Simple airship ornaments

I'm steampunking my Christmas tree. So far this has meant removing all the green and blue ornaments and adding some dark brown and deep red ones. But I wanted to make some ornaments of my own. Here's my first, very basic try.

I chose a yellow-brown shade of cardstock and a dark brown shade, then freehand-cut airships out. They turned out pretty good although I probably should have made them smaller for my little table tree. I punched holes in the tops and strung them with dark brown yarn.

But that was pretty boring, so I found some model paint that I bought on sale ages ago and had never used. It's supposed to be gold, but it was only sort of goldish. It didn't show up at all on the yellow airship, so I used black instead. If I make more of these I'll probably use a glitter gel pen or something.

Here are the finished ornaments.

Making a bucket list booklet, part 2

I finally finished this! The leather got here quickly but it took a lot of work to get the cover made. But I'm happy with the finished result, considering it was the first time I'd tried making a leather cover and only the second booklet I've ever made.

The leather was supposed to be green but no matter what light I look at it in, it looks brown to me. I don't mind; it's still just what I needed. It's thick leather but not stiff. I ordered it from TheLeatherGuyMN on etsy and got it within days. I ordered two pieces, so I had to sew them together.

First I trimmed the top of the pieces to just a little larger than the cardboard cover already in place. Then I sewed the two pieces together using the same technique I used for my lawnmower handlebar grips that I made this summer.

Once that was done I measured the piece again with the sewn edge over the spine of the booklet. I wanted the cover to be snug but not so tight that it would stretch. I trimmed the ends so that they would come right up to the inside edge of the first and last pages. Here's a picture of how I arranged the cover, before sewing.

After I was sure I had everything cut to just the right size, I glued the inside front and back flaps to the cardboard. I did not glue anywhere else, just here to keep the leather in place while I worked.

After that I had to sew the top and bottom edges in place. That's what took so very long. First I had to punch holes with the awl through both thicknesses of leather (and sometimes the cardboard), then I had to sew carefully to make sure the stitches were taut but not so tight they might pull through the leather.

I sewed from the edge of the cover to the spine, then knotted the threads from both sides and cut them short. Unfortunately, I cut them too short, forgetting that the upholstery thread I used is tough but thick so tends to untie itself if given half a chance (that's a problem with one of my lawnmower grips too; I need to repair it already). To keep from having to resew both sides, I cut a tiny piece of vellum paper (not real vellum, just the thick but transparent paper they sell to scrapbookers in craft shops) and glued it down over the thread ends to hold them in place. I then did the same thing to the other side even though the knot held, just in case.

Once it was done, it looked good--but there was a problem. I accidentally tore the paper edging the spine a bit, and that worried me that eventually the page might tear through. In the photo above you can see how flimsy that blue piece of paper is and it is pretty much the only thing holding the pages in place (there's a strip of cheesecloth too, but it's not that strong). Major oversight, plus that signature of the booklet wasn't as tight as it should be so it needed stabilizing anyway.

I wish I had realized this before I had glued and sewn the cover in place. It would have been easy to put a strip of vellum or something down before I'd made the cover. But it was too late so I did the only thing I could really do at that point without starting over: I cut more vellum (it's fairly tough paper, and I also had some on hand already) and glued it in place. I used as little glue as I could because I knew it would look bad and I also didn't want to wrinkle the pages.

I put a strip in front and one in back, then let them dry overnight while weighted. The vellum was almost invisible on the paper, and is prettily patterned anyway, but the vellum glued to the leather just looked horrible. To make the best of a bad situation, I drew all over those sections, front and back. At least now anyone looking at it will be too busy thinking, "What is that supposed to be, an octopus?" to notice anything else.

But despite the hiccups I'm happy with the result. It's handsome, sturdy, and I made the whole thing. I left room to add photos, and I already have some to add.

Making a Bucket List Booklet, Part One

I was going to wait until I made the leather cover to post about this, but I don't have any leather pieces big enough to make the cover. I had to order some and it'll be a while before I get it, so I'll go ahead and post what I've done so far.

Last year I started a bucket list--you know, a list of things to accomplish before you kick the bucket. Last week I decided it was time not only to finish and organize the list, but to turn it into a little booklet.

There are all kinds of good tutorials online on how to make and sew a booklet together. I recommend this one for being particularly clear (it's a PDF, unfortunately, which means it's probably going to lock up your computer for a few minutes). Here's another good one that isn't a PDF.

The first step, of course, is to make up your list. This is fun and leads to a certain amount of wistful introspection and blessing-counting. I had my list partly made, and I used Pinterest to help me come up with more ideas. I was conservative in my list items--I didn't include just anything that sounded interesting, I wanted my items to be both feasible and things I genuinely want to accomplish. I did include some items that I've already (recently) accomplished.

After I made my list, I typed it up the way I wanted it to appear in the booklet and printed it off on heavy cardstock in a variety of colors. This was way more complicated than it sounds since I wanted my booklet to be the size of a regular sheet of paper folded over. I won't go over how to deal with your word processing program and printer to make sure everything prints where it's supposed to, except to say if you're not comfortable doing that kind of thing, you would probably be a lot happier hand-lettering your pages.

In books like this, where the pages are sewn together rather than glued onto a binding, the pages are separated into signatures. Each signature is made up of a set number of pages. My signatures consisted of only three sheets of cardstock folded over to make six sheets (12 pages) since the paper I used was heavy. I made six signatures. The first and last signature actually do have an extra sheet so I'd have a free page to use for gluing on the cover. That gave me an extra two pages I could actually use.

After I printed out the pages and folded them over carefully into signatures, I made sure the signatures were together in the right order (and right side up), then weighted them with a book so they wouldn't shift, and marked the edges (see the tutorials above for why I was marking them).

Then I took them into the garage, where I used my awl to poke holes where I'd marked them. I've done this before, incidentally, so I knew to open up the signatures after poking the holes, to make sure they poked through evenly to the other side, and if not, to poke the holes back through in such a way as to make them more even. I'm sorry, it's been a long weekend and I have a headache and can't figure out better words to describe that process. Make your holes small, is what I'm saying, because they never go through straight and you want to be able to enlarge them to make them as centered as possible.

So anyway, once that was done I made sure again that the signatures were in the right order and right side up. Then I cut a very long length of heavy-duty thread (waxed linen thread is best, but I had extra strong cotton/poly thread so that's what I used), probably a good five feet long. It turned out to be too long, but I'd much rather have to deal with a very long thread while sewing than have to pull it all out and start over because I ran out of thread. Using an embroidery needle (sharp but with a fairly large eye), I sewed the signatures together. Don't pull the stitches too tight. You want to make sure your pages will open without tearing. I checked frequently as I worked to make sure the pages were neither too tight nor too loose.

It's a lengthy process if you've never done it before, but when you finish you can feel proud of yourself. You've obviously got a book almost made when you're done.

After that, I cut a piece of cheesecloth and clamped my newly sewn signatures between some heavy books. See this tutorial page for directions on gluing. Basically you cover the spine with glue (I used Gem-Tac, of course, but Elmer's works fine) except for about half an inch on either end--what will eventually be the top and bottom of the spine, once it's a book--then place the piece of cheesecloth on and add a little more glue on top of it. Then let it dry overnight. Don't add all that much glue. I smeared it on with my finger, which works a lot better than dribbling it straight on.

For the front and back covers--which will not show in the end, once I make the leather cover--I used two pieces of thin cardboard the same size as the paper I'd used, folded over. This is going to sound extra confusing, but seriously, if you've read this far, you can figure it out. You want to glue the cardboard over the endpapers, with the ends of the cheesecloth inside the fold of the cardboard too. Here's a picture.

The picture's not as clear as I'd like, but the spine is on the left next to the glue bottle. I've already glued the underside of the folded cardboard to the back of the purple sheet, which is the endpaper. After I took the picture, I put a little glue down on the purple sheet and placed the cheesecloth on top to hold it in place, then glued the top inside of the cardboard and pressed it down well. (I also belatedly put a sheet of paper in between the cardboard and the first page of the booklet, to keep any glue from oozing onto it; but I didn't put glue all the way to the edge of the cardboard and I didn't use tons of glue.)

Then flip the booklet over and do the other cover the same way. Then weight the whole thing down with heavy books or whatever, and let it dry overnight.

Then wait impatiently for your green leather pieces to arrive so you can make the actual cover, which is hopefully going to look awesome.

Tutorial: make a needle case with pockets

I made a tiny travel sewing kit right before DragonCon, something I could tuck in my bag in case of costume malfunctions. As it happens I needed it a couple of times. It wasn't fancy--I threw it together in about an hour--and I didn't take pictures as I made it so I didn't think about talking about it here.

That's what it looks like, above. This week I thought about what project to make and decided to make another sewing kit. I looked around online to get some ideas and decided a needle case with pockets would be even better.

I have some brown felt that I bought a bunch of on sale and haven't figured out anything to do with yet. It has a cool pattern and I decided it would look good at the main part of the piece. I have some reddish-brown cotton that looks good as the lining.

The needle case is about the same size as the original sewing kit I made, roughly the size of a small postcard. (In fact I used a postcard to help me cut out the pieces). The finished size, opened, is 5 1/2" wide by 4 1/4" high. I cut the main piece of felt exactly that size, the lining a little bit bigger all around. I also cut the lining much longer so I could fold it up and make a pocket. And I cut a smaller piece of felt for the middle.

Now, I am not a very organized person and I probably could have had an easier time with the lining and pocket if I'd made them two pieces instead of one. You can see from the pictures below that I had to fold the edges under one way to sew the lining to the back, then fold them the other way on the bottom part of the lining when I folded it up to make the pocket.

I sewed the lining on first, all the way around, using a nice neat topstitch. At least, it started out neat and got sloppy pretty fast as I got impatient. I don't know why I decided to hand-sew this, but I did. I watched an entire Sherlock Holmes movie while I did, and part of Kick-Ass after it was over.

Then I decided the case should close with a button and loop. I have some cool wooden buttons that are reddish, so I chose one and some brown cord that I really like (I think this is the third project it's ended up in). I sewed the button on, then made sure the loop was positioned correctly and sewed it up in between the front and back of the pocket. Then I sewed the other side of the pocket up.

After that, all I had left to do was sew the felt piece on in the middle. I trimmed it with pinking shears to make it more decorative, then carefully marked where the piece folded in the middle when I closed it. That took several tries. Then I put a seam in all the way down the middle. And that's it, it was done!

I'm happy with the way it looks and I think I did a pretty good job making it. I don't need it, so it may eventually end up on etsy when I have enough stuff made to reopen my shop.

The Nightgown, finished

I put pictures and commentary from my excellent DragonCon experience last week up on my regular blog. I inexplicably didn't take many pictures of random people dressed up, but there are lots and lots of blogs/sites out there with lots of pictures.

As I say, I had a fantastic time. I wore my modest costume on Saturday and got some compliments, especially on my awesome hat, attended a bunch of panels, saw friends, met new people, and saw some of my absolute favorite musicians perform. But now I'm back and I'm still not recovered from an intense, sleep-deprived weekend.

So this week I haven't done anything except laundry and housework. Yardwork's next, when I can muster my enthusiasm. The blog will probably be quiet for the next few weeks, if not longer, while I work on other stuff. But one thing I did find time for was finishing the nightgown that started this whole steampunk garage project.

My camera has vanished, but here's a small picture I took with my phone. The nightgown is simple and not terribly attractive when worn--I used this tutorial. I learned a lot about sewing from making this thing, though, including how to sew ruffles. I am something of an expert ruffler now, but it all started here. I had fun doing the embroidery although it's not as elaborate as I'd intended.

So what's up for the steampunk garage in the near future? A lot of clutter has crept back into the garage and I need to tidy it, for one thing. I also want to finish turning my antique brass blowtorch into a steampunk "weapon." And I want to make another steampunk outfit so I've got something warm and non-feathery to wear to AnachroCon in February (and probably ChattaCon in January).

So keep checking back, and hopefully soon I'll be back to work in the garage. First, though, I need to finish this steampunk YA I've been writing.

Last sleep before DragonCon!

Tomorrow morning I plan to roll out of bed at whatever time I wake naturally (or whatever time the cat wakes me, actually) and head out to DragonCon. My goal is to get there and get my badge picked up by around lunchtime or a little later, depending on traffic. Then I can hit a few panels and look around, hopefully meet up with friends, before heading to my hotel in Kennesaw to check in, grab some food, and return to the con.

Saturday will be my exhausting day, because I want to watch the parade at 10am (for which it's best to get there at 9am or thereabouts) and see Professor Elemental and Abney Park perform at midnight. Sunday will be almost as exhausting, because there's a 10am panel I don't want to miss ("The Science of Airships") and I also want to see Voltaire perform at midnight--and of course, both days I've got tons of stuff I want to do in between.

I took today off work to get all the last-minute stuff done. My attempt at making my own bag was a failure, but I found a bag I really like at Goodwill for a few bucks and added some decoration. The owl thing is my $5 pocketwatch! I finally have a place to put it.

And I crocheted this adorable pouch for Owlet from this tutorial. I didn't have time to handspin yarn of the right weight, so I bought a nice silk/bamboo blend and used it instead. Ordinarily I don't sew random gears on things, but hell, it's a pouch for a toy owl, sewing gears on it isn't going to make it any sillier than it already is. The button is for Walter Sickert and the Army of Broken Toys, a great band but also the button has tiny owls as part of the design. So, you know.

If you're going to be at DragonCon and you'd like to meet up, just email me at kcshaw123 [at] gmail [dotcom]. If you've got the DragonCon app, email me a friend code if you like! I'd love to have someone to hang out with, especially at the live performances.

I will, of course, take plenty of pictures.I'll post them when I get home on Monday!

Yes! Pictures of my DragonCon costume!

It's not complete--I still have the bag to finish, and a few little additions--but the bulk of it is done and I got real pictures taken today.

My aunt Janice took the pictures, and she said I definitely need to wear my boots instead of the heels I had planned. The boots are more comfortable anyway. Here's a closeup of them along with my lacy socks, with me pulling my skirt up a bit to show off my petticoat:

I also need to take both the petticoat and the skirt in a bit. They're just too big. When I suck my gut in (ahem) to fasten my corset, the skirt and petticoat sag. Once the corset's fastened it's hard to adjust my clothes. Also, for anyone who's never worn a corset before: it's the last thing you should put on, including shoes. Especially shoes.

That hat is so awesome.

And here's me trying not to laugh, because of course Janice kept cracking me up. She got some action shots of me goofing around pretending to catch owls, but they were A) blurry and B) made me look insane. You'll just have to find me at DragonCon to see me acting insane. I'm not used to seeing myself doing anything but standing in front of the mirror, of course, so maybe I always look insane.

Distressing a garment really fast

Sorry, no pictures of my complete DragonCon costume yet. I'm not done with the bag, plus my photographer has vanished from the face of the earth (or at least the part of the earth with cell coverage). So here's a quick tutorial on how to distress a garment--in this case, that jacket I dyed.

I actually dyed it three times total, none of them very well, and it ended up an uneven brownish-gray. There are splotches of darker color in the back that are very obvious, so I can't wear it as part of a polished costume. But I was thinking of only wearing my full costume on Saturday at DragonCon, and coming up with a simpler, toned-down costume for Sunday.

The idea I had was more dieselpunk than steampunk, with a grimy, oil-stained jacket over crop pants, corset, and a bright top, with my old beat-up leather boots and a pair of lace-trimmed socks. It might have worked, too, except that I'm not the right shape. For the most part I'm happy with the way I look, but I'm also very aware that women are judged by appearance, and the outfit is not flattering on me. This is an outfit for a younger, skinnier woman.

But I digress. Here's how to distress a badly-dyed garment.

1. Try to send it through the reel mower's workings. It won't go through, but it will get a bit rumpled and grimy if, like me, you never clean the mower's blades.
2. Use the tail of the shirt to rub the top of a rusty, gummy oilcan.
3. Hang it over a chair and snag it several times with the screw poking out of a block of wood that you just happen to have on hand.
4. Try to cut it with a really rusty old pair of loppers that aren't sharp anymore. They will put a few small holes in the cloth but mostly they chew at it.
5. Try to cut it with a really dull boxcutter.
6. Cut it unexpectedly quickly with an X-acto knife.
7. Poke holes along the edges of the big X-acto knife gash with an awl, and use the holes to sloppily lace up the hole with a leather cord or an old bootlace.

That's what I did. The lacing looks particularly good, I think.

I'm sure I can use this jacket for an outfit sometime in the future. Heck, I may wear it Sunday after all, but with jeans instead of the brown pants that aren't flattering. But so you can see what I mean about the outfit, here's a picture of me in it. Sorry, I didn't have my boots on.

A net to catch an imaginary owl

This took entirely too long to make considering how simple it is.

First, start with a dowel and the center piece of a wooden embroidery hoop. Screw them together and saw the dowel off at the desired length. (I wasn't able to screw the screw in all the way since the flimsy hoop started to crack, but it doesn't really show.)

Then spraypaint the whole thing. I painted it what was supposed to be brown but looked really gray, so I spritzed over it a bit with some copper spraypaint. Let it dry overnight.

Cut a thin strip of leather (or fake leather) of really any length. You can stop wrapping when you think it looks good or add more if you want. Lay a line of glue (Gem-Tac! My favorite! It smells just like Elmer's but it holds better) along the back side of the leather. Then press a few inches of the leather (glue side down, of course) along the dowel and over the end, then twist it around and wrap the strip around and around the dowel, covering the strip you laid down initially, until you run out of strip or decide it looks good and stop wrapping and cut off the rest. This took almost no time at all--seriously, I think it took longer for me to figure out how to explain what I did than it took to actually do it.

Then get a lot of string and...make a net.

The net took me hours. But look! I caught an owl.

(If you find the owl as adorable as I do, you can buy your very own on etsy at Green Owl Curiosities, and the proceeds go to an owl/raptor rehabilitation society. Yes, this little guy is going to DragonCon with me. I need to put my name and number on him somewhere in case he escapes.)

The Other Half of the Shirt

The shirt is finally finished. It took much longer than I expected. Here it is finished, first of all--and no, I'm not wearing my corset because I just ate a burger and fries and two cookies and I'm not sure I could fasten it at the moment. Also I'm wearing my glasses. On the plus side, I just got my hair cut today.

My first step was to hem the, the--what the hell is that called, anyway? I just searched Wikipedia with no luck. Let's call it the placket in the middle of the neckline, even though technically it's not a placket. Anyway, my first step was to hem the placket and add grommets. Now that I know how to add grommets, I can see I'll be adding them to everything. I laced the placket up with more of the cord cut from the extra laces from my corset (although if I keep eating like I did today, I'm going to have to loosen the cords again).

I tried it on to see what it looked like, and oops. No matter how tightly I pulled the laces, I was showing an awful lot of cleavage. I decided to make a modesty panel.

I was messing around with various fabrics to see what would look best when I noticed a yard of feather tape I'd bought off etsy on a whim, months ago, but never found a use for. The feathers are short and small compared to the feather tape I used to trim my petticoat. On impulse I held them up to the placket, and loved the effect.

So I sewed a piece of feather tape on either side of the placket, feathers pointing in. They hide what I need to hide and look good too. I worried they'd tickle, but they don't.

After that I had to do the sleeves. I did a terrible job. I ended up adding three layers of fabric to each sleeve and I still don't like the effect, but I'm tired of fooling with it so it'll have to do. I trimmed each layer in feather-like scallops.

Incidentally, I stabbed my thumb badly last night while working on the sleeves. Then I stepped on a sewing needle and drove it right up into my bare foot. If it had been the same needle both times, that might have been understandable. Instead, I got up to deal with my bleeding thumb, came back and sat down at the computer to tweet about it (tweeting about an event is the most important part of an event, right?), then stood up to go back to sewing, at which point I accidentally knocked a loose needle off the computer desk, it fell into the pile of the carpet point-up, and I stepped on it. This is why I didn't finish the shirt until tonight.

If all goes well, I should have photos up of me in my full DragonCon outfit, probably on Sunday. And these will be real pictures, not selfies taken in the dirty mirror in the garage. It will be epic.

Half a shirt

I've been having a lot of trouble figuring out what to wear as a shirt for my DragonCon costume. I've tried modding several shirts I bought, but for whatever reason they just haven't worked. Finally I decided I would have to make one.

I bought a pattern and found the cloth I wanted. But today when I opened the pattern and looked at it, I realized the shirt I planned to sew was almost identical in style to the one I tried to dye last week, the one that didn't take the dye but did take the brown Sharpie ink (which lasted through a wash, incidentally, so it is permanent). I did something I've never done before: took the shirt apart to use it as a pattern.

Look, here is a picture of me cutting out pieces from fabric that I neglected to iron! I was so positive that this wouldn't work that I just slopped the pieces together all anyhow.

And yet...somehow, it worked. A few months ago I could not have done it. It's safe to say that I've leveled up in sewing, which was one of my goals this year. Before today, I had never made anything with sleeves and had never made anything with gussets. Now I have, and I did a pretty good job (although not perfect, because let's face it, we're talking about me).

The shirt's not done, but it's close and I think it's going to work with my outfit. Here's a picture of me wearing it with my corset to see how it fits before I finish it. The bodice is very dark brown cotton and the sleeves (also not finished) are patterned floaty material that I probably can't wash.

I was using a cord to gather the neckline, but I decided it wasn't working enough and changed it out for a piece of elastic. The elastic works much better. I also extended that little thingy in the middle of the neckline several inches, and will probably add grommets and lace it up. Hopefully that will make the bodice appear more fitted and will reduce the baggy look over my breasts. (I'm also not wearing a very good bra in this picture; I actually bought a bra specifically to wear with this outfit. No one will ever see it, but I assure you it's brown and actually matches the damn outfit, because I am nothing if not obsessive when it comes to colors and patterns.)

Here's the shirt where I left it for tonight. I'll try to finish it within a day or two. I also want to add another layer, possibly two, of material to the sleeves to give it a more fluttery look, and I may add feathers somewhere if I can figure out where and how. I'm taking suggestions, incidentally.

Holy crap, I only have one more weekend before DragonCon--and next Saturday I have to get my car worked on and my hair cut. I'm running out of time!

7-gore skirt with wide ruffle

I couldn't find a skirt pattern I liked, so finally I just gave in and made my own. It was surprisingly easy, which just goes to show that skirts really are simple. Keep in mind I'm still very much a beginner seamstress. If I can do it, so can you.

My goal was a long, full skirt that I could wear as a fancy everyday skirt if I felt like it, but I also needed it to be part of my steampunk owl catcher costume, to be worn over a fluffy, feather-trimmed petticoat that I'd already made. After reading a million tutorials and patterns online, and looking at a zillion photos of skirts, I couldn't find one precisely like I had in mind. What I actually wanted was an Edwardian type walking dress that gathered at the back to imitate a small bustle without actually requiring one. That's not exactly how it came out, but I do like it.

I started with my waist measurement. It's 32" precisely, and I know because that's the waist measurement of the corset I plan to wear with my costume. As it happens, the waist turned out a bit big, but I may fix that by adding a couple of darts. I wanted a flat front (which would be flatter if my front was flatter, but you know) so I measured a nice distance across my front and decided to make the big front gore 12" across. I added an inch for ease.

Then I did some math and made some drawings, with notes. Here's a picture of what I came up with. Not all those notes were necessary--for instance, because I added a ruffle I didn't need to worry about bringing up the corners of the gores to keep them from turning out pointy when sewn.

Hopefully that's reasonably readable, for anyone who wants to try this at home. In the interest of easier math (basically I rounded up a lot), I left myself a TON of ease in the measurements, which is probably why the waist is too big.

I didn't make the ruffle as ruffly as I could have because I didn't want it to be too frilly. I like the way it turned out, as you'll see below, and of course the skirt goes over a seriously ruffled petticoat.

The first thing I did, naturally, was cut out the cloth. I didn't try to match the pattern, and it worked out just fine. I used a heavy (and expensive!) cotton, and I must say that the more I worked with it the better I liked it. It's always good to fall in love with your fabric while making a garment. Sometimes I grow to hate a fabric, when it's too late. I measured very carefully to minimize needing to fudge and trim later.

I hemmed the ruffle piece first thing, because no way am I going to do that after it's ruffled. Then I sewed the two narrow gores to the front panel. It really is remarkable how easy it is to sew when you've got a sewing machine, even the $20 toy one I use. Those long seams I used to dread when I sewed by hand just whiz by. I then sewed the four back gores together as a separate piece. Zoom, whiz, all done! Sewing machines are awesome. Then I sewed the back piece to the front, but only along one seam. I left the remaining seam, the one that would enclose the whole thing and make it into a skirt, for later.

Incidentally, my notes say "stitch gores R sides OUT with French seams or be lazy and stitch with R sides tog." Which do you think I actually did? Do you really think I made French seams? Really?

Next was the ruffle. I've made two intensely ruffled petticoats in the last few months, so I'm an old hand at ruffling. Because my sewing machine doesn't have a basting stitch (or any stitch except lockstitch, and it only goes forward, not back), I had to do this by hand. But the sewing had gone so well with the other parts yesterday that I got started first thing this morning on the ruffle. It took me a while to put the basting in, but then I spread it all out on the living room floor, ruffled it carefully, pinned it in place, and took it to the garage to sew.

If you know a bit about sewing ruffles, or just sewing in general, and if you're more caffeinated than I was this morning (I skipped breakfast in my eagerness to get started), you'll see from the picture above what happened. Yes, I was pinning wrong sides together, not right sides together. And I didn't notice until after I'd sewn the entire seam.

This picture's not really clear because of the lighting, but hopefully it'll give you a bit of idea of the monumental tragedy that was this seam. The raw edges were on the outside. I was going to have to rip it out and start all over, including re-basting the seam since I'd cut the basting thread.

But then I remembered those French seams I'd decided not to bother with. I had no idea if it was even possible to sew a French seam with a ruffle. Basically, a French seam is a way to fold the cloth down and sew it in place to completely encase the raw edges of the fabric. They don't show at all and it looks nice and neat. So I tried it.

And it worked. So if you ever do something boneheaded like sew a ruffle on wrong-side-out, know that you can fix it. And since I'd allowed an awful lot of ease for seaming--it's easier to shorten a garment you're making than make it longer--I didn't have to worry about making the skirt too short. Incidentally, putting a French seam in above a ruffle might be an easy way to take up a ruffled skirt that's too long.

Above: another bad picture, but hopefully you can see the repaired seam on the outside even if the French seam on the wrong side of the cloth doesn't really show. Incidentally, after making the French seam I went ahead and ran another seam along as a topstitch to tack down the French seam, since I'd made it pretty wide.

Once the ruffle was attached, I sewed up the last remaining seam, being extremely careful that everything matched up. All the careful measuring of pieces I'd done while cutting the fabric paid off, incidentally. It looked good when I was done.

That just left the waistband. I'd already decided to make the front waistband flat and the back gathered with elastic. All I did for the front was fold the top over, then over again to make a nice neat hem. I tried the skirt on with the petticoat first, of course, so I would know how much I needed to hem. I also measured out a length of 3/4" elastic for the back. After I seamed the front waistband, I folded the back down and sewed it in a similar fashion but left openings on either side to thread the elastic through. I had to shorten the elastic some and the skirt is still a bit loose, as I mentioned before, but it ruffled the fabric up nicely. I hand-sewed the edges of the elastic in place and closed the openings.

And voila, it's done! Here's a photo of the skirt hanging up--not great lighting, but it gives you an idea of how the construction looks.

And here it is on me over the feather-trimmed petticoat. The feather trim peeks out from under the skirt, which is what I intended.

And here's a rear view, not very clear and I was having to contort my body to take the picture, but it gives you an idea of how it's just a bit gathered at the back.

If I make this pattern again, I'll try making a regular waistband with a side button closure, probably, and I'll probably pleat the back panels to make them fuller and more gathered. But for now, I'm happy with this skirt.

Incidentally, I have grown to loathe the shirt I'm wearing in the above pictures, so my next project is to make a blouse to go with my costume. Something tells me that's not going to be as easy as a skirt

Sharpie marker vs. polyester

I found another shirt that I really like with my DragonCon steampunk owl catcher costume. The only problem is that it's black, gray, and white, and my costume is mostly brown. I needed some brown in the shirt.

It's 65% polyester, 35% rayon, so I tried RIT dark brown dye to see if it would take. I used the entire bottle of dye (with a cup of salt). I worried that simmering the pot of dye would mess up my shirt, so instead I used almost boiling water but turned off the heat so it wouldn't simmer. I kept the shirt in the dyebath for about half an hour, stirring it frequently to make sure it would dye evenly.

When I took it out of the dyebath, I put the dyed-gray jacket from last week in. I thought a bit of brown might make the gray a warmer shade that would go better with my outfit. That was before I rinsed out the shirt and realized the dye had turned it purple.

A light purple, barely a tint of pink, but definitely not brown. Not brown at all. And most of the dye rinsed out anyway. I thought maybe the stock pot I've been using for dying (it was a crappy stock pot but makes a good dye pot) was aluminum instead of steel as I'd thought, and it had reacted with the dye. I took the jacket out of the dye bath after barely ten minutes and rinsed it thoroughly in hopes that it wouldn't turn purple.

Instead, it had dyed to a marvelous deep brown. And when I ran it and the shirt through a delicate cycle of the washing machine, it stayed deep brown while the shirt lost almost all the purple tint--fortunately, but I was then back to where I'd started.

I'd gotten the shirt on clearance, probably because it had a small tear in the back bottom hem. Since it wasn't one I could wear to work because of the tear, I decided to try something else. I got out my brown Sharpie pen and got to work.

I shaded brown above several of the black stripe patterns to see how it looked. I really liked the effect, so I kept going. I'd finished the front and one of the sleeves when I realized the Sharpie marker, permanent though it's supposed to be, might not work on polyester any better than the dye had. But when I rinsed a section of the Sharpied shirt in water, the marker remained even when I scrubbed.

So hurrah! Sharpie wins! I haven't finished the back--I got too tired to continue, and it's bedtime anyway--but I tried it on with my corset and it looks good (if still a tiny bit purplish, although maybe that's just the light in the bathroom). The real test will be after I run it through the washing machine, but I think it'll be okay. It looks like the pattern of a barred owl's breast to me, which is why I like it so much.

Tomorrow I hope to have the skirt finished, and if it looks good I'll put a full tutorial up on how I made it. So far it's just what I had in mind.