Crafty-Ass Chick

Plans for 2012

2012-01-18T08:49:00.001-10:00

It's a new year and I'm sad to say that I slacked quite a bit last year in the blogging department. I'm going to try to do better this year.

At the end of last year my sewing machine broke. I was able to fix it, but because the problem kept happening I decided to buy a new one. I stuck with Singer, but upgraded to a fancier machine that had oodles of stitch types and lots of other cool functions. It can sew without using the foot peddle. It will anchor or tack the ends of the stitch on its own. It will even cut the threads at the end of the stitch. The machine practically doesn't need me.

It also came with lots of exciting presser feet.

Because I have such a fancy new toy I'm hoping to actually use it more and work on lots of fun projects.

Up first for the year I'll be doing the costumes for The Mousetrap. I plan on pulling most of the costumes from storage, but there's a couple that I'd like to make on my own.

I'm not sure what other shows I'll be costuming this year, but I'm sure something will come up.

To fill in any time I might have free I bought a set of patterns and an instruction book from tutu.com so that I can make my own tutu. Not that I need one, I just figure it will be a fun challenge. Just reading the instruction book I've learned several sewing techniques I didn't know before.

So hopefully I can remember to post things along the way.

Happy New Year!

Ruthless! The Musical

2012-01-16T10:32:00.000-10:00

Ruthless! The Musical closed last night after a very successful run. The exceedingly funny show makes fun of actors and references many old movies and musicals.

Below are some of the costumes I made for the show (Pictures from Maui Freelance Photography - Matthew Wilkins:

Judy Denmark

Tina Denmark

Sylvia St. Croix

Louise Lerman

Tina as Puddles

Sylvia, Judy, and Lita Encore

Tina at the Daisy Clover School for Psychopathic Ingenues

Ginger DelMarco

Ginger, Sylvia and Tina

Tina's last costume is pretty awesome, but I added a lot to it after Final Dress (when the pictures were taken).

Zombie Stuff 2011

2011-10-23T10:58:00.000-10:00

It's Thriller time again. I didn't make a new costume since my Zombie Dress from last year is still in great shape. I did get to do some zombifying though.

I made a whole bunch of zombie tights for some girls in the cast:

Here's me showing off my sexy zombie legs:

I also helped one of the new guys zombify his suit. It was lots of fun and turned out fabulous. Unfortunately this is the only picture I have of it right now:

Waffle Week Sneak Peak

2011-08-23T21:23:00.000-10:00

Tomorrow, August 24th is National Waffle Day - it's the anniversary of the first U.S. Waffle Iron patent.

So as a brief precursor to Waffle Week 2011 (Sept 4-10) here's a little something-something I've been working on:

It's not quite done yet, and if I have time in the next couple weeks between rehearsals and preparations for my Waffle Brunch I hope to make Mr. Happy Waffle some friends.

Chicago, etc.

2011-07-06T22:10:00.000-10:00

Sorry for not posting in awhile. To make up for it here are some pictures of things I've made recently:

Pele Costume

Stole for Matron Mama Morton in Chicago

LOVE hats for Chicago

Hunyak circus costume for Chicago

Velma's "All That Jazz" costume for Chicago

Roxie's Woolworth's lampshade dress for Chicago

Razzle Dazzle circus dirndl

Patriotic Cupcakes!!!

ZigZag Quilt

2011-04-10T09:06:00.000-10:00

A couple years ago I had a subscription to some quilting magazines. A year's worth was enough to provide me with quite a bit of inspiration. This was an ad in one for some fabric:

I liked the zigzag pattern and decided to make myself a quilt out of it. I chose black and white and red as the theme and got a bunch of different fabrics and cut out lots of triangles (it's a smaller quilt because I'm not that fond of cutting triangles. I arranged an order of the different fabrics and started sewing strips:

Once I had completed the strips of the two fabrics I sewed those all together to make the zigzags:

Until I had them all sewn together:

Obviously then I trimmed the edges. Then it was just quilting. I quilted along the seams:

This is the final quilt:

This is the backing fabric:

Ta da!

Mice

2011-04-01T00:20:00.001-10:00

CATS has closed.

While I am somewhat relieved that it is done, I am also going to miss it a lot. It was over four months of working very closely with a great group of people and what we put together was amazing. It was a lot of work and I didn’t have much time for anything else – I didn’t blog much as you may have noticed (I also didn’t see much of my family) – but I learned a lot, lost some weight, got back into shape, improved my singing, learned how to do face painting, and performed in CATS (holy crap!).

The show sold out its entire 3-weekend run (they even added 2 shows to the last weekend – ouch) and unfortunately we were not given an extension. I don’t know why, it seemed entirely viable, and overall a really good idea – we’ve never sold out a whole run of a show. Ever. Like in the entire 80+ year history of the Iao Theater (ok, Deep Throat might have, I really don’t know). I’m kind of still recovering, but hopefully soon I’ll get back to crafting. Here are some things I’ve got to do/blog about:

Renovations
Clean/organize sewing room
Quilt for Annie
Quilt for me
Chicago (the musical – hopefully, I’m waiting to hear if I’m costuming it)

I’m sure there’s more that I’m forgetting, and probably more I’ll come up with out of the blue.

Something that I can talk about now is a project I did closing weekend of the show when I wasn’t at the theater. As gifts for the cast/crew I decided to make mini versions of George, the remote control mouse I made for Kitty Playtime. They aren’t really mini version since George is the extra large version. I used the same pattern, just in the original size. At first I was just planning to use the same colors as George, but then got ambitious and decided to make them more individualized. Each cat had a main color and accent colors as part of their costume, so I used those for the body/ears/tail. On a lot of them I also added stripes since most of the cats’ unitards had airbrushing on them.

I ended up making over 30 mice and fortunately had help from my mom, my sister, and a friend. This isn’t all of them, but it’s the entire cast (minus me) and the pit singers. I gave the crew black mice (theater tech crews wear blacks on stage so they are less noticeable), and the stage manager got the original George since she was the one controlling him every night.

The director got a sparkly pin stripe mouse with glasses (he made the glasses out of a bobby pin, I sewed them on) and the musical director got a red satin mouse.

Overall everyone was pretty excited about their mice and everyone has promised to take their mice with them on trips and take pictures with them (a la me and Pete). I myself got this:

It’s a cocktail olive. In CATS theirs a play within a play that the cats put on about Growltiger, a pirate, who is betrayed by a woman and made to walk the plank by the Siamese. I played Genghis, the leader of the Siamese. I got a phallic hat and sword that was painted green so that it looked like a cocktail sword (the proportions were all over the place in this show). While I was making George I decided that I should also make a cocktail olive to go on my cocktail sword. I don’t know if anyone watching the show noticed (I took it off the sword as part of my choreography) but it was there nonetheless.

The olive was made from a fabric Easter egg pattern. I left a slit open on two sides and inserted a tube to keep the stuffing in (you can't really see the slits, but they kinda make the olive look a little inappropriate) and filled the top in with red felt to make the pimento.

R/C Mouse

2011-01-29T13:37:00.001-10:00

So, if you didn't know yet we are doing CATS at the theater. I'm in it as Carbuckety (they call me Bucket). It's normally a man's role, but I'm awesome enough to play a male role feminine. I'm also Assistant Choreographer so I've been up to my eyeballs in dancing kitties for the last month or so - hence the lack of crafting and blogging. But I can't escape my crafty-ass nature for too long, so this is a project from CATS.

In CATS, the end of intermission is "Kitty Playtime." Some of the cats come out and play with the audience, or some kitty toys onstage. One of the toys is a wind-up mouse.

Last year when we did The Wizard of Oz ballet I made Toto (he was a big version of Pete the Sheep). There was a Toto that Dorothy carried in her basket, and a Toto that was built over a Remote control car so it could run across the stage at one point. So taking my knowledge of softie making, and softie making with R/C cars I volunteered to make the wind-up mouse.

The first step was finding the car. When I made Toto we had an R/C motocross guy that one of the boys in the show had, and it proved to be odd to work with. I went to Walmart to find a car and got a lifted truck for about $10. I figured the lifted-ness of the truck would make it easy to hide. However, the $10 truck proved to be worth the cheap price. It didn't work. It'd go forward a couple inches and stop. Grrr.

So I went to Amazon to find something better and found this:

It's a Morphibian and it's recommended ages are 5-9 so I figured it would be nice and easy to use. I picked because it's meant to run in water and on different types of surfaces. While obviously I don't intend to put it in the water, the stage is going to have an odd texture because of the dancing and sliding in the show. Also, the colors aren't too bright so if some of it shows it won't be a problem.

Also, when I got it and read the instructions, it turns out that the top comes off to access the batteries. Since there's an extra cover I can just leave the top off and it will make a nicer base for the mouse.

My softie pattern making skills aren't too fabulous so after failing at making a pattern I decided to scour the internet for something. I found a pattern for a real cat toy and decided to enlarge it. A lot.

So here's the mouse body. It's about 4-5 times bigger than the pattern:

Next I added felt ears, button eyes and pipe-cleaner whiskers.

Isn't he a cutie? I will love him and squeeze him and call him George.

The tail is also made from pipe-cleaners, but I wrapped them around the little tube that's supposed to support the antenna for the car. That way the antenna will be out of the way and not just shoved under the mouse.


Antenna tube and tail (doesn't he look kinda like a toaster from the back?)

Antenna tube and tail with antenna inserted

To attach him to the car I've sewed on an elastic band along his tummy. He needs to be easily removable so that the batteries can be replaced.

And here he is, George the R/C Mouse:

Yay Kitty Playtime!! Watch out George, we're coming for you.

Puppy Dog Stockings

2011-01-02T10:46:00.000-10:00

When I was growing up my sister Annie and I had very similar stockings for Christmas. They were knitted and mine had reindeer on them and her's had snowmen. For some reason my parents could never remember this and every year, a couple presents in, we would have to switch stockings because they had filled the wrong ones. The stockings being knitted also cause problems because the presents would always get tangled up in the threads. And most importantly, the stockings never seemed to be big enough for our present haul.

So, a few years ago, Annie and I made stockings for my whole family. We used stockings that my grandmother had made for her and my grandfather as a template. It cleared up all kinds of confusion and we've all enjoyed them ever since.

A year or two after my cousin saw them while visiting from Washington and asked if I might make her some for her family with a Hawaiian Print theme. Last year there was a fire in her house right before she had her second child and they were making do living elsewhere while their house was repaired. To send her some Hawaiian Christmas cheer I finally made the stockings she had asked for.

This year they took custody of her husband's nephew and to make him feel included she asked if I would make him one too. While making his socking my mom asked for a stocking for her dog Ruby (she asked specifically for one where the name could be changed - depressing I know, but my mom is not one to waste things). Here's Ruby's stocking:

When making it, I made the pattern freehand, and when I sewed the whole thing together I realized that the stocking was a little to narrow. I couldn't fit my hand into it. So, when I decided to make some for a friends dogs I made the stocking wider and shorter.

For the stockings I made for my family I machine embroidered the letters on individually. Since the puppy stockings were much smaller that wouldn't work so well. So I used my favorite Heat 'n Bond to make the name iron-on and used a blanket stitch to keep the edges down:

I made a lining for each stocking so that they were a little thicker and I embroidered the names through the top and the lining. After sewing the front and back of the stockings together (with linings) I then measured the top so I could add the cuff. I would take the circumference and add 1/2" for seams and then cut it about 5" high and sew it to the stocking with the ends sewn together and folded in half. The loops for hanging are made from a rectangle about 2.5" by 8". Sew together the long way then turn right side out and fold in half and sew it to the heel side of the stocking:

I also added a jingle bell for merriness and some trim along the bottom of the cuff.

Update - Nothing to tell

2010-11-14T21:56:00.000-10:00

I'm posting to say that I've got nothing to post. After a big October of posting galore November has been decidedly non-crafty. Boo.

Of course this is mainly because I have been spending most of my free time renovating my new apartment. Yay! And getting ready for the big CATS auditions. Double yay!

Last month I closed on a short sale of a really cute 2 bedroom apartment near the theater. It's awesome and I can't wait to live in Wailuku town - too bad Marc Aurels closed. Double boo.

The 2nd bedroom will not actually be a bedroom but a crafty sewing space for creativity 'n things. So I'll be able to nicely separate my life from my hobbies, which is hard to do with all my sewing stuff in my living room.

The place is cute, but looks like it hasn't been renovated since it was built in the 70's. So we've been doing work to make it a nicer place to live.

First step: remove the popcorn ceiling. Popcorn ceiling is hideous and even if it does serve an acoustical purpose it's not worth the ugly. So we got rid of it. It's relatively easy to scrape off if you wet it a bit with a sprayer first. It is rather messy though

Second step: fix the ceiling drywall. Because they were gonna put on the awful popcorn they didn't finish the drywall on the ceiling, so that had to be re-mudded and sanded in places. Awful dusty.

Third step: paint. This was actually the only step that I had a lot to do with. I was bad at the scraping and my dad was smart enough not to let me do the mudding and sanding. But the painting I did a lot of and boy did it hurt. But it certainly made a difference. I'll post pictures soon.

Next I'll move in. Woohoo!!

Zombie Shoes

2010-10-31T23:19:00.001-10:00

One last zombie post for the year - I promise. This just ended up so cool, that I had to share.

Originally I was going to wear an old pair of character shoes with my Zombie dress for Thriller this year, but I realized about halfway through rehearsing that that probably wasn't gonna work. They were a little to slippery. So I went to the mall to look for some flats that might work and while there were lots of cute shoes, there were none that I could justify buying simply to destroy.

I remembered that I had a pair of generic Ked's from Payless and I decided to make them into zombie saddle shoes.

Using a couple old black fabric pens and a sharpie I turned the white keds into saddle shoes:

Unfortunately I was running out of time and didn't take pictures of the rest of the process.

Once I finished with the fabric pens (I didn't worry too much about getting good coverage because I was gonna destroy them - and my pens were running out of ink) I painted the white parts with some watered down Rit dye (kinda like water colors). I used navy blue, cocoa brown, and gray. Then I used some green spray paint to complete the effect (the spray paint also nicely darkened the black parts even though it was green paint).

I dyed the shoe laces and a pair of socks in some gray dye. I find that when dying for zombie clothes a quick dye that isn't even (don't stir very much) works the best. Just remember that it almost always ends up lighter when it dries.

Here's the finished product:

I really do think they made the costume. They were also super comfy and easy to dance in.

Zombie Dress Part 3

2010-10-31T10:06:00.000-10:00

Happy Halloween!!

My stats have sky rocketed this month because of all the people wanting to make Zombie Ballerina costumes. Hopefully next year my zombie dress posts will gain some ground too.

Tonight is our third night performing Michael Jackson's Thriller at the Historic Iao Theater. It's been a blast this year, and I finally have some pictures of my wonderful, complete Zombie dress.

I ended up spray painting it a bit with some green floral spray, and I used a batch of brown synthetic wig dye (sharpie ink fillers and rubbing alcohol in a spray bottle) that I had left over from the Wedding Singer. I thought this added a wonderful effect.

I also did some extra work on my shoes. I'll go into that in the next post.

Zombie Ballerina - Degas

2010-10-20T22:23:00.001-10:00

I was going through some pictures on Facebook of last years Thriller and I found some I thought I'd share. As I've mentioned in many of my posts, I was a Zombie Ballerina in previous Thrillers. I didn't mention that I altered the costume slightly last year. I did slightly different makeup and I added some elements (mostly ribbon) to try and make the look evoke a Degas ballerina:

Tennis Skirts 2

2010-10-16T09:47:00.000-10:00

Update! Here's a picture of my mom's tennis team at Nationals in their adorable skirts that I made for them:

Unfortunately they didn't win, but they sure look cute.

Zombie Dress Part 2

2010-10-15T16:50:00.000-10:00

In the last part I made the zombie dress. In this one I destroy the dress.

I started by fading the dress in a bleach solution. It took about 30 minutes to get a slightly aged faded look:

The left is the original fabric and the right is the bleached fabric. My next step was to distress the fabric. I didn't want to make too many holes because it's best to start out small so you don't over do it.

I used pinking shears to mangle the hem. I like pinking shears because they will control the fraying. Since I'll be dancing and sweating in this dress I'll want to be able to wash it often, and I don't want it to fall apart more each time.

I also made a couple tears in the bottom of the skirt. I don't want to expose too much skin - because exposed skin has to be covered with makeup - so I tried to limit the holes to the lower part of the skirt.

My favorite distressing tool is my apple corer - I've never actually used it to core an apple - I bought it to make the Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes. It has a lovely serrated end that I dragged across the fabric to create little holes.

Next I tea-stained the dress in a combination of tea, an instant cappuccino pack, and some espresso grounds (I used what I had so I wouldn't have to go out, but I wouldn't recommend the espresso grounds since they never dissolve and you have to deal with them when rinsing afterward. An instant coffee or espresso would've been easier).

The tea-stain gives the dress an overall dingy look. One nice thing about making something ugly is that you don't have to worry about even coverage. Normally when dying you need to stir a lot to make sure the color is even. But because it's supposed to be dirty looking you don't have to stir too much because a mottled effect looks more like dirt. Dirt and dinginess happen inconsistantly.

The tea-stain is subtle too. This is after about an hour of boiling (it was actually dirtier looking than in the picture).

My next step was to add dinginess with regular Rit Dye. I started with Cocoa Brown and dipped about 8" of the bottom of the skirt and the collar in. The Cocoa Brown works fast, but also looks a lot like dried blood. Since I don't want to look like I died in a bloody massacre I followed up with a similar dip in Navy Blue and then an ink solution.

Note: I washed the dress in the sink with detergent after each step (bleaching, tea-staining, dyeing).

I love the dinginess on the bottom of the skirt. I think I might do a little more to stain the rest of the dress, especially the edges of the collar. I'd like to distress it and darken it some more.

I'm wearing my tutu from my Zombie Ballerina costume under the dress as a petticoat. It works pretty well, but I might see if I can find an actual one instead. I'll probably also dye some pantyhose so I don't have to put make up on my legs.

Once I have the dress finished and get all zombified I will post more pictures.

Zombie Dress Part 1

2010-10-07T22:01:00.000-10:00

For my third year of Thriller at the Historic Iao Theater's Annual Haunted Theater Experience I've decided to forgo the Zombie Ballerina costume and make something new. I decided to go period rather than professional this time and I bought this vintage 1955 Simplicity dress pattern:

I had to add about 2" to the pattern because the pattern was too small, and I didn't bother with the pockets because I won't need them. Here's the finished dress:

I may get a petticoat to fluff the skirt out. The next step will be to destroy and zombify the dress. I'll post another entry about what I end up doing, but right now I'm thinking I'll bleach it a little to fade the color, then distress the fabric (my weapon of choice for this is usually my apple corer), and finally dye it. I'll probably tea-dye it then dirty up the edges with a black or gray dye. I'm thinking I'll also zombify a pair of nylons so that I don't have to put makeup on my legs.

We are also doing another Zombie themed dance that is more tribal/earthy so I'll have to figure out what to do for that.

Stay tuned for more...

Things I'm Not Proud Of

2010-10-01T08:55:00.004-10:00

In my costuming career there's only a few things I regret. Some have to do with lessons learned about techniques and how I could have executed things better. Some have to do with uncomfortable interactions with actors, directors, or other designers. And some have to do with what I had to make. Most are comical to look back upon, or important lessons that I needed to learn. There's only one thing I've done that makes me feel icky. I'll get to that one last.

Most of the uncomfortable interactions are pretty funny to look back on. The show with the most discomfort was The Full Monty. Whenever I tell people that I costumed The Full Monty they laugh and say "well that must have been easy." It wasn't. The characters aren't naked until the end of the show. They are dressed the whole time, and need fancy tear away outfits for the final number. I really enjoyed making tear-away clothing, and the skill has come in handy quit often.

Full Monty discomfort involved mostly underwear. The main 6 guys strip down into red tear-away thongs. When I passed out the thongs the guys decided that after trying them on they needed to show me for approval. Funny looking back, but weird for me at the time. There's also the scene when they are at Harold's house and decide that they need to get comfortable with each other and strip down to their undies. The director and I had a blast deciding what kind of undies each of the guys would wear. Discussing it with the actors and buying and fitting the undies however was a little weird. I spent a lot of time shopping for men's underwear. It was also the first time that I've had to ask an actress to please wear a bra.

There's also some people that just don't wear clothes well. Either they are a strange shape, sloppy, or just awkward, but nothing looks quit right on them. There was one actor who had an issue with his pants where he would pull them up to sit and then he'd stand and the part he'd pulled up would get stuck in his crotch. I tried to discuss it with him - standing techniques and alternate underwear choices that would prevent this - but he kept blaming the pants. Those are a couple of my regrets because while I do my best to make them look good, I don't have the budget or time to tailor things to odd shaped people, or teach people how to wear clothes right. I often end up brushing these costumes off in frustration. It's my one regret from an otherwise perfect Sound of Music.

Then there's the actors who don't want to wear what you give them. Often times they have no choice - I have wonderful memories of the poor teenaged boy who had to wear lederhosen and a Tyrolean hat for Sound of Music. He kept trying to make the hat cooler by pulling it down over one eye. Most of the time we compromise over the items, but there's one pair of pink hot pants that I bought that would have been awesome for this one character and she refused to wear them. They are still in storage and I keep trying to use them, but haven't had much luck.

One reoccurring problem that I've had is costumes that blend in with the set. It's happened way more times than I'm proud of. Also, not entirely my fault. I didn't always know what the sets were gonna look like. There was this perfect patterned green dress that blended in perfectly with sponge painted pattern on the walls of the set. And she wore the dress for half the play so I had to find all kinds of aprons and sweaters she could wear to cover it up. The set designer in Steel Magnolias painted the set pink. Shelby's color is pink and she wears it the whole time. I now try to go into a show with better communication of set colors, but that's not always known.

When costuming you don't just get to do the pretty stuff. There's also the ugly things or the mean things. I always feel a little bad when distressing perfectly good clothing, but the actual distressing is so much fun that I get over it quick. But then there's certain characters that have to look certain ways. Whores have to be slutty, "large lady" has to be fat, and Nazi's have to wear swastikas. For Sound of Music I pawned off the making of the Nazi arm bands to someone else - I feel a little bad about it, but not too bad.

I've gotten used to most of it, but there's still the one thing that makes me feel icky, and strangely it's from one of my favorite plays that I've worked on: The Foreigner. It's a funny, touching comedy about diversity overcoming racism and prejudice. In this show the bad guys in the climax of the play are the Klan. The show takes place in Georgia and the characters have a confrontation with the Klan. So I had to make a dozen Klan robes. That was awkward. They are now all packed up in a box and hidden in costume storage somewhere like a dirty skeleton in the costume closet.

And karma's given it back to me. All of the actors who were put in ugly costumes that they didn't like, or outfits that didn't flatter them, or had to wear costumes that were hot or heavy, they got their revenge last summer. I was cast as Dawn in Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, and as I said before whores have to be slutty. When I first put on this one costume I knew that it was costuming revenge for whatever I had done to actors or would do in the future.

Look at all that fishnet! OMG and my whiteness shining through those little holes like beacons. Yikes! The side/back cutout that shows off my love handles so well. Ack! But I wore it, proudly. And now I have very few inhibitions left:

Tada! That's me in Wedding Singer. Later in that number we all strip and I do more of this in a bustier. Hooray for double-stick tape.

Fabric Oath

2010-09-16T15:02:00.002-10:00

I am in the process of buying a bigger apartment that will have an extra room that I will use for sewing/crafting. Because of the expenses involved with moving and preparing my old place for rent, and the general need to get rid of stuff I am making the following oath:

I swear that I will not buy any new fabric for myself (excludes projects I'm getting paid for, or gifts for others - Christmas is coming up, yikes!) until I finish at least one of the following projects that I already have fabric for:

Lonestar Quilt
Zig-zag Quilt
Zombie Dress
Floral Satin Dress
Celtic Quilt
Amish Quilt

This oath should probably include genral crafting supplies, but I don't want to get too crazy.

Cherry Pinot Noir Waffle Syrup

2010-09-09T10:45:00.006-10:00

It's Waffle Week. Yay!

This year I celebrated with a small waffle party with friends. I made a bunch of waffles and had people bring in toppings. I also decided to make a Cherry Pinot Noir Waffle Syrup from a recipe I found at MrBreakfast.com.

I used Pinot Evil Pinot Noir because it's got an awesome name, and I love their Pinot Grigot version.

I trippled the recipe because I wouldn't have used the extra cherries or Pinot Noir. I also was unable to find the star anise or it's substitute, anise seeds, on Maui, so I left it out.

I ended up simmering the batch a lot longer than the recipe called for. While this was probably necessary, I definitely simmered it for longer than I should have because it thickens a lot as it cools. Mine ended up more the consistancy of jam than syrup, but it was rather tasty, especially with the Cranberry Orange Waffles.

Spongebob Squarepants Costume

2010-09-03T10:21:00.003-10:00

In college I majored in physics and I minored in theater. Strange I know. Neither my physics professors nor my theater professors really got it, but I think the two compliment each other marvelously. Well, my theater minor included mostly costume classes: Costume History, Costume Construction, Clothing and Culture, and Costume Design.

I took Costume Design my senior year and during the fall quarter we had an assignment for Halloween to make a 3 dimensional costume that concealed our identity. At the time I was watching a lot of cartoons on cable because we never had cable when I was growing up. I watched Sailor Moon, Tenshi's Universe, Dragonball Z, and Spongebob Squarepants. So I decided to make a Spongebob costume.

I had a large box from a blanket I'd ordered online and it fit over me pretty well. I cut out arm holes and eye holes and painted. I created a 3-D nose out of yellow vinyl (my mother works at a sign shop and often gives us the leftover scraps of vinyl that they cut letters and images out of).

I paired the box with a white t-shirt and my khaki shorts and black shoes with white socks:

The costume was a little cumbersome to wear, and my costume class was at 8:30 in the morning so it was a little chilly to be walking around in shorts.

Tennis Skirts

2010-08-29T13:24:00.011-10:00

A couple posts ago I talked about Sewing with Knits and some tennis skirts I'm making for my mother's tennis team. In this post I'll go over how those skirts are actually made.

To make the patterns for the skirts most of the ladies gave me a skirt that they liked and I extrapolated the necessary measurements from the skirts. But they all follow similar ratios that can be used to make a simple tennis skirt for most women. All you need is a waist measurement (or measurement for where you'd like the skirt to sit) and a desired length.

Materials needed are:

1/2 yard of 60" spandex or lycra (swimsuit fabric)
1 yard of 3/4" elastic
Twin Stretch Needle

The length of elastic needed is the waist measurement + 1" for overlap.

The rest of the skirt will be two trapezoidal panels. The top of each panel will be half the waist measurement + 2" for stretch + 1" for seam allowance. The side lengths I've worked with range from about 13" to 17" depending on where the skirt is worn (waist vs hips) and how long (or short) you want the skirt to be. You'll need to add 3/4" for the waist band and 5/8" for the hem. The bottom of each panel can range from 5" to 9" more than the width of top the panel.

Below is a diagram with the measurements for the panels for a med sized tennis skirt (29" waist):

Cut 2 panels from the fabric.

With right sides together sew up the sides (angled sides) using either a serger or a zig-zag stitch. Overlapping the ends by 1" sew the elastic into a band. Pin the elastic to the wrong side of the fabric with top edges even and distribute fullness (I like to half, then quarter each and mark with pins). Serge the top edge stretching the elastic to fit the waist of the skirt.

The waistband should look like this once the elastic is attached:

To finish the waistband, fold the elastic under, pin in place and sew from the right side of the skirt using a twin stretch needle stretching the elastic to even out the skirt fabric. You can use the elastic as a guide since you can't see the edge that's being hemmed. Since it's a 3/4" elastic I like to line up the top edge of the skirt with the 5/8" line on my sewing machine face plate to account for the needle offset.

The bottom of the skirt is hemmed the same way, except that you don't have the handy guide of elastic so you need to mark where to fold to get a 5/8" hem. Pin the hem and then sew from the right side of the skirt using the twin stretch needle (for the 5/8" hem I align the edge of the skirt with the 1/2" line on the face plate.

Ta da! Tennis skirt (or bathing suit skirt).

Turkey Pesto Waffle Sandwich

2010-08-23T20:51:00.005-10:00

Tomorrow, August 24th, is National Waffle Day - YAY!!!

Two weeks from now is Waffle Week, so there's lots more waffle excitement to come. Consider this a preview of wonderful waffleness yet to come!

Tonight for dinner I made a Turkey Pesto Waffle Sandwich. It was awesome. To make such a culinary delight you take two frozen waffles, spread pesto on one and top with turkey and provolone (or your preference of cheese). Sandwich with the other waffle and butter the top of the sandwich. Heat butter in a frying pan and put the sandwich in buttered side up.

Press the sandwich with the back of a spatula and flip occasionally cooking until the cheese is melted and the waffles are golden.

Yum yum yum yum yum.

The sammich can also be made with ham and cheese and Dijon mustard.

Sewing With Knits

2010-08-19T09:20:00.002-10:00

I am currently working on a job for my mom's tennis team. They will be going to Nationals in Indian Wells, CA in october and wanted cute, matching, Hawaiian print skirts to wear while competing. My mom asked me awhile ago - while I was overwhelmed with Wedding Singer costuming - and I agreed knowing that I'd be working with a fabric that would be new and different and potentially very, very challenging.

Fashionable tennis skirts these days - well on Maui at least - are really more like bathing suit skirts. Pretty simple, made from lyrcra or spandex. But while the patterns are very basic, the fabric can be tricky to work with.

Sewing with knits, or any fabric that stretches is different from sewing with regular fabric because regular seams don't stretch. So, you need to use stitches that do stretch.

The best thing to use for sewing with knits is a serger. It creates that fancy overlock stitch that is found on all commercially produced clothing. I have a serger, though I use it mostly for creating a strong covered edge for regular seams - it helps to prevent raveling.

The next best thing for sewing with knits is a twin needle, specifically a stretch twin needle. A serger creates an overlock so it requires an edge. To get a nice edge it is equipt with a knife that cuts the edge just to the right of the inside of the seam. This means that a serger really doesn't work for hemming.

To get a stretch stitch on a regular sewing machine the easiest thing to do is use a zig-zag stitch. The zig-zag will allow for stretch. However, a slightly better, more professional looking seam comes when you use a twin needle. This is two needles spaced apart by a couple millimeters with a crossbar and a single end that goes into the sewing machine like a regular needle. You need to thread the sewing machine with two threads and thread each needle with it's own thread. Nothing changes with the bobbin. Because of the two needles the bobbin thread gets zig-zagged between the two and this creates the stretch.

I'll post pictures as I go.

Wedding Singer - Pictures

2010-08-06T11:39:00.015-10:00

The show is over, but here's some pictures. Yay!

This is the end of the opening number "It's Your Wedding Day." It was my wedding day. I am the bride at the top.

The band, "Simply Wed."

Glen Guglia in his "Delorian"

Linda leaving Robbie a note at the alter.

Robbie and Julia try to convince themselves that it's "Not that Kind of Thing" while shopping with some iconic couples: On the right is Han Solo and Princess Leia, in the middle (half hidden) is Sid and Nancy, and on the left is Baby and Johnny (from Dirty Dancing). There was also an Iconic T-shirt couple with "Frankie Say Relax" and "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go."

The bridge and tunnel crowd in New York City.

In a "Material Girl" sequence Holly realizes that the one that she wants can often be "Right in Front Your Eyes."

Robbie contemplates being "Single."

Robbie recruits some celebrity impersonators to help him find Glen and Julia in Vegas. From left to right: Ronald Reagan, Robbie, Mr. T, Tina Turner with Billy Idol behind her, Imelda Marcos, and Cyndi Lauper in the front.

The Finale.

Crafty Wish List

2010-07-30T12:20:00.004-10:00

Since I've already posted my Crafty To-Do list I thought I'd post a more theoretical list of things I would like to do or would like to learn how to do:

1. Home renovation/interior design: I am in the process of buying a new condo. My lovely 1-bedroom condo isn't big enough for my sewing stuff so I'm trying to get a bigger place with a room just for crafting (mainly to contain the chaos and to separate the crafting from the rest of my life). I just made an offer on this great place up the road from the theater but it looks like it hasn't been renovated since the 70's. Everything's in great condition, it's just not a style that's to my liking. So I see big projects in the future involving cheap upgrades to my (potential) new home.

2. Blog more: I would like to blog more, the problem is I usually forget to take pictures of my craftiness as it's happening. I will try.

3. Knitting/scrapbooking: I've been avoiding these two things because they seem to be too big of a fad right now. Everyone is knitting or scrapbooking and I try to do things that are a little more unique. Still, because of the popularity of both I keep finding awesome things to do with both so it'd probably be worth learning to do.

4. Sewing classes: UH - Maui College (formerly MCC) has a fashion technology associates degree and it has some clothing construction classes that I would love to take. Most of my sewing skills are self taught so it would be nice to learn better ways to do things.

That's just a start because I keep seeing things that I'd like to learn how to do but probably never will (yarn lei-making).

Crafty To-Do List

2010-07-22T11:41:00.008-10:00

Now that Wedding Singer is open and I have no required crafting projects to do, I have been reflecting on all the things I've wanted to do but haven't had time for, and the things that are coming up that I should start thinking about. So, here is my Crafty To-Do list:

1. Tennis Skirts: This is actually a job I have coming up to make skirts for my mom's tennis team that is going to Nationals in Indian Wells, CA in October. I'm not quite sure how many I need to make, but they should be pretty simple to do.

2. Zombie Costume: Thriller is coming up again and since this is the third year, I feel like it's time to make a new zombie costume. While I love my Zombie Ballerina costume, I think it's time for something new (I'll probably let someone else use the costume since zombie ballerina is usually a popular choice that I've always had dibs on). This year I'm thinking Rockabilly Zombie. I've got a great pattern and fabric picked out and I just love dyeing and distressing things.

3. Dress for Lexy's friend: For Lexy's birthday last year I made her a sundress and now one of her friends wants one too. Pretty easy to do, just need to get the fabric.

4. Quilt for Annie: Annie graduates from college next May (she'll be a Doctor of Pharmacy) and I'm planning on making her quilt since Lexy got one for her graduation from high school. I've started it (Lonestar Quilt) I just need to finish it.

5. Other: I'm sure other things will come up. I also should start using up all the extra fabric I have - that might be an interesting challenge.

6. Waffle Week: I don't know what I'm gonna do, but it's coming up in less than 2 months!

Wedding Singer - Shiny Dirndls

2010-07-22T11:25:00.009-10:00

One of the few well planned out costumes for Wedding Singer were the waitress uniforms for Julia and Holly (the script actually calls for a third waitress, but we cut the part and gave her line to a wedding guest). I found this picture online while researching 80's costume ideas:

So, I drafted (for the first time since college) what I wanted to do for the waitress uniforms:

In the end I decided to go with fuller skirts because of movement. I made black satin skirts with a wide elastic waistband. Sewing onto the elastic was tricky and I did it wrong - I used a zigzag stitch which didn't work out wonderfully because the zigzag function on my sewing machine isn't working right. After some research I now know how to do it right (double needle) to avoid stretch issues the next time.

The director thought we should have different colors for the different waitress so Julia's is gold and Holly's is pink (I also bought a turquoise for the 3rd waitress - I still have the fabric).

The Wedding Singer

2010-07-10T23:25:00.004-10:00

The Wedding Singer opened last night and it's gonna be a hit. I started working on this show almost a year ago. When they announced the 2009/2010 season this was the only show I really wanted to be a part of and I was thrilled when the director requested me to do the costumes.

My first meeting with her was last August, so I've had a lot of time to think about it. Unfortunately they didn't cast the show quite so early so I was somewhat limited as to what I could do. But I did a lot of research and studied the script and worked on some costume plots and ideas.

About a month after my meeting with the director, I had another meeting with both the director and my friend Aly, who was going to be the choreographer. The dancing sounded like it was gonna be awesome and Aly suggested that I audition for the show as well.

So I ended up as costumer and as a principal dancer in the ensemble. Crazy.

This is by far the biggest show I've ever costumed. Not the biggest cast (Spirit of the Iao) and not even the most costumes to build (Sound of Music), but definitely the most costumes overall with some crazy things that needed to be done in/with them.

There were about 45 tuxes, 8 wedding gowns, about 4 quick-changes on-stage, a 12 person stripping sequence, 7 sparkly yarmulkes, 2 stunt doubles, 4 80's iconic couples, 7 bridesmaid's dresses, lots of hammer pants, 7 80's celebrity impersonators, not to mention many other crazy things.

This would have been a lot of work had I just costumed it, but since I was in the show I had to sew around the rehearsal schedule. I probably would have come out of this experience saner if I didn't have a regular job. That would have made things a lot easier.

It is nice to be in a show when you're the costumer. I can't blame anyone but me for what I was wearing (except the bagels, those weren't my idea). It was also easier to understand what needed to be done in the costumes when I could see how all the scenes and dancing actually worked. So there were advantages on both sides to being in the show and costuming it, but I hope I never do this to myself again.

If it were a smaller show with much fewer costumes maybe, but musicals probably not. I think after this I might have to take a season off from costuming...but knowing me I'll be right back at it sooner rather than later.

The Wedding Singer, Part I

2010-05-03T21:46:00.005-10:00

The big show this summer is The Wedding Singer!! I am both costuming it and dancing in it, so I'm gonna be massively busy this summer. Here are a couple things I've done so far - we just had our first rehearsal so it's early yet. I'll try to post more if I remember to take pictures:

Fuchsia Scrunchie!

Taffeta bridesmaid dress!

Character collage! Obviously not a costume. This was for character development - I went abstract because I'm a dancer in the ensemble.

More 80's fabulocity to come!

Mini-Bloomers

2010-03-26T07:58:00.005-10:00

I follow the Craftzine.com blog, and while most of it is knitting projects (I don't knit) or things for kids (I don't have kids) every once in awhile something pops up that intrigues me (that's how I found the Drunken Cupcakes). Last week it was Madeleine Mini-Bloomers from Colette Patterns.

I've made bloomers before for several different shows, but I would just take a regular elastic waist pant pattern and add elastic at the hem. The Madeleine Mini-Bloomers pattern was specifically intended for bloomers so the pattern was somewhat better than what I've made.

The elastic waist band was made with two rows of 1/4" elastic in separate casings rather than one 1" elastic band - helpful because sometimes the larger elastic can get twisted in the casing.

Also the ties on the hems were made with ribbons run through casings with buttonhole openings - very cute.

Here are the bloomers that I made:

While I have no idea what I'm going to use these for - maybe just to wear around the house - but the techniques that I learned will surely help me sometime in the future.

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes!

2010-03-09T21:38:00.006-10:00

St Patrick's day is nearly upon us and like a good little Irish lass I am throwing a party full of Guinness and other Irish delicacies.

For dinner I'm making Beef in Guinness, mashed potatoes, and mini walnut soda breads. For dessert I am making the famous (or infamous) Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes, or Drunken Cupcakes as they are called by my friends.

The recipe from Smitten Kitten makes chocolate, Guinness cupcakes with Jameson's whiskey ganache and Bailey's frosting - hence the Irish Car Bomb, which if you haven't experienced one is a shot of Jameson's and Bailey's dropped into Guinness then chugged before the Bailey's can curdle.

The cupcake recipe only calls for a cup of Guinness, so be prepared to drink the rest of the can/bottle. Also, I don't know how anyone can cook with Bailey's without sampling some for themselves, so the baking experience is a party in and of itself.

The ganache (dangerously chocolaty stuff - shown above) is poured into wells cut into the tops of the cupcakes.

I tried to be artistic and make shamrocks with the frosting but then the tip of my piping bag broke and oozing frosting forced me to take a more practical approach.

These cupcakes are amazing. They are moist and filled with chocolaty goodness. Plus they are full of alcohol - and that's always a plus in baked goods.

Buttercup Bag

2010-01-18T14:08:00.002-10:00

From the Buttercup Bag pattern from Made By Rae:

Because I like a sturdy purse I added fusible interfacing to the lining, upper outer band, and handle. Because of the added interfacing on lining (and because I'm lazy) I sewed the lining in by top-stitching only.

Pete

2009-12-28T18:39:00.001-10:00

Meet Pete:

Pete and I are headed to Egypt. This may be taken literally or it may mean that I’m going crazy, you’ll have to stay tuned to find out.

Pete is my friend Aly’s Choreography Lamb. I made Pete from a free lambkin softie pattern from allsorts. Pete is a “choreography” lamb because he is made from a “choreography” sweater (ie: a sweater worn while choreographing) which had a special meaning to Aly and was used in the creation of Ren’s quilt.

I will try to provide updates on the adventures that Pete and I have based on internet availability during our journey. However, you may just have to wait until we get back to find out what happened.

Mini-Lonestar

2009-11-19T18:15:00.005-10:00

While making Annie's graduation Lonestar quilt I made one lonestar and decided that it was too small for the quilt I wanted to make. So, I made a second, larger lonestar. Since I had already completed the smaller lonestar I decided to use it to make a baby quilt for a coworker who was having a baby.

She knew it would be a boy so the blue lonestar would work great. I had planned to have it complete before this past Wednesday because we were going to have a shower for her at work, but she had the baby early, so I had extra time. I finished the quilt tonight, so I think I'll try to visit her this weekend.

For the quilting I stitched-in-the-ditch for the lonestar and used some decorative designs from my Fons and Porter's Quilter's Complete Guide and increased the size to better suit my lonestar.

Dress for Lexy

2009-10-11T15:50:00.008-10:00

Lexy's 20th birthday was a couple weeks ago and she wanted me to make her a dress. While they probably don't get much use in Portland, Lexy loves sundresses and when I found a pattern for a simple shirred top sundress on Craftzine's blog she asked me to make her one.

For fabric she wanted something yellow or purple with a pattern so I bought this fabric from fabric.com:

I also had to buy elastic thread (couldn't find it on the island) and unfortunately the 11 yd spool from fabric.com wasn't quite enough so I had to get this instead:

To use elastic thread you need to hand wind it on a bobbin, being careful not to stretch it while winding. Like some decorative metallic threads the elastic thread is too thick to thread through a sewing machine and needle, so instead it goes on the bobbin.

When shirring the top (making the rows of elastic to gather the top) you sew rows from the right side (as opposed to the wrong side) of the completed dress in a continuous line that circles around the bodice for about 6-8" down from the top of the dress. The elastic ends up on the inside of the dress and the tension from the top thread helps to gather the fabric. You line of the edge of the presser foot with the previous row to keep them parallel and it's very important to pull the fabric flat while sewing.

One problem I had was that the amount of elastic thread that can be wound on a bobbin is not enough to complete the top. It took about 3 bobbins and when one ran out I'd just overlap the beginning of the next bobbin over the end of the last.

I shortened the pattern from Heather Ross significantly and according to Lexy it is still too long for her, so I'll have to shorten it when she is home for Christmas. Here's Lexy in the dress:

Shopping Tote

2009-10-04T13:38:00.020-10:00

A trip to Costco today brought up one of my pet peeves about our society: packaging. So many things that are sold these days come in massive amounts of packaging. For me, this not only seems a waste, but as a very lazy person it means more work for me, either dumping the rubbish, or going to the recycling center.

The biggest annoyance are plastic bags. If you've ever driven past the central Maui landfill you know what a problem throwing them out can be. I quit my Masters program in Environmental Policy and Management because I'm not enough of an environmental nut to care that much, but plastic bags seem excessively wasteful even to me.

Needless to say I was thrilled when reusable bags started popping up all over Maui. My favorites were from Star Market, because they folded up nicely:

Unfortunately the recycled material they were made wasn't exceptionally strong and the handles started ripping. So, I decided to use the bags I had as a pattern and made my own. Here's how!

What you'll need:

1/2 yard of heavy-weight fabric 60" width
1" of velcro
1 1/2 yards of 1/4" double fold bias tape*

Cutting:

Fold the fabric in half to cut the following:

1 Rectangle 33" x 16.5"
2 Strips 17" x 2.5"
1 Rectangle 7.5" x 11.5" (one end will be rounded off)

The handles are folded in half, right-sides together and sewn with 1/4" seam and turned right side out. I over-stitched the edge with the seam to help the handles keep their shape.

After rounding one end of the pocket as shown below, cover the edge of the pocket all the way around with the double fold bias tape (*I'll discuss an alternative at the end). Sew the velcro in place (the fuzzy side is sewn on the outside of the pocket, 2" from the top edge, the pokey side is sewn on the under side of the flap).

The rounded edge of the pocket will end up as a flap. When you sew the pocket to the bag, the bottom seam will be 8" from the top (the dashed line in the drawing), not along the curved edge. Sew the pocket to the bag 4 3/4" from the top edge of the bag and 3 3/4" from the fold that creates the bottom of the bag.

The handles are sewn at each end with each side of the handle 2 1/4" from the center. The edges of the handles will line up with the top edges of the bag. When the top is hemmed the handles will stand up.

Fold the bag in half, right sides together and sew edges together. Finish by hemming the top of the bag under by about 1". Topstitch as close as possible to the top edge of the bag to secure the handles. Finally, fold up, pressing as you go to establish the folds for future use.

*Some notes and suggestions.

Instead of using bias tape around the pocket you could line the pocket by cutting two of the pockets (there will be enough fabric in your 1/2 yard) and sewing them right sides together along the long sides and curved end and then turning right side out and folding under the top. When cutting, you'd need to add at least a 1/4 inch all around the pocket for seams.

Also, if you want you can line the bag. You'd need an additional 1/2 yard of lining fabric from which you'd cut an extra bag piece (you wouldn't need to do extra handles, and if you want to line the pocket, as above, you could do so from either the outer fabric or the lining fabric). You'd sew the two bags separately (the lining would be sewn with the right side in), and place the inner bag in the outer bag before hemming and hem the outer bag over the inner bag (the inner bag should be about 1" shorter than the outer bag).

Waffle Week

2009-09-16T12:07:00.005-10:00

Those of you who keep up with me on Facebook and/or Twitter should know that I have declared this week "Waffle Week." It was a little last minute, brought on by Monday's Get Fuzzy so I didn't have a lot of time to prepare. Fortunately I bought a box of frozen waffles at Costco last week so at least I have waffles to eat. But a truly Crafty-Ass Chick would have found a waffle related crafting project to do in honor of Waffle Week. Oops.

So, instead of being crafty myself I will share a story of someone else's craftiness that involves two things I love: waffles and the University of Oregon.

Bill Bowerman was the track coach at the University of Oregon in the 1960's and coached the infamous Steve Prefontaine. Bill Bowerman also went on to co-found Nike with Phil Knight, a University of Oregon alum and former runner. Knight worked the business side while Bowerman experimented with Shoe design.

While coaching for Oregon he learned to cobble and custom made shoes for his runners. In order to create a lighter shoe Bowerman did some waffle inspired crafting.

Bowerman and his wife often ate waffles for breakfast - not an unusual or special event for them. Yet one morning, while thinking about his shoe designs and eating waffles, Bowerman had a flash of inspiration. He ran into the garage with the waffle iron and poured rubber on it. With that one idea Bill created Nike's now famous waffle soul. As it turned out, when place on a lightweight shoe, the waffle sole gripped running tracks better than the established ripple soul. It soon became a major success story.

So that is how waffles changed sports forever!

Hooray waffles!

Another Old Post from MySpace

2009-09-04T12:11:00.001-10:00

How fast can you quilt?
Sunday, June 10, 2007

I went to a baby shower today, so yesterday I was looking for a gift. I don't know much about baby stuff and what's hot in infant couture right now, so I was a little perplexed by what I should get.

Well, yesterday I also happened to be shopping for costume stuff, so I was in the fabric section and thought, I should have made a little quilt. I made one recently four Lexy's graduation...it took me four years. But I thought if I simplified things I could do it in one day. So I bought some fabric and headed home.

I simplified things by doing absolutely no piecing. I made a sandwich of pink and white fabric (with batting as the bologna) and all the exciting stuff went into the quilting part.

And it worked! In less than 24 hours I had made a quilt. Granted it would have been a lot nicer if I'd had more time, but there wasn't much more time then the time I did it in anyway.

So here are some pictures of the quilt (front and back):

And some detail because it's hard to see stuff above:

Christmas Dress

2009-09-01T11:47:00.006-10:00

I found this picture and I love this dress. I love the yoke and gathered bust. I love the cream accents. I sort of love the green – it’s a little dull, but I like the antiqueness of it. I love the cap sleeves and the little bow at the collar. I love the shape of the collar and the piping at the bust.

I want to make this dress.

I don’t think it will be too hard to come up with a pattern for it – I don’t know what the back looks like, but I could guess. I learned a lot about dressmaking for Sound of Music and I think I can take some patterns I already have and adjust them to be what I need. One tricky thing for me would be the pockets – because the SOM dresses didn’t have to be practical I always left out the pockets.

The biggest problem is time. I have so many projects that I want to do and so many that I’ve started that it’s illogical at this time to plan another one. That’s not to say it will never happen, I just think that I’d have to finish 2-3 of the quilts I’m working on and at least one purse I have planned before I could justify a new project. Plus I don’t have a real need for this dress. Yes it’s cute but I don’t know when I’d wear it.

My crafting time is limited since I have a full time job and a social life, so it’s hard to do everything I want to. I think I’d like to learn to knit, but I hardly have time for the crafts I know how to do, so when will I have time to take on a new one. Ack!

I have a whole lot of ideas for future projects. I’ll just have to file this one away for later…

Lonestar Day 2

2009-08-20T18:08:00.008-10:00

Working nights has given me lots of time to sew and I've made all kinds of progress on the star portion of this quilt. Here's what I've done since yesterday:

I sewed strips together to create 4 rows for each point of the 8 point star:

Each set of strips get's cut at 45 degrees to create the rows:

Here's how the four rows go together to create the points:

Sewing the rows together is a little tough because you can't line up the seams because the seams are diagonal. So the seams have to be pinned about 1/4" off so that they intersect where the seam will be to sew them together.

The eight points then become the star:

Now comes the tricky part - sewing the the squares to fill out the corners. This is tricky because the corner on the star is already sewn. More about that next time.

Lonestar

2009-08-19T18:25:00.006-10:00

Annie will graduate from Pharmacy School in a little under 2 years (right around the time that Lexy will graduate from Nursing school and I'll turn 30). Since I made Lexy a quilt for her graduation from High School I am going to make Annie a quilt for her graduation (I guess that also means I have to take Lexy to Europe for hers - better start saving now). Since, most likely, Annie will never read this blog, I'll document the process of making Annie's quilt.

I'm going with the Lonestar Quilt design because Annie's always liked the name Lonestar - partly because of Space Balls, partly because the first four letters also start our last name. This is how I'd like the quilt to look when it's complete:

The outer stuff is all border, which is pretty easy, so most of the work is involved in the star part. I've bought the fabric, and I'm working now on piecing the star. To create the star you sew strips of different fabrics together and cut them at 45 degrees and sew those together to create the points of the star.

So far I've cut the strips and I'm sewing them together:

I managed to cut all the strips without cutting my fingers (yay!). I'll post some more pictures once I've done some more sewing.

Collaging

2009-08-15T17:16:00.006-10:00

I love collaging. It's whatever you want it to be. It's also very useful. I've used it in costuming to convey a general look that I'm going for rather than drawing out a specific outfit. Most of the shows I do involve pulling or finding clothes rather than making costumes, so I can't say exactly what I want because there's no guarantee I'll find (or be able to afford it). So it's great to make a collage of colors or styles that I'd like to convey how I feel a character should dress.

My freshman year of college I made this collage for my "Clothing and Culture" freshman seminar. It is meant to represent how art/architecture and fashion mimic each other. This is that worked in the year 2000:

Recently, for Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, to help us understand our characters, the Assistant Director has us create a collage based on what we thought was sexy. Here's my "Sexy Collage":

I also like collaging just for fun and for art. Ben Franklin has shadow boxes and I made a couple artsy, 3D collages that now hang on my wall. It combines more than just pictures from magazines, there are pieces that I drew/painted in them as well. The photos aren't great but here they are (I haven't really titled them):

Mark's Pimp Cup

2009-08-01T16:46:00.004-10:00

Woohoo! Two posts in one day. I'm on a roll.

After a rollicking college-like drinking party at my friend Mark's house I somehow managed in my drunken state to remember to grab his pimp cup so that I could bedazzle it for him. It was a little boring, though impressively large.

So, after a hungover tour of Ben Franklin Crafts I used some puffy paint, rhinestones and these cool bubble sticker things from the scrapbook aisle and bedazzled the crap out of that cup. It was reminiscent of the goggles I made for a show once - I'll have to write about it sometime.

Here's the totally awesome bedazzled Pimp Cup:

Ren's Quilt

2009-08-01T12:24:00.005-10:00

So, now that I have a follower (yay Jen!) I feel like I should blog since I haven't posted anything since March. I have a couple plans for future posts (I have some free time coming up so I'll be able to craft more), but for now I'll just talk about what I did recently.

Through the theater I have a group of close friends, one of whom just graduated from high school. For her graduation I decided to make her a small quilt, and the others in the group decided to participate and each made a square. Here's the (almost) finished product:

I made the center square and the four side squares. The coffee one is self-explanatory. We're not racist, the burning Canadian flag is because Ren was in a car accident with some Canadians and now has a personal grievance with the entire country because of it. The Diva is because she was a Diva-in-training and has now been granted full Diva status.

The bottom left square (that doesn't really fit in with the color-scheme) is an interesting story. There was one of us who just does not craft, so to make his square we had him donate a meaningful piece of clothing with which I would make a square. The fabric was a bitch to work with, but the jacket it came from was memorable. The cut out's were done via laser cutter which one of the other girls had at work. It was an interesting was to cut, but I don't know if we'll do it again.

It was a fun group project and she loved the quilt when we gave it to her:

Pointe Shoes

2009-03-11T11:03:00.007-10:00

I am (was) a classically trained ballerina in the Vaganova (Russian) style and danced “en pointe” for 6+ years before and after college (when I took a ballet break). My ballet days are somewhat behind me – I still dance, but my focus is a little more on jazz now – but, ballet will always be a part of me, and I haven’t given it up entirely (see my Zombie Ballerina blog).

My first Pointe shoes were Capezio Aerial II’s (the old style – I don’t like the new style) and eventually I moved on to Grishkos or Russian Class. I kept my first pair for a long time and displayed them proudly, but eventually they died and I had to throw them out. When I moved home after college and had lots of free time to craft I decided to decorate a new pair to replace my first pair.

For one of our performances in high school three of us choreographed a dance to “The Phantom of the Opera.” We had pretty black costumes and wanted to have pretty black Pointe shoes to match. We bought some Rit and stirred up a pot of black Pointe shoe stew in my friend’s yard with her cat nearby to complete our witchy scene.

And after all the “Double double toil and trouble” we learned that you cannot dye Pointe shoes like that. The box of a Pointe shoe (the hard part that supports the toes) is made from rosin (tree sap) and melts in hot water (and the dryer). So we ended up with beautiful black Pointe shoes that were too small and way too mushy to dance on.

So, I had learned my lesson about dying and decided to try another approach when decorating my new shoes (from eBay). I bought some Rit and this time, made a watery paint and painted the dye on with a brush like watercolors. This allowed me to dye the fabric without ruining the shoes as long as I didn’t apply too much at one time to the box (it also came in handy when making my aforementioned zombie ballerina costume). It also let me do some neat things.

I was able to do shading and color variation – I used a bluish/purplish dye and I think I mixed it with some watercolors. Also, I added some glitter to give it a bit of sparkle. I also glued on some sequins, added a bit of pizzazz with some glittery puffy paint, painted the insole and added pretty lavender ribbons. This is how they came out:

I had all kinds of plans for different shoes, but never really kept up with it. The shoes now gracefully adorn the doorknob on my bedroom door.

Curtain Costumes

2009-03-09T13:34:00.015-10:00

Some of the most important costumes in “The Sound of Music” are only worn on stage for about a minute – the infamous Curtain Costumes. Not only do the children have to look adorable in them, but they are an important plot point as well.

In the story, as you may recall, the Children – “little marching machines” – are somewhat ignored by their father, a former sea captain, who treats them like sailors on a ship rather than beloved offspring. Maria comes along and teaches the children how to be children and how to sing – the latter being what breaks their father out of his widowhood induced funk and brings the family together again.

The changing point for the captain comes when he returns home a month after Maria arrives to find his children romping about the estate dressed in play clothes made from old curtains. The clothes are made from curtains because he wouldn’t give Maria material to make them clothes, so like a true “make it work” crafter, she used what was available – the old curtains from her bedroom.

The curtain costumes spark a conflict between the Captain and Maria that helps the captain to realize what has happened to his family, and to start falling in love with Maria. So, even though they are seen on stage for only a brief moment, they are vital to the play.

Since the prospects of renting costumes for our production of “The Sound of Music” were rather slim, I decided that these would be built for the show. Originally the lady who was going to assist me was going to make them, but things didn’t work out, so I took on the task.

In an earlier post I mentioned the challenges I had finding fabric on the island, so I ended up ordering some online (from 2 different vendors because Fabric.com only had 11 yards)- Benartex Splendid Holiday Alpine Holiday Pine (Christmas fabric, but it works great). I love this fabric.

I used a variety of dress patterns (one old (1950’s), 2 new, and one I made myself) and copied the Lederhosen I had purchased on eBay for the boys. They are adorable costumes, if I do say so myself.

This picture was in the Maui News article about the show. You can’t really see all of them, but you get an idea of how the fabric worked out (the children were singing when the photo was taken – hence the odd expressions on their faces). I’ll post better ones if I ever get any.

Injuries

2009-03-06T15:24:00.001-10:00

I recently re-posted an old blog entry from my Myspace page about sewing through my finger while costuming “Meshuggah-Nuns.” Well, that wasn’t my only crafting injury and not my worst either.

During my work for “The Sound of Music” I cut my finger pretty badly with a rotary cutter. This is a pretty common quilting injury as the rotary cutter is a very popular quilting tool. I was cutting strips to make suspenders for Lederhosen when the blade slipped over my straight-edge and through my left pointer finger. I cut a nice slice off, but not really enough to require stitches. It did however bleed a lot and I had to call a friend to come over and help me out because I was on the verge of passing out.

It was a huge inconvenience because I couldn’t use that finger for several weeks right in the middle of my big push to get all the costumes made. You never realize how important a finger is until you can’t use it. But it’s recovered quite nicely.

Some other injuries I have sustained while crafting include a nice burn on my forearm I received while ironing costumes for “The Foreigner.” I also had a significant hot glue burn on my leg from glue dripping on me while making a hat for “The Spirit of the Iao.”

Injuries happen and I find that most of mine have been due to rushing. If I had just pinned what I had been sewing rather than holding things in place, I wouldn’t have sewn through my finger – but I was rushing and trying to save time. And my advice for the rotary cutter is not to take it lightly and to make sure you think everything through before you do it – and be really cautious about finger placement.

The Sound of Music

2009-03-06T12:19:00.002-10:00

I’ve been busy. Very, very busy. For the last two months (+) I have been sewing my ass off for last week’s opening of “The Sound of Music” at the Historic Iao Theater in Wailuku. I do a lot of costume design at the Iao Theater for Mau OnStage, but this is my biggest show by far.

Normally – because I have a full-time job and I don’t have the costuming experience of my colleagues – I get the smaller shows that tend to have more “pulled” costumes (costumes that are pulled from stock or purchased off-the-rack). The big-spring-musicals usually involve a lot of sewing, so for the 4+ years that I have been a costume designer they have always been given to someone else.

Well, this year apparently “they” didn’t want this show so I got it – it’s not like I was asking for it, I’ll pretty much do any show they give me. I knew going in that it was going to be tough and that I would need a lot of help, but I was confident that my persistence and “make it work” attitude would carry me through – plus I was planning on getting an assistant.

An assistant was found – she had previous experience and possible had a complete set of curtain costume for the children – but things didn’t work out entirely. And it took a month for them to not work out, so by the time I realized it, it was too late to get another one. I did have help from a lot of people, but I had been planning on having my assistant make a lot of the children’s clothes and now that I didn’t have one, I was going to have to do that myself.

So, I ended up making a lot more of the costumes than I had anticipated. But I learned a lot about dressmaking in the process. I am very proud of what I made and I think everyone was surprised at what I was able to accomplish. I will go into specifics about what I did for the show in other blogs, otherwise this one could end up being quite lengthy, but I do have a lot to say about what I did and what I learned in this process.

Another Old Post from MySpace

2009-01-24T08:59:00.003-10:00

Do you need stitches when you sew through your finger (November 16, 2005)

So I have been toiling away, sewing in this sweatshop...okay, it's just the women's dressing room at the Iao Theater, but it is darn hot down there. But anyway, I have been working hard in my free time making nuns' habits for the Meshuggah-Nuns! musical that opens Friday (Nov. 18 - Dec. 11, Fri-Sat 7:30pm, Sun 5pm), and yesterday I managed to not only sew the habit that I was working on, but through my finger as well. OUCH!! Fortunately I missed both the bone and the nail, and because it was a sewing machine needle it was quick and straight, and there was very little blood and almost no wound. But it still hurts and it is making this hard to type. Luckily it was on my left hand, but unluckily it was the pointer finger, and I never really realized how much I use my left pointer finger.

Old Post - From MySpace

2009-01-23T10:02:00.001-10:00

Here are some pictures of the quilt I made for my sister Lexy. It was her graduation present.

It took me almost 4 years to make it - although I did take a lot of long breaks.

The Sound of Music

2009-01-23T09:48:00.002-10:00

Right now I am neck-deep in costumes for "The Sound of Music" which will be opening at the end of February at the Historic Iao Theater in Wailuku.

So far my biggest challenge has been fabric. There are only a couple of fabric stores on island and most of them cater to quilters or people looking for Aloha prints (Hawaiian prints). The other problem is that in addition to the limited amount of fabric available here, what is available is expensive.

Wal-Mart has some reasonable prices, but very limited stock - and it really irks me to shop there (crowds, global takeover, etc.). So I have been buying basic but important things there like muslin and interfacing. They used to have really great velcro too, but now it seems that all they've got is the adhesive stuff that you can't sew through - useless.

So I have been buying fabric online. Of course buying online can be tricky from Hawaii because there are a lot of websites that automatically charge beaucoup bucks for shipping to Hawaii (like walmart.com - total rip-off). The site that I love right now is www.fabric.com - great selection, cheap (often free) shipping, great clearance and discount fabrics, a neat design wall thing, and they'll send swatches. I bought 30-yards of black poplin for nun-habits and I'm waiting on some cute fabric for the curtain costumes (but that's a whole other story - more on that some other time).

Well, I'm off to buy some satin for a party dress for Liesl.

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

2008-12-01T18:34:00.005-10:00

The theater is having a “Beatles Night” fundraiser and I am going to help out by passing pupus during the event. (Pupu is Hawaiian for appetizer). While helping out I will be dressed as “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” from that oh-so famous Beatles ditty falsely attributed to LSD.

After listening to the song – which doesn’t describe Lucy much beyond saying she has kaleidoscope eyes – and watching the segment in the “Yellow Submarine” movie – which basically shows a womanly-doodle that changes colors – I decided to go literal.

I found a pattern for a coat (New Look 6788, view D – without the pockets) that looked 60’s-ish to me and bought some sky blue fabric. Once the coat was made I took a half yard of fabric with a psychedelic floral pattern and used Heat-n-Bond Ultra-Hold to make iron-on’s of the flowers and squiggly designs for the bottom of the coat.

With the left over iron-in interfacing from the coat I made clouds which I overstitched to secure in place. I used the embroidery foot for my sewing machine that I normally use for quilting to get the cloud shape for the stitching.

Then I took my trusty As-Seen-On-TV GeMagic (knock-off Bedazzler) and added a bunch of “diamonds” in the clouds. I wore this over an orange floral patterned dress that I found at Savers with some cute orange wedge-heeled sandals that I got at Payless.

Although it was a little warm in the AC-less theater – especially with all the running around and dancing I did – it was an awesome, easily-recognizable costume for Beatles Night.

I couldn't find any novelty sunglasses for the "kaleidoscope eyes" so I decorated a pair of sunglasses with puffy paint. Though I didn't wear them because the theater was too dark.

Zombie Ballerina

2008-11-04T21:45:00.004-10:00

On to something recent.

For the past couple of years Maui OnStage has done a Haunted House at the Iao Theater for Halloween. This year they decided to add a pre-show of Michael Jackson’s Thriller to the mix. Since I enjoy both Maui OnStage and dancing I participated.

The dance is a lot of fun, but the style is a little tricky and can be a pain in the neck – literally. We did Thriller for each group that came through the haunted house. The smallest group had 2 people and the largest had over 20. Over 5 days across two weekends we did the 6-minute dance 97 times. I was one of 3 people who danced it every time (and I want a sticker!).

Since the whole production was a volunteer thing we had to create our own costumes. I decided to be a zombie ballerina. I had an old pair of pointe shoes which I painted with dye to make them look yuckier – it kind of looked like I kicked someone to death as the brown on the toes kind of looked like dried blood. The fact that they were old (a remnant from High School) turned out to be a bad thing in the end because they did not exactly hold up to 97 Thrillers.

The rest of the costume consisted of some old tights, an old tutu, and an old shirt that I dyed and distressed to look decayed and distressed. I had a lot of fun dying, and did so in a way so that the dye job was far from even.

The makeup was kind of tricky because they don’t sell good theatrical makeup on Maui – we all bought the cheap stuff at Wal-Mart. Also, the theater isn’t air conditioned, so it gets extremely hot and the excess amounts of sweat tend to cause the makeup to run. We had some good tips about setting the makeup, which helped a lot, but there was usually some reapplying necessary.

My Favorite Costume Ever!

2008-10-17T12:35:00.005-10:00

I was an actor in high school and when I went off to college I had absolutely no ambitions to continue my theater career. I was an academic and I wanted to study something in science. After the first quarter I figured out that I wanted to major in physics, but at that point it was too late in the year to start the physics track.

So I was looking for classes to take and I found a freshman seminar called Clothing and Culture. I loved the class and I really like the professor so I started taking more and more costume classes until I had enough to minor in Theatre Arts.

About a year after moving back to Maui I started doing costumes for the community theater and I have been averaging about 2 shows a season since including: Barefoot in the Park, The Full Monty, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Blithe Spirit, and others.

My favorite show to costume thus far was The Mystery of Irma Vep – A Penny Dreadful. It’s a spoof of gothic dramas, but there are only two actors in the show. They each play four different roles, so all of the costumes had to be quick-change as they would jump from character to character throughout the show. I think there were something like 37 costumes changes throughout the show.

So, needless to say, it was a costuming challenge and I had a blast with it. I had a French maid underdressed beneath a man’s safari suit, and at one point an actor changed from a ball gown to a man’s suit in under 5 seconds.

The ball gown is – to this day – my favorite costume I’ve ever put on stage. And it’s been used in 3 different shows thus far.

I was the second costume designer that they hired for this show (this first dropped out) so I didn’t have a ton of time. They weren’t sure if they were going to be able to get another costumer, so they had pulled some clothes from storage which I then altered to make them quick-change.

For the gown, which was kind of old and ratty (my one regret for this costume is that I didn’t use something in better shape that would have held up better over time) I had to add some material to the neckline to cover up the suit that the actor would be wearing underneath for his other main character. The actor also wanted the gown to have a train. So, I removed the zipper and cut the dress down the back. I made an overskirt from an 1880’s skirt pattern I found on the internet and sewed it on one side, and had it Velcro in place on the other.

So the overskirt covered the opening in the back making it really easy to get in and out of really quickly (with a little help).

Here is a picture from Irma Vep.

This is me in the dress. I wore it for our anniversary review show.

First Quilt

2008-10-09T22:12:00.009-10:00

Sort of.

My first large foray into quilting was after I purchased Fons and Porter’s “Quilter’s Complete Guide” which includes a whole bunch of info about a whole lot of different piecing and quilting techniques. It gives you all you need to make a sampler. Well, I started working on it right after moving back home after college which happened to coincide with my little sister’s entrée into high school. I figured four years would be plenty of time for me to figure out the whole quilting thing and I planned on making her a quilt for graduation.

This would actually end up being my second quilt because after spending three years making the quilt top I didn’t want it to be my first try at quilting. So I made a small simple quilt top so that I could understand the quilting process before working on the gigantic sampler I spent ages toiling over.

While working on the quilt top for my sister’s sampler I got to try many different piecing styles and I found that I really enjoyed doing Celtic designs with strip appliqué. I found a Celtic design that I really liked, a triscele, but it wouldn’t work with strip appliqué because it involved width changes throughout the knot. So I decided that I’d make somewhat of a plain background using various shades of blue and purple and use the triscele as part of the quilting design.

I whipped up the quilt top (kind of skipping over the squaring step as you’ll notice in the pictures) and got to work learning how to quilt. This is the result.

I ended up giving it to my other sister who happened to be moving to the Big Island for grad school at the time. She and I are both fans of all things Irish (we’re Irish ourselves) having travelled there after college together, and getting matching Celtic harp tattoos. It’s actually the Guinness logo backward – it was the best picture of a Celtic harp that I could find – fortunately we both really like Guinness.

More about that first/second quilt later.

Get Ready, get set - Start Blogging

2008-10-08T20:46:00.000-10:00

Where to start?

Hard to say. I was inspired today to start my own blog after searching for a quilting blog. All the ones that I found seemed to miss the mark of what I was looking for, and I think that my age is partly to blame. I'm in my late twenties and single and I've found that many of my personal interests differ greatly from the average quilter.

So, I figure there's a gap to fill - it'll kind of be like stitch-n-bitch, but more for quilting and general crafting rather than knitting (which I've never really gotten into myself).

A little about me:

I live on Maui and work as and engineer at an observatory. I have a BS in physics. I also minored in Theatre Arts and I do costumes for community theater outside of work. For those of you unfamiliar with it, community theater = tiny budget. So I'm often forced to be really creative when costuming.

I was never really formally trained in sewing - though my grandmother tried. I worked in the costume shop for one quarter in college, which is where my passion for sewing started. After college I bought a sewing machine, but I was too intimidated to try sewing clothes and didn't want to ask for help, so I bought some books and taught myself to quilt.

Since then I've been taking up all kinds of random craft projects - both out of personal interest, and for costumes for the theater. I will try to share what I've done and the things that I've learned as I fumble through my spare time as a truly Crafty-Ass Chick.