelly.  Outside. It was (so, so) hot in that outfit.  And my obijime came untucked.  :(  http://youtu.be/VctUfVZjjpo#t=8m42s

I'm also continuing to over schedule myself, so here's a list of some stuff I'll probably be attending and creating costumes for. 

Upcoming (possible) events:

Celtic Fling at the PA Ren Faire 6/27 (no costume planned)
Jazz Age Lawn Fest, Governor's Island NY 8/15-- 20s/30s attire (I lean 30s due to my particularly non-flapper-esque body shape)
Pirate Invasion Weekend at the PA Ren Faire 8/22  -- Planning to use a Turkish inspired outfit that I've already made for this one but adding a new bodice.
Time Travelers Weekend at the PA Ren Faire 9/19 -- Probably something steampunk for this one.
Steampunk Unlimited at the Strasburg Railroad 10/16-10/18 -- Various generic steampunk stuff, plus the outfit that I wasn't able to complete for SPWF.  

Costume photos to follow.  I promise.

Refocusing

Okay...so somehow it has become April.  It's been over a month since I've updated with any progress on my costumes.  Unfortunately that's because there's been no progress and nothing to update,  March was basically a lost month for me.  Work got totally crazy and all my weekends were booked, so absolutely nothing got done.  It's now the middle of April and pretty much all I've done is rip stuff apart and make it unwearable.  I'm postponing, possibly entirely scrapping, my sari dress.  I wasn't able to get the fabric to work with the skirt pattern and I wasn't able to find the same sari to get additional matching fabric.  At this point "Plan B" would involve starting over from scratch and I just don't have the time to do it.

I'm refocusing on the kimono dress, which I've already bought fabric for.  The plan is to insert a gusset into the back to open it out and give more volume to the bottom half, effectively changing the tubular kimono shape into a more standard Victorian style skirt.  If I have the time I'll also add a bustle.  I already own most of the accessories that I'm going to use with it - a black corset, obiage and obijime (I own several, I'm not sure which I'm going to use), and a shirt with a high neckline.

This is the actual kimono, but I'm using a different
corset and shirt.

My original inspiration photo.  The end result will look something like this with the hair and accessories.

I'm also finishing up my menswear outfit.  I've made some significant alterations to a pair of men's trousers, bought a vest at Goodwill, and will buy a plain white shirt, probably also at Goodwill.  I picked up several pairs of knee socks from Sock Dreams (all of which are awesome) to wear with the outfit.  It looks super cute so far.

That leaves two outfits.  The first is the other kimono outfit, which may or may not end up being completed.  I'm intending to make a tea dress by opening out the back similar to the first kimono outfit, but it will be significantly more Western in style.  I have a gorgeous komon kimono to use for this and I've already bought the fabric to extend the back.  I'm planning to use a different, hopefully simpler, technique for this than the black kimono.  This is specifically for a tea event, so I'd really like to complete it, but I could always wear another outfit if I can't finish it in time.

 

The last outfit is what I'm planning to wear to the dance event.  It's based on an absolutely stunning Worth fancy dress outfit with Turkish trousers.  I found some gorgeous silk that should have the weight to hold the shape, but won't be overly hot and picked up a brocade with a complementary color and pattern.  I think that I could complete this one in a weekend if I force myself to sit down and work on it.  Turkish trousers (sirwal) are actually really easy to make, but I will have to draft them out rather than using a pre-made pattern.  This is the only outfit that I'm planning on making entirely from scratch rather than modifying.

If I can keep myself focused and set some time aside each weekend I can absolutely get all these outfits done in a month.  Most of what I'm doing is alterations rather than crafting entirely new pieces and I've already bought the materials.  Now I just need to buy shoes...

Stay tuned.

Tutorial: Gibson Girl Hair (Without Teasing!)

Gibson girls at the beach

I have long hair, like really, really long.  I just cut seven inches off it and it still reaches the top of my butt.

I've been trying to figure out how to do a Gibson girl style with it forever and I haven't been able to make it work.  I'm really particular about what I do to my hair and what kind of products I use in it, so anything with teasing or a bunch of hairspray was out.  Edwardian women generally had long hair too, so I knew if they could make it work then so could I...granted, they probably teased the heck out of their hair.

My great-grandmother on her wedding day, rocking  the Gibson hair style.

I found an easy tutorial that said to split your hair into two and twist it up.  This works for me for about two minutes.  After that my hair is too heavy and pulls out all the volume around the face.  Fail.

I found another tutorial where the volume is built by teasing, which is an awesome solution if you are okay with teasing your hair.  I'm not.  Fail.

I found yet another tutorial using a foam wreath to create the volume, but I couldn't work out how to make it stay in place.  Fail.

At some point it occurred to me that I should use a rat to create the volume, then I wouldn't have to tease my hair and I would be able to pin it in place.  I scurried off to the beauty supply store and bought this jumbo braid hair extension.

I paid about $2.00 for this.  It comes in a variety of colors.  It is magic.  Choose one that's as close to your hair color as possible.  I picked #30 light auburn, which is a little light, but a pretty good match for my hair overall.

I took it out of the package, looped the bottom elastic to the top elastic and made a crown. It's comes braided, but I ended up redoing mine because I pulled it apart first.  Whoops.

Stuff you'll need:

Braided crown of fake hair (rat)
Bobby pins, lots of them
Comb/brush/fingers to remove tangles

Nice, but not necessary:

Clips to section your hair
Clear elastics
Hairspray
Dry shampoo

How to do it:

For extra volume and hold you can use dry shampoo before you start.

If your hair is up, take it down.  Split your hair in two above your ears.  You'll have one section in front and one in back.  They don't need to be neat or even.

Pin the rat to your head.   It will be less voluminous where the rubber bands connect, so you probably want that in the front or back so your finished style doesn't end up lopsided.  I tried a few different ways of doing this and ended up liking the results with the thinner bit in the front.  If you do this, you may want to replace the rubber bands on the hair extensions with clear elastics because they may show.  I did not do this so you'll see the rubber bands.

Clip the front section out of the way so you can see.  We'll deal with this section last.

Split the back section into thirds so that you have a right, left, and back.  Clip each section so that they stay separate.

Take one of the side sections out of the clip.  Comb it to remove and tangles and pull it up over the rat.  Pin the hair at the top of your head close to the braid.  Don't pin it too tightly.  You want to keep the volume and looseness for the style.  My hair is long enough that it will flop over to the other side.  I pulled it to the front to keep it out of the way.

Repeat the comb/lift/pin process with the other side and back sections.

Great!  Now you have a bunch of hair pinned up on your head, possibly flopping into your face.  I wanted these pieces totally out of the way before I dealt with the front.  I pulled them all together, ran the comb through them to remove tangles, and twisted it into a bun.

You still have the front to deal with.  You can pull the whole section up at once, like you did with the other pieces, and twist the remaining hair around the bun or you can split the front and do it in smaller sections.

I didn't like the way it looked with one giant roll of hair around my head, so I opted to split my hair off-center in the front and pin in up in two steps.

Split the front section and clip one out of the way.  Repeat the comb/lift/pin process and then twist the remaining hair into the bun.

Do your lift/comb/pin again for the last section.

I have short bangs, so this looks pretty stupid.  If you don't have bangs, you're pretty much done.  Just take a fine-toothed comb and smooth out the bits over the rat.  You may need to mess with some of the sections to get it to totally cover the rat.

If you have bangs like me, you'll need to pin and/or hairspray them up.  Mine aren't quite long enough to pin over the rat, so I pinned the bangs right into it.  Try to hide the bobby pin.

Smooth out all the sections with a fine-toothed comb.  You may need to gently move some of the hair to totally cover the rat.

You can use hairspray now if you like to help hold the style, but it isn't necessary.  Part of what I like about this is that it looks best when it's a little messy and undone.

Ta da!  You're done!

Sari Dress Concept and Planning

First order of business for Steampunk World's Fair was to get a list of costumes together that I'm planning to make.

My general overview is two Japanese fusion costumes, both involving kimono that I already own but will modify for the costume.  Another one will be a menswear outfit for traveling because there's no way in hell I'm driving several hours in a corset, bustle, or ridiculous dress.  One "dress" for the dance based on an absolutely gorgeous Worth design using Turkish trousers.  And then an Edwardian style dress using sari fabric.

I may have turned this into a spreadsheet because I'm an overachiever and slightly crazy.

And yes,  I do have five costumes for three days and one evening.  Yes. I'm crazy.  I know.

I'm totally justifying this by telling myself that I don't really need to make much.  The kimono dresses will just need some alterations.  The menswear outfit is going to use stuff I already own plus one pair of modified men's trousers from the Goodwill.  The only major construction that I'm going to need to do is for the evening outfit and the sari dress.  I've already made Turkish trousers, so I know can bang the out pretty quickly...the sari dress is going to be where I spend most of my time.

Because it's the outfit that I'm going to need to do the most work for I'm starting there.  I am, however, feeling slightly overwhelmed.

I'm using Butterick 5970 with some (probably major) modifications to the blouse and I found some serviceable sari fabric on eBay that I'm going to use for the dress.  I am in love with this pattern.  In love.  Or I was, until last night.  

You see, last night I cut out the pattern.  I spent about thirty minutes just cutting out the pattern.  It is forty two individual pieces.  FORTY TWO!  The skirt is four pieces, which is reasonable.  That leaves thirty six pieces for the two blouse variations and the belt.  THIRTY SIX!  A lot of the pieces are very small and I'm going to have to sort through them to see what I'm actually going to need once I make the changes I want.  And I need to lay out the skirt pieces on the sari to see if I can actually get this idea to pan out.  If not, I'll have to go to plan B*.

I'm also planning to make one of those giant touring hats.  I looked into buying one and it's...not cheap.  And I'd prefer to make one to match.  That's all well and good except I've never made a hat before.  Well...I've never successfully made a hat before.  I had one attempt at making a hat several years ago and it didn't end well.  I'm a little nervous.

 



I own two out-of-print Butterick hat patterns, B4210 and B4697, both of which have some base patterns that look like they could work.  Goodwill has not been helpful with providing me a base for the hat, so I suppose I'm going to need to learn how.  Plan B involves a different hat, so I'm pretty much screwed either way as far as hat making goes.

So I have a good idea of what I want to make, some fabric, and some base patterns.  I'm pretty sure that I can make this work, but I'm definitely a little intimidated after cutting out that pattern.  The plan is to at least get some work done on the skirt this weekend.  The blouse is probably going to take the most time, especially since I'm planning to modify it, but I guess can always use the skirt by itself if I can't get the blouse to work.

And there's always Plan B.


*Plan B may not actually be any easier or more feasible than Plan A.

Change of Plans or Full Steam Ahead

Due to unforeseen circumstances I'm not able to go to Wicked Faire.  It's probably for the best since I wasn't really into the designs I'd come up with and now I'll have more time to get something together that I'll really be excited about.

Plus now I can get started on my Steampunk World's Fair outfits!

Initial planning is fully underway and I have a reasonable amount of time to execute.

We're planning to head up on Thursday night and then stay through the weekend, which means I'll need several costumes.  My initial thought is to do some multicultural/cultural fusion outfits.  I have a background in anthropology and an absurd love for kimono that I never get to wear.  And it is Steampunk World's Fair after all, I feel the need to bring that into my outfits.

I have some inspiration boards on Pinterest for my ideas.  Definitely going to use some of my kimono, though I'm likely going to need to modify them for the shape I'm going for.  I'm also going to try to something with sari fabric, though not a traditional sari wrap.

Full steam ahead!

Wicked Faire Planning or Here There Be Dragons

I had my follow up meeting with my costume-obsessed friend over the weekend to plan costumes for Wicked Faire.  I was in my happy place.  We talked about, researched, and designed costumes for about 5 hours before heading to the fabric store.

"Five hours?" you say, "Well, you must have gotten a lot accomplished".  Yes, you'd think so wouldn't you?  And I suppose we did...but for Steampunk World's Fair, not Wicked Faire (less than a month away!!).  So in the end, no, not really all that much was accomplished.

• We determined that I look awful in pink and peach, which is very true.
• We determined that we're both way more into Steampunk costumes right now than anything else.
• We unintentionally managed to do a pirate/ninja costume pairing.  I'm pretty excited about this.
• We scrapped the fairy tale/doll outfits, which means one less outfit for me to make.
• I ordered shoes for my fairy costume.  And found a pair of serviceable ears that I'll order this weekend.

I do have a bit of a game-plan in place for WF 2015:

I'm definitely making a dress for the Masquerade dance, which is going to be a fantasy-style dress rather than anything even remotely historical, and the fairy costume, which is really just a chiton and some wings.  And I'll be re-purposing my Turkish pirate outfit, but making a new bodice for it.  Sounds doable for one month prep time.

We high-tailed it to the fabric store and hunted around for suitable fabric, in keeping with the day's theme, not much was actually purchased for WF.

She found a fabulous home decor print to make a portion of one of her Steampunk outfits.

I found a bit of printed linen in the red-tag section that might be useful for the fairy fabric if I can get the linen bits to dye and the print to stay undyed.  I bought a sample for testing.

I bought an absolutely gorgeous teal crocodile print vinyl to make a belt for my masquerade dress.  I'm calling it my dragon scale belt and it will be fabulous!  I'm the most excited about this little bit of fabric.

Steampunk World’s Fair 2015 Planning

Or 

Wicked Faire 2015 Planning

I had a meeting last night with a friend to discuss SPWF15.  I say meeting because I’m a planner and she’s a planner and we’re trying to get our schedules squared away for this event. Also there were print-outs and manila folders.  Totally a meeting. I am a grown up.

So we had dinner and talked SPWF.  We got ourselves a rough idea of what we want to attend based on the limited schedule that’s available (...everything) and talked costume ideas and personas...and then we got off topic.

Or more specifically, we got on to the topic of Wicked Faire and then things got interesting.

Wicked Faire is an indoor Renaissance Faire that takes place in the winter.  I’ve been wanting to go for a few years but, like SPWF, I've never had anyone to go with and haven’t been able to justify it.  But now I have a friend who shares my “any excuse for a costume” philosophy.  

So I brought up Wicked Faire, knowing full well that she’d be totally into it and now we’re going.  Hotel room is booked.  It’s official.

Of course, this means that I now have a whole new set of costumes to design, shop for, and execute.  

Oh, and did I mention it’s in a month?  Because it’s totally in a month.

And I’m me, so naturally any excuse to wear a costume means any excuse to make a costume, specifically at least one for each day I’ll be there, maybe more than one each day.  Because I’m crazy like that.

Wicked Faire isn’t bound by time or place, so I’ve got a lot of freedom with costuming, which is awesome because I can make whatever I want, but it’s also bad because I need something cohesive.  And it’s in a month.  Oh.  My.  God.

Now, a smart person would probably just reuse a costume...or several...but I’m not clearly not smart.  I really want to wear my Turkish pirate outfit, so I will probably wear that for part of a day, but I also definitely want to do a fairy outfit, and I need a ball gown for the masquerade ball (how do I not have a ball gown??)

So that’s the new plan.  Design and create THREE new costumes by February 20th for Wicked Faire, revisit Steampunk World’s Fair when I’ve finished those.