Organza flowers

I took all these pictures a couple months ago and completely forgot to blog them.

This was part of a costume I made for Ruthless! The Musical. It was a pretty sparkle red organza dress that I thought needed an accent so I decided to add some flowers. I also made a headband with flowers on it too.




The flowers were very easy to make, though it took a couple tries to get the technique mastered.

The flowers are made by melting the edges of the organza. You cut out several different sized circles of organza and using a candle melt the edges.




As the organza melts it curls in a little and they kinda turn into bowls.



The part that takes practice is melting the edges just right so they don't turn black or bubble.

Then you glue the layers together to make the flower.




I added some little gems inside to complete the look.




And here they are on the dress.




They looked really cute on the headband as well but it looks like I forgot to take a picture of it.

Couture sewing on Craftsy.com

I am currently taking an online class through Craftsy.com called The Couture Dress . It's taught by Susan Khalje and it's wonderful.

Within the last year I've had an interest in going to the mainland to take a sewing class. Most of the sewing classes on island are mostly quilting related or don't really fit my needs. UH Maui College (where I'm now a Guest Lecturer in Physics!) offers a fashion AA degree, but I don't have the time to pursue an actual degree - plus I already have a bachelors.

So I started looking online for sewing classes and I found a great weeklong program in Couture sewing taught by Susan Khalje. Couture refers to Haute Couture which is kinda of a school of sewing that is done by the big fashion houses in Paris, London, Milan and New York. It involves custom fitting and usually involves high-quality, expensive fabric. While the class sounds fabulous (although a little expensive) I haven't been able to work out the time off from work. Right now I'm saving up my vacation for a trip to England with my sisters.

Then, this week I got an email from McCall's about this online course that was 50% off for a limited time and you get a free vogue pattern with the class! So I signed up and I've learned so much already and I haven't yet had time to actually sew anything.

The process in Couture sewing is very different from what I'm used to. It's a lot more time consuming but produces a much better product. The garments fit better and they are better constructed.

However, while the Couture process is very interesting, I don't know if I'll be able to use all of it all the time. When making costumes for a play I usually don't have all the time in the world to sew, and often times I don't need the costumes to be of such high quality. But there's things I've learned that will help my costuming no matter what I'm sewing, and there's often times when I do want my costumes to have a more high quality look.

Plus, some of the sturdier techniques from Couture sewing will definitely help with costumes that get abused just from being on stage. And it will be interesting to see how I can morph the Couture process to improve my sewing.

And if I ever get the time it would be fun to make myself an actual Couture dress one day. I just wish she record the process again with a different dress so that I could learn more techinques.

If you have any interest in apparel sewing take this course!!

Mousetrap

Right now I'm frantically finishing the costumes for Agatha Christie's Mousetrap which opens this Friday in Kihei. I ended up making 4 of the costumes - a feat I thought would be pretty minor, but turned into a major issue because of ordering fabric online (they didn't send me all of the fabric I ordered and it took forever to ship the fabric I ordered to replace it). And of course, Maui not having the right kind of suiting fabric for a 1950's play that takes place in snowy England.

Here are some pictures of the work in progress. I'll try to post some of the show when they photos of dress rehearsal this week.

This is part of a suit I'm making for Miss Casewell. This is the fabric that I didn't get all of. When I reordered I went with a wool flannel instead of a crepe. Right now I'm taking in the pants that go with this jacket - the actress is so damn skinny. I haven't been able to take a picture of it because my dress form doesn't have legs.

This dress is for Mollie Rolston. This fabric was advertised as "dark navy." Looks pretty black to me.

I actually got this fabric on Maui. It's very synthetic and it melted easily. Oh well.