Another petticoat

Aw man, how did it get to be May already? I've only got four months until DragonCon! I'm not ready!

This year I want to dress as a lady botanist. I decided that last fall after I got a tattoo of vines on my right leg. This week I'll be going to get a similar tattoo on my left leg. But I haven't done anything for the outfit because hey, lots of time left, right? Wrong! Hardly any time left and I don't know what to do about a vasculum. A botanist needs a vasculum but they're just not available since modern botanists, who have no souls, just carry plastic bags.

Anyway, my feather-trimmed petticoat from last year won't do so I decided to make a new one. A girl can never have too many petticoats. Unfortunately I soon grew to loathe the cloth; fortunately, it was cheap and won't show. I decided not to trim it with anything, just hemmed the bottom tier.

Above: the first of many endlessly long seams.

As always, putting the basting thread in for ruffling is a tedious process since I have to do it by hand. Then it takes more tedious time to do the actual ruffling and get everything pinned and ready to sew. The process is made more difficult with a cat who loves it when I get down on the floor, because he thinks I want to play with him.

The process is also made more difficult these days since I've got a drum kit in my living room. I can't quite bring myself to move it out to the garage even though that would make more sense. I like knowing it's safe inside. It's a horrible cheap kit but I love it dearly.

Incidentally, if you're not clear on how ruffling works, this picture might help. See the thread passing through the cloth, the one I've got my finger under? That's the basting thread. You pull it (steadily but firmly) and it wrinkles up the cloth. When you've got the wrinkles distributed evenly all down the thread, you pin them in place and sew a seam along the basting thread, then pull the basting thread out completely. It's actually pretty easy although it sounds complicated.

I use a three-tier pattern, with the bottom two tiers ruffled and the top tier just plain. I didn't measure the top tier around my waist, just figured I'd put in tucks or something later once I lose the weight I put on over the winter. (You must imagine me saying that in an immensely dignified voice.) It's much too big now since I only tapered the top piece a few inches.

Above: the pieces sewn together and awaiting the seam up the side.

I folded the top down half an inch, then folded it over again an inch and sewed it to make a plain waistband. Then I sewed up the side seam, starting at the bottom hem and continuing up to about halfway up the top tier. I stopped there and folded the edges above it back and sewed them, to make a horrible ugly ineffective and sloppy placket. I had thought I'd sew a button on later and that would be that, but I think I'll have to do more work to the waistband later in the summer.

Above: worst placket ever

Even so, the petticoat will work as is even if I have to safety pin it all around my waist when the time comes. The ruffles are nice and ruffly and will make my skirt stand out properly. I will probably wear the same skirt as last year, since it's lovely and fits and goes with my corset. So now I just have to figure out what the hell to do about a top. And I also need to find a vasculum.

Here's the petticoat worn, with it hitched up a bit so you can see part of my awesome tattoo:

Snow-powered with a sidecar

I've neglected the blog, and the garage, this winter. It's just been too cold to do much except read and write and do a bit of knitting. I have lots of ideas for spring, though, if it ever gets here.

I'm in East Tennessee so we don't get much snow ordinarily--but last night we got ten inches! I made a snowman. Actually it's a snowwoman, representing me, and a snowcat, representing Jekyll, and we are about to rev into our next adventure in a snowcycle with a cat-sized sidecar.

I'll be at AnachroCon in Atlanta this weekend. I wanted to make an outfit for the con but I didn't, so I'll just be dressed in jeans and T-shirts and my awesome hat. If you're going to be there, say hi! We can go to the absinthe tasting together!

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.

Petticoat Update

You know what I've done all week? I've been sewing feather trim on the bottom hem of the petticoat I'm making. My house is full of feathers. I didn't keep track, but it probably took a solid eight hours. I won't bore you with all the details, like the difficulty I had finding more trim when I ran out and had already bought every piece at the fabric store. Just believe me when I say it's been a long, tiring week of hand-sewing.

Once I was done with the trim, I was able to use the machine to sew the lace on top. I did that this afternoon. I won't bore you with the details about that either, like how my bobbin ran out halfway through and I screwed up when replacing it and almost broke the needle, etc. Anyway, I got it sewn on.

Then I had to ruffle it. That took hours. I did that this evening. The cat helped.

You may remember that I started this whole steampunk garage project so I'd have somewhere to sew where the cat wouldn't help, but while I'm happy with the garage and it's very useful for most parts of a project, the floor will never be as clean as my living room carpet (stains and all).

I won't bore you with the endless activity of ruffling and how it was already 10 pm when I sat down to sew the pieces. I got it done, and only had to rip out a few inches of stitching that I screwed up.

Here's what it looks like--and keep in mind that I still have the upper tier and waistband to make. Yes, I know, the picture is blurry and the color is off. I will not bore myself taking and processing a new one.

The Goggles are Done, or, Don't Eat the Goggles

My buckle order came! I ordered lots of stuff in hopes that I could find uses for it all. Unfortunately, none of the buckles were really small enough for what I had in mind--a headstrap for my goggles.

So I did what I probably should have done in the first place: I used ribbon. Specifically I used some brown woven flat cord, which I tied to a pair of hooky things. I can easily hook and unhook them to the D-rings on the goggles to put them on and take them off.

I badly need to clean the bathroom mirror, don't I?

I hadn't though the goggles would fit on my hat, which has a narrow brim. But look here! All I had to do was add another hook and a loop. It's not beautiful--and I'll have to find a bigger hoop, because it's a tad tight and I don't want to crunch my hat--but it works just fine.

I moved the pin with the copper owl charms to the back of the hat, which gives it a bit more interest from the back and will hopefully help keep the goggle strap from riding up and coming off.

I still think there are too many feathers on those goggles. I mean, the cat thought it was a new toy and kept trying to eat the feathers, so yeah, too many. But there's nothing I can do about it now.

So the hat/goggles combo for my costume are done. As soon as I get my corset, I have to go into overdrive to make the skirt and top. I have only the barest smidge of an idea of what I want, too, and the cloth feathers all turned out disappointing, and I look like a dork and I look like my mother. I'm going to go mow the lawn, dammit.

First steps of two projects

I forgot to post yesterday, so this post will go over two very different steampunk projects that I've started. In both cases I've got a long way to go.

First, I finally bought an antique brass blowtorch. I love it so much I can hardly stand it. I mean, look at it!

I bought this particular blowtorch because it looks so much like a weapon to start with. I have plans to mod it a bit--nothing drastic, and certainly nothing permanent; I want to be able to remove all the modding if I like so I can appreciate the blowtorch's elegant simplicity all on its own.

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of supplies yet. I do have this heavy copper wire that I found at work (really, I did actually find it--it was on the floor and I was about to pitch it in the trash, thinking, "Why don't those construction guys ever clean up after themselves?" when I realized I was holding copper wire and ooh shiny want). I tried wrapping it around the "barrel" of the blowtorch, but it's such thick copper that it's not very bendy and I don't know if I love it. I'll probably remove it once I find something else to replace it with. But I also had some jewelry wire that's thin and very flexible. It looks much better. (I especially like the little coil stuck into a perfectly sized hole in the cap where you pour the paraffin inside; I made it by wrapping the wire around a pencil.) It looks much better, although it's so very bendy that it's not going to keep its shape. I need to find a wire that's the same diameter but a bit stronger.

One of the things I'm hoping to do with the blowtorch, if I can manage it, is install a bright blue LED and a reflector down into the barrel, with a switch I can toggle with my thumb. But I have never tried wiring anything ever in my life, so it's going to be a steep learning curve.

So that's one project. The other is a pair of bloomers that I bought the cloth for several weeks ago. Today I finally decided it was time to start on them. I'm still about halfway through making the nightgown that inspired this stupid garage makeover in the first place, but I've stalled out because the embroidery is taking so long. The bloomers should go much faster.

Here's the cutting table--formerly a dining table that no one in the family wants, and which was holding a TV before I moved it out to the garage--being used for its new purpose. It works quite well. The groove between the table and the leaf isn't as deep as a real cutting table's, but it does the trick. In this picture, I'm cutting the muslin.

And here are the pieces (and the muslin) after I cut them. I had to move the lamp, but it's easy enough to move back when I'm done.

To get the full impact of the pictures, you should imagine me carefully cutting the cloth while wearing Animal PJ bottoms and a Clan Shaw t-shirt. And orange flip-flops. And keep in mind that the garage door was wide open, like this (bonus Jekyll picture).

Small update, small shelves, small everything

It rained again this weekend. I like rain, but this is the third weekend in a row. Please, sky gods, give me a sunny weekend soon!

I had to work yesterday morning anyway, and after that I went to see Iron Man 3. It was late when I got home and I'm still getting over a bout of bronchitis, so I didn't do any work on the garage Saturday.

At one point in Iron Man 3 (hopefully this won't spoil anything) there's a scene where Tony Stark is in the middle of nowhere and has to break into a garage to make repairs on his suit. The garage in the movie is full of stuff he can use. If he broke into my garage, he'd still be there trying to figure out how to make repairs with a leather punch, cheap nails, a bunch of interesting rocks, five or six sets of windchimes, and some short twists of copper wire (which I stole--I mean found--at work where they're doing construction).

This morning I got up to more chilly rain, and I kind of felt like staying in bed all day. Instead I went to Home Depot and bought bricks, because I am just that exciting.

They're actually edgers, meant for edging flowerbeds and stuff like that. But they're the right size for brick-and-board shelves, which I decided to use the particleboard shelves for rather than trying to wall-mount them. I bought a dozen bricks thinking that would be enough. Instead, as you can see these are the smallest shelves ever. I'll have to get more bricks next time.

(oh look, you can see my leg in the mirror. Those jeans really don't fit anymore)

While I was in Home Depot, I also bought three more wall brackets. I thought I'd use one to replace the mismatched bracket, then have two left over to mount another small shelf later. Garages need shelves! But apparently I bought the original brackets at Lowe's and these are not quite the same size.

I almost went back to the store. But it was still raaaaaining and the cat is trying to kill me (he loves to get up on the pergola and can't always get down). Since I had the ladder out anyway to rescue Jekyll, I cleaned out the house's gutters in the rain. And after that I really didn't want to do anything else except eat blueberry muffins and drink tea, which I can do with the best.

Oh, I got two interesting little hooks and put them up this weekend too. It didn't exactly take me long. Here's a picture of one of them (the other is near the door and is a slightly different key shape). Hey, does anyone know a good place to buy lampshades? Obviously I need one. Paper lampshades used to be ubiquitous at antique shops for just a few bucks each but I haven't seen any in the longest time.

Welcome to My Garage

The steampunk-my-garage project started with me wanting to make myself a nightgown. I have a very small house and a cat (named Jekyll), so of course here's what happened.

I thought, "I need a cutting table, preferably in a room where I can shut the door." But as I say, my house is tiny. Where would I put a cutting table?

The next day I found myself turning that thought over in my mind. Then I realized that I had lots of room in the garage!

Of course, I can't afford a cutting table. But I could make one! Maybe! And if I made my own table, I could make it a really cool table.

At this point I started browsing etsy for bits of steampunky hardware for my imaginary table.

It wasn't until the next day--apparently my brain ticks over pretty slowly--that I had a sudden epiphany. Steampunk table? You're dreaming too small, self. The whole garage could be steampunked up.

I grabbed a notebook and started sketching ideas and making lists of things I needed to do. I've only lived in this house a year and a half. There's not all that much clutter in the garage. I wrote, "1. Take stuff to Goodwill and dump. 2. Sort through paint cans and decide what to keep and what to throw. 3. Paint garage interior. 4. Decorate!" Because I thought it would be simple, a weekend project.

That was yesterday. And it's already clear that I'm facing many, many weekends of work before I'm done. But when I do finish, my garage is going to be the most awesome laboratory that any eccentric inventor has ever seen.

I hope.

Also, maybe eventually I'll find the time to finish sewing that nightgown.