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.

Throwing down th--no, gluing feathers on the gauntlet

Look at me, updating on a Friday! Only three weeks left until DragonCon.

In a "thank goodness I finally came up with a plausible reason to dress like a steampunk owl" moment of brilliance, I've changed the focus of my costume slightly. Instead of an actual owl, my costume is that of an owl catcher. Because to run a time machine, you need a live, unharmed owl, of course. And I'm the one to supply it.

What does an owl catcher need? A gauntlet! Because owls nip and pinch. I didn't want a regular falconry gauntlet, mostly because they're big and heavy and therefore hot, partly because I would just look silly without an actual owl to carry on it. But I found this tutorial to make a leather bracer, and that seemed like a good starting place.

I don't have any really thick leather. The thickest I have is a scrap too small to do much with, so I went with a thinner, more supple piece that was big enough. I pretty much followed the tutorial so I won't repeat it except to say that it's a lot different with thin leather. I could not get the stupid edges to bevel no matter what I did with the spoon, mostly. They look okay anyway, though. At least, I'm okay with them. I have low standards.

For lacing, I decided to use a length of the laces that came with my corset. The corset I ordered turned out to be too generously sized for me (yay dieting! yay doing situps and hiking all the time!) and I cinched the laces in, knotted them, and cut the excess off. So I have two lengths of tough black laces. I used my leather punch to make the holes, then got worried that the thin leather would tear with all the adjusting of laces I'd have to do. So I decided to add grommets, of which I have an awful lot.

I'd never used grommets before. I just watched the first online video tutorial I found, but it was easy. Basically, you push the bigger piece of the grommet through front to back, set it on a firm surface that you don't mind if it gets dented a bit, put the other half of the grommet over it on the inside, put the pointy end of your grommet tool thingy on top of that, and hammer that metherfeckin thing hard with a hammer. Trust me, it works. It's also kind of fun.

After lacing the gauntlet, I decided it needed some extra decoration. I'd never tried embossing leather and it turns out that I didn't press hard enough. Once it dried, most of the drawings I'd made were almost invisible. But that's okay, because I have Sharpie markers.

Above: I let the gauntlet dry overnight while sitting up like this.

Before I put the feather trim on this evening, I wanted to make it look like the gauntlet had seen some use. Since I don't have an owl, and since an owl would probably slice its way through the leather without even noticing it, I turned to the one sharp-clawed creature I do have access to: Jekyll. You know, my cat who bites me all the time.

He didn't want to bite me today. Or scratch me. He just wanted to be petted no matter how much I tried to awaken his hunting instinct by teasing him with the laces or with one of his 10,000 cat toys scattered throughout the house. This is the cat who woke me at 3:30 a.m. last night after trying to climb into the (capped) chimney, and when I picked him up--groggily afraid a rabid raccoon had found its way into the chimney and was after him--he almost casually bit and scratched my arm. This is the cat who lies in wait for me to walk by in the mornings when I'm trying to get ready for work, and leaps out at my ankles and seizes the hem of my nightgown or the cuff of my pants. This is the cat who lies under my computer table while I'm online, purring and occasionally nipping at my bare toes.

Anyway, finally I managed to get him excited enough to tear into my gauntlet. Authentic battle damage! I decided that was enough for now, and took the gauntlet off to finish it.

I had bought a feather boa to use as trim, so I measured a piece off and cut it. I then trimmed the feathers short on one side of the piece, laid down a line of glue (my favorite Gem-Tak) and pressed it into the inside of the leather cuff.

Then I was too impatient to let it dry before I took pictures. Hopefully it will stick to the rough side of the leather. But for now it looks good. Here's a clever photo I took to show both sides at once. The fist of justice! Note that I put on my awesome hat even though I knew it probably wouldn't show in the picture, because I wanted to get in character a bit.

And finally, here's a hopefully readable close-up (backwards--you know, I could have taken it off to take a picture, huh?) of the embossed-and-Sharpied design. SOC stands for Society of Owl Catchers. (If SOC stands for anything else, especially if it's something nasty, please don't tell me.) And that's not the best owl ever drawn, even by me, but it's at least recognizable. Don't think of it as a bad drawing, think of it as an original American Primitive.

Dying, sewing, and sticking feathers on things with glue

Today's post was going to be all about the transformation of a bright coral cotton blouse into an elegant black top that I may wear as part of my DragonCon costume. But I couldn't find the right size buttons and had to order some online today, so until I get them and sew them on I can't claim I'm done with the top. I also can't make the decision as to whether I'll wear it or not. I like it, but I'm not sure I like it enough.

I didn't just dye that shirt, though, I also dyed a light jacket thingie that I stopped wearing because the khaki-green color just doesn't look good on me, and a pair of long white socks that I got on sale but never wear.

The coral shirt is 100% cotton, the jacket is 60% cotton and 40% modal, and I don't know what the socks are made of. Cotton dyes beautifully, so I got a bottle of black RIT dye and used the stovetop method to dye the clothes.

I'd used RIT dye before, but only for undyed wool (one of my hobbies is handspinning). I didn't think about bleaching the clothes first, just dumped them in the dyebath. I also probably didn't keep the water hot enough. When I took the clothes out of the dyebath they looked fine, but after drying overnight they were really uneven. The decorative stitching around the blouse's neckline didn't dye at all, but I like the effect.

I redyed the blouse by itself the next night, with much better results. After I took it out of the dyebath I added the jacket; it didn't dye as evenly but I like the shade of gray a lot better than the green it was before. (The socks hardly dyed at all, so I guess they aren't made of natural fibers.) I washed the clothes in the washer, delicate setting, and they look quite nice.

Anyway, so that was one thing I did this week. On Friday morning, I woke up with a bad crick in my neck, so after work I spent the rest of the day lying on the bed with a heating pad on my neck, movies on the TV, and bleak misery in my heart. To occupy myself I picked up the sleeve pieces of the nightgown I'd started sewing way back in April, and finally did the embroidery I'd planned to do but never quite found time for.

Saturday my neck felt a bit better and I finished the embroidery. Today I intended to finish the nightgown, but, well, see this picture? If you can tear your attention away from my adorable cat, you can see what I accidentally did when I sewed on one of the sleeves. Yeah. I need to rip that seam out and fix that. Maybe next April.

Finally, I ordered a very nice fan for DragonCon--it's hot, I'll be wearing several layers of clothes including feathers, and I'll be doing a lot of walking. I need a fan. I like this one, but it was a bit drab. To dress it up a bit, I decorated the tassel on its end. Ordinarily I'm not a fan of gears stuck randomly to things (hey, gears! that makes it steampunk, right?), but I think this one looks kind of neat. I also added some turkey feathers and I like them well enough that I plan to glue them in place as soon as I can find where I put the glue.

The petticoat: finished!

It took me two weeks of working on it almost every night, sometimes for a few hours at a time, but it's done. I'm proud of it. Here it is on, and you can also see my corset and the top I may or may not actually wear with the final outfit. More about that tomorrow. Sorry the mirror in the garage is so filthy--it's my only full-length mirror.

(I threw a bathrobe over the outfit because I had to walk from the house to the garage, and my neighbors think I'm eccentric enough already.)

I fell in love with the lace I used on the hem, so I got more to trim the waistband--even though it doesn't show. I decided to put elastic in the back seam rather than bothering with buttons, but I was in a hurry and got sloppy when sewing the casing. When I started to feed the 3/4" elastic into the casing, it turned out that part of the casing was way too narrow. Rather than rip out the seam and do it over, I used a thinner piece of elastic. The thinner elastic isn't as springy, though, and the waistband is a bit loose. But as long as it's tucked under my corset, it's not going anywhere. Anyway, I only sewed lace to the flat front of the waistband.

I'm glad I decided to use this fabric for a petticoat instead of my skirt. I don't love it now as much as I did when I bought it. The fabric I have for the skirt is much darker, with a lot of black in it that should look dramatic. Now I just have to make the skirt.

I have four weeks, three weekends.