Working, Not Showing

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. I've been working a lot, both in the studio and at my jobs, but it's been a lot more writing/sketching/planning than sewing/making.  

I did finish my Mick Jagger Halloween costume, unfortunately Hurricane Sandy made our party a little smaller than anticipated, and by Halloween itself I was partied out, so not many saw it. Always next year!

The Braid Coat is starting to come together. I'm trying desperately to finish this before getting fully involved in my Lenore Tawney piece but it looks like I may have to start that soon to get it done in time.  Next post I'll share some of my sketches for that. 

Made multiples of my jumpsuit pattern pieces for my class. I make them with a dashed 'sewing line' and an outer 'cut line' to make it easier for the kids.  I'm also teaching them to take these patterns and add volume in areas with the slash-and-spread technique. 

And with that comes my awkwardly drawn instruction pages. These are just a guideline for them, to show how the original garments would have gone together. Almost no-ones will look anything like this once they're done. 

Just fooling around with watercolors.  Starting to actually, for real outline a chunk of chapter from the comic I may or may not be working on, so trying to get back on the drawing.

Seamus's birthday card this year. He's now got my watching WWE (and, I'm not going to lie, i watch it even when he's not here) so he gets a pro-wrestling themed card with Team Hell No--the best tag-team champs!

Summer School Is Out!

As much as I had a fabulous class this semester, it's going to be nice to have a little bit more free time for myself again. At least the prep for the fall class is mostly already done! It was just trying out a totally new project this summer that really ate up time. But it was worth it, I'm really pleased with how it worked. And the fall class is 4 sessions (12 hours!) longer, so I think it'll work even better. As a reminder, all of the students started out with this: 

And through dying, seam ripping, new pattern drafting, gathering, and adding elastics and zips, we ended up with these radically different garments:

Students were really into the poof this year, lots of gathering! And of course the one time I just decide to go ahead and draft them trouser bottoms to begin with, they all want to make big skirts. Oh well!

But now I'm back to my various (too many right now, I think) independent projects. Dear Jane is still chugging along. D-9 was a nice easy put-together. One of my favorite color combos too. 

D-10, on the other hand..well, I made a mistake, the little HST patch in the lower right hand corner is upside down. Don't care enough to take it apart and re-sew. 

Dyed a bunch of things black. I've had a hard time finding nice sturdy cotton/linen thread in black or gray, so I dyed a few different types, probably for use in the shoes I'm working on. The tape is for the braid coat, to join the panels. I found the perfect thickness and material of tape-at Jo-Mar of all places--but it was a sage-green color, so I top dyed it gray. 

Speaking of shoes (I mentioned I have too many projects right now?) I dis-assembled the prototype shoe and marked everything out. 

I started cutting out the soles and adding the groove to stitch them onto the upper. I know a lino cutter isn't exactly the proper tool for that, but it gets the job done pretty well.

A little more frivolous, but I worked a sidewalk sale in Haddonfield, NJ recently, and there was a fancy yarn shop there selling weird half-balls and bits in grab bags for cheap so I bought a couple random things. I normally can't bring myself to spend money on fancy (read: new) yarn but it was really cheap! So I made myself a Waffle Hat for when it cools down. Still need to finish my poor neglected cable scarf, I'm just a little afraid of trying to figure out where I left off. 

Shoe Things

First, we need a model foot. I used the same method I used years ago to make big doll mannequins, just wrapping my foot in first saran wrap, then clear tape. You then cut it off your foot (or your arm, or your whole body) and tape it back together, then stuff!

And you're left with a lovely model foot. Much easier then trying to draw on a mockup while it's still on your foot. Which is what I did for a solid evening until I realized making a dummy foot was a much smarter idea. You can also draw centerlines and things on a dummy, it's not quite so easy to do on your own body part. 

Anyway, I've been using it to play around with some shoe-shapes. I like to make mock-ups out of wool, it has some body to it and you can just butt it together to add pieces to your pattern. I think the final version will be partially wool, part leather. I'm thinking about quilting the two together, may work on some samples of that tonight. 

From the side, I'm going to have to see when I cut this stuff apart if I can cut that side piece as one with the bottom or not. Lots of trial and error right now. 

The basic form came from this strange little slipper I found a year or so ago. If there's one thing I love, it's unusual construction. I went on a little jag on my Tumblr on some great non-european pants constructions, definitely on the short list for new projects. 

And I don't normally post my WAYWT's here but I wore my jumpsuit to class on Monday to give the kids some jumpsuit-spiration. They're really working hard, getting things real fast, I'm proud of them. Can't wait to see their finished projects! Also pleased that the jumpsuit is super comfy and cool, might actually make it into my regular rotation. 

Back in Place

It feels so good to get the Dear Jane back on the wall. Now I feel like I've moved in. I've been so busy getting things ready for my class and fixing up the new apartment, I haven't really worked on anything for myself, and now that I'm ready I've found that my little ruler is missing. Ugh. But at least it's here to cheer me up. 

Speaking of class, seven of these guys went with me tonight, the kids are going to transform them however they'd like. Of course, every other year everyone wanted to make shorts/rompers, now that I've done the hard part for them they all want to make gowns. Soooooo we'll see. 

And I did a little more ice dying. I'm just tickled with how well the broadcloth I bought is dying. I'm so used to cottons dying very washed out so it's great! I'm going to dye the scraps from cutting out the jumpsuits for quilting.

I love when it gets all fractal-y, which I could get this effect more consistently. 

Moving In

So I'm moved into my new studio! And it's bigger than my old one, which is fantastic. The unfortunate thing it, not knowing what kind of space I was moving into, I donated a whole lot of my old work and materials. So if you live in Philadelphia, check out Philly Aids Thrift, you might pick up some of my old work for very, very cheap. 

So it's looking a little empty right now. I need to rehang my design wall for the Dear Jane, but I donated the fabric it was made from. As an added bonus, the previous tenants left me this ironing board! No more ironing on my desk on some canvas. 

My closet is so big! I had those little half-size closets in the old place. I feel so luxurious. We've got a linen closet and a hall clothes closet too. And a great kitchen. So while moving with no notice really stunk, at least I'm liking the new place. 

Whipped up a quick shirt with my new 'Hawaiian' shirt pattern. Something about the facing is not quite right though, I need to tweak it. Anyway I made this one in plain white because I'm going to try ice dying with it. I demoed it for my class tonight, and hopefully I should be able to wash it out tomorrow. 

And this mess of stuff will soon become seven white jumpsuits for my students, that's my weekend project. 

Auspicious Beginnings

Ah! After so many months of gathering/cutting/dying/cutting some more, I've finally begun to actually make up the braids for the braid coat. Seeing the work starting to pay off is very exciting. The 'double-ended' strips will be the shoulders of the coat, I figured that would be a bit more elegant (and less bulky) than trying to butt two up end-to-end at the shoulder seam. The three 'one-sided' strips in between are the back neck area. The four in front will be the front neck/closure flap area. 

The top row is flipped over to the 'outside' The wool is turning out sort of dimensional (probably because it's difficult to steam/press down) which I don't mind. I'm holding off doing the sleeves until I see how much fabric I'm using up as I go, but it looks like I may have wayyy over-estimated. Still, it's better than not-enough. 

In teaching news, I am teaching the evening "Experimental Costume" elective for highschoolers this summer. Unfortunately the class was cut down from 3 nights a week to 2. I understand why, the poor kids were exhausted last year, but I've had to change up my curriculum to suit only 8 3-hour class periods. It sounds like a lot, but remember I have to devote a whole class to learning how to dye and how to use the machines. So I think I'm going to do a riff on my pattern alteration/thrift remix projects, I'm calling it: Uniform/Custom-I'm making up a jumpsuit sort thing for each kid, and then I'll show them how to add and remove volume, do dyework, add zippers, ect. Anyway in order to do it, I had to make up a loose, basic jumpsuit pattern, which I bodged up from some shorts and a big button-up.

Gotta say I was expecting problems with the shortie bottoms but I think it actually worked out pretty well. It's big and boxy to give them room to play around with pleating or gathering. I'll probably do it as full pants so they can cut them off where-ever they like, same with the sleeves. Can't decide if I should leave the center-front seam open (so they can get inside) or just not connect the top and the bottom before I give it to them (that would leave it open to have a possible skirt bottom too. 

Yep, clearly made with the leftover fabric from my last few projects. I need to decide what I'm actually going to make them with, I have muslin from the pattern-alteration project, but it's sort of wimpy. I'd love to do it with silk broadcloth because it would dye so well, but that would be pricey. Maybe a light-weight cotton twill? Gotta start shopping for that. 

And here's a little drawing dump: 

Mariah, doodling out the outfit altogether.

Page of shirt inspiration, well, you've already seen the top-left one come into being. 

And yeah I like the Avengers. Watch this blog for a big weird dorky post (like my Star Wars one) about the costuming at some point. I was just tickled pink that Loki and Thor's sweet mystical/futuristic outfits had boots with sneakery soles on them, don't know why.