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.

New petticoat started

I got an email that my corset has shipped, so by next weekend I should be all set to work on the main parts of my DragonCon costume. In the meantime, I've started the petticoat.

Unlike the practice petticoat I made a few weeks ago, I'm being careful with this one. I'm using the feather print fabric that I love, too. Yesterday I spent an hour cutting out the pieces for the bottom two tiers. At one point I had a measuring tape around my neck, a T-square in one hand, and a yardstick in the other. I used all three tools, too, to make sure the pieces are the right size and shape. Not that this is a complicated pattern at all, especially since I'm not even thinking about the waist tier yet.

Because the corset--assuming I ordered the right size and can get it on (and alternately, that I ordered the right size and it's not too big)--will make my waist and hip measurements a bit smaller than they actually are, I'm going to wait and do the waist tier after I have the corset. I also realized I won't want a lot of bunchy layers under the corset even if they won't show. So instead of using elastic, I'll be making an actual waistband, probably with a button closure. Same for the bloomers that I plan to remake soon. Same for the skirt.

At the moment, I'm sewing a feather trim to the bottom hem of the petticoat. This is six yards around, remember, which will make for lots of lovely ruffles. I tried to sew it with my machine but it didn't like the thickness of the trim's tape or the stickiness inside it (the feathers are glued into the tape, a very sticky glue that gets on the needle), or the feathers' shafts either. So I'm having to hand-sew it. Six yards is eighteen feet, you know, and it's a slow process. Fortunately I have the entire box set of Gundam Wing that I haven't rewatched in a while.

Once the feather trim is complete, I'll go back and hand-sew a lace band on top of the hem, to hide the raw edge and make the whole thing look a bit more finished. I won't be to that point for a while, but here's a picture of what it will look like. If I do it right.

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.

No update this week

Yeah, I got nothin'. Even with a four-day weekend, I didn't do anything. Well, I started one project but didn't get far (making moth hat/hair decorations; it's not working as well as I'd hoped) and I ordered some stuff to finish my goggles. Did you know there's a website called The Buckle Guy? I ordered some buckles and other stuff from the Buckle Guy, since it didn't seem worth it to just order, like, one buckle for my goggles and that was it. I also ordered the new Dragon*Con steampunk lanyard, because I always forget to bring a lanyard and end up having to buy one when I finally get to the dealer's room. The trick will be to not forget to bring my steampunk lanyard.

Oh wait, I did do one thing. It took about thirty seconds, but here's a picture.
 

It's a tiny copper owl charm I found on etsy, which I strung on some copper-ish links and pinned to my hatband. I'm going to try to find some more charms to put with it. Here's another picture of the hat, along with my owl goggles and a cheap pocket watch that I found half-price ($5! and so far the watch hasn't broken!) and bought because there's an owl on it.

So in other words, I have my accessories set. I should have my faux-leather corset any day now too, and the shoes will work as they are if necessary. All I need is the rest of my freaking costume.

How to Darken Brown Shoes that aren't made of leather

I searched and searched the internet trying to find advice on how to darken brown leather shoes but could only find advice for leather shoes. These shoes are not leather. Since I have a solution, here it is, internet.

First of all, I bought these shoes for my DragonCon steampunk owl outfit. They were on sale and I like them, but they were more tan than brown and I wanted them darker. So I removed the laces and got a tin of brown Kiwi shoe polish.

I didn't use any kind of fancy shoe cloth, just a paper towel. It worked just fine. I spread a layer on the "leather" parts of the shoe (I think they're polyester) and was pleased that it acted just like leather. The polish soaked into the grain and darkened immediately.

I did two coats, then did the other shoe. The lighting in this picture isn't great, but hopefully you can see the difference in the darker rear shoe and the lighter fore shoe that I hadn't yet worked on. They darkened a bit more overnight too, I guess as the polish soaked in more.

The next day I took a clean paper towel and buffed the shoes. I was worried the polish would come right off again, but it didn't. It just buffed to a nice shine. I replaced the laces with darker brown and threaded a fake key on one to see how I like it (I don't; I'll probably replace it with something else eventually). I was going to glue something to the shoes themselves to make them more steampunk, but so far I haven't found anything that I like well enough. But I think they look good as they are.

They're going to kill my feet, but I'll look stylish.

Petticoat Practice

I found an excellent tutorial on making a tiered petticoat at The AntiCraft, and decided to use some cheap ($3 a yard) cotton eyelet fabric to practice.

I had six yards of the fabric, which was good because the bottom tier of the petticoat had to be cut from the decorative-hemmed bottom of the cloth and I needed six yards of that. Yes, six yards around the bottom of this piece. The middle tier is three yards around, the top tier is a yard and a half around at the bottom.

How does this work, you ask? Ruffles! Not the kind you eat with dip, unfortunately, but the kind that take for-freaking-ever to make, especially when your cat comes in halfway through smelling of skunk (a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, a quarter cup of baking soda, and a spoonful of dishwashing liquid, mix it up and wash your cat with it, it works like a charm, rinse with warm water and dry your cat as thoroughly as you can with towels because cats get cold really easily).

Basically, to make a ruffle you baste the top edge of the cloth piece loosely--I have to do this by hand since my sewing machine only does the one stitch. Then you pin the upper edges of the cloth to be ruffled to the bottom edge of the middle tier piece, pull on the basting thread so that the cloth bunches up, and distribute the ruffled bunches evenly and pin them in place. See in the picture below how nice and even the ruffles in the nearer half of the piece are compared to the farther half? I'd just finished the first half and hadn't started on the second.

Then you sew the pieces together. Now, if you're me and you're sloppy and you weren't thinking it through (maybe because you were distracted by a skunky cat), you pinned the cloth wrong so that there's a raw edge on the outside as well as the inside. It's okay, though. This is practice and no one should see anything but a glimpse of ruffle of a petticoat anyway.

Once that step is done, you get to do it again.

And finally, it's finished. And it doesn't look half-bad, although the tension seems to have already messed up on my sewing machine. Sewing machines are a mixed blessing: on the one hand, it took me hardly any time to actually sew the seams of this project (the ruffling took forever, but it always does); on the other hand, when a sewing machine's tension starts messing up, in my admittedly limited experience there is nothing you can do to fix it and the machine eventually becomes unusable.

Owl Goggles

I hadn't planned to add so many feathers. I'm still not completely happy with them, and of course I still need to make a strap. And they won't sit on the brim of my awesome hat so I'll have to figure out some other way to display them that doesn't involve wearing them. But here they are, my very first pair of goggles, and a pair of the original welding goggles they started life as:

For those of you who are interested in making your own, it's a lot easier than I thought it would be. My first step was to remove the original strap, the plastic piece over the chain connecting the eyepieces, and remove the lenses (the eyepieces unscrew so you can remove them easily). Then I spraypainted them copper, making sure to get all the surfaces including the chain, and let them dry overnight.

Once they were dry, I put the lenses back in and adjusted the chain so that the goggles fit me. You can move the chain while the eyepieces are unscrewed; trim off excess so the ends won't gouge you in the eyeball. That would be pretty ironic if your eye protection blinded you. I noticed that there were two round pieces on the sides of the goggles, attached with a plastic pin through a hole. I have no idea what these are for, but I removed them and set them aside.

At this point I wasn't sure what to do. I had planned on painting decorations on the sides and then gluing some feathers on, and then I figured I'd be done. But they looked kind of boring, and I have all this leather scrap. I idly picked up a piece of pliable brown leather and wrapped it around the edge of an eyepiece.

It looked amazing! So I got out the glue, Gem-Tac, and put a line of it along the straight edge of the leather (on the wrong side, of course). I separated the eyepieces (took the chain off) so I could handle them more easily. Then I wrapped the leather around the edge of the eyepiece, leaving a small gap for the chain, tugging and stretching the leather to make it fit snugly over the plastic.

Gem-Tac turned out to be perfect for this kind of project. It starts to dry quickly so it held the leather in place as I worked, but it doesn't dry crazy fast like epoxy or superglue, so I could make adjustments after a few minutes if the leather wasn't quite where I wanted it.

Then I wrapped the leather around to the inside of the eyepiece. I didn't try to cover the inside completely and I did a messy job, but keep in mind that at this point I still didn't think the leather was going to actually work at all. I trimmed and cut notches as necessary to make it snug.

When I finished, I was blown away by how good it looked.

I put the chain back in place before the glue had completely set--I was worried I might have glued the lenses to the eyepieces and wouldn't be able to open them later. I also cut a piece of leather and glued it in place around the chain. Then I noticed the plastic pieces I'd removed earlier. I used my awl to poke holes in the leather so I could put the pieces back.

Then I took a break and ran to the store, and while I was gone I picked up some little brass acorn nuts at Lowe's. I was going to buy two dozen, since each eyepiece has a dozen spaces, but they're too damn expensive--almost $2.50 for four. I bought one dozen instead (if I were going to make a lot of goggles, I'd buy the acorn nuts in bulk, maybe from here). When I got them home, though, they looked awfully shiny. I set them out on a piece of cardboard and gave them one quick spritz of copper spraypaint--I didn't try to cover them completely, I just wanted to dim the shininess a bit. I let it dry overnight, then in the morning glued them on along with some other deco.

Next I considered what to do about a headstrap. Saturday I'd made the rounds of thrift shops and got two black leather purses (one for 99 cents and the other, a Liz Claiborne bag, for $1.50. Damn!), but both had straps that were a tad too wide. Plus the black leather looked funny next to the brown leather and copper/brass. So I decided to make a strap from leather scraps, but I wanted it to be a bit wider than the original strap. To solve the problem of getting a wider strap through the premade plastic gaps, I decided to attach loops with D-rings, to which I could attach a wider strap. As it happens, I had two D-rings of the right size that came off one of the purses, so I cut two pieces of thicker leather--in fact, I used the thickest, sturdiest leather I had, the same kind I used last week for my lawnmower handlebar grips.

Getting the straps through the little holes, which I had covered with leather and glue, was not easy. I used an X-acto knife to open up the gaps, then cut each leather strap at an angle. I used the awl to help cram the tip of the angle-cut end through the gap. As soon as I could grip it on the other side with needle-nosed pliers, I was able to pull it through. Then I trimmed the end straight, put the D-ring on, and glued it. For extra strength I also put a few stitches through the leather. I did a piss-poor job of it since I couldn't get the awl to go through all three thicknesses at the correct angle, and ended up using the needle-nosed pliers to force the needle through. KIDS, DON'T EVER DO THIS. It's dangerous! Not only are needles not meant for that sort of pressure and could break, sending a very sharp piece of metal into your eyeball (see irony, above), it's really easy to stab yourself in the finger like I did.

(Incidentally, a good thing to trim leather with is a wire cutter. Works better than scissors.)

Anyway, I got it finished and decided to wait on the strap itself until I can order some things I can't get locally. I almost declared myself finished. Then I remembered I'm going to DragonCon dressed inexplicably like a steampunk owl, which meant I had to add feathers. I probably should have just left well alone, I don't know. I could have created a lady naturalist persona and been perfectly happy, but noooo, I had to stick feathers on everything.

As I said earlier, I never intended to add many. I used pheasant feathers, which looked most owl-like of all the feathers I'd bought (I also have guinea hen, chicken, and turkey feathers). I chose three for each eyepiece, hampered a bit by the light but pleasant breeze blowing through the garage from the open doors. Then I held my breath, because I was about to do something irreversible. I put a triangle of glue on the edge of the first lens, thereby permanently gluing them closed. Then I pressed the feathers in place, arranged them carefully so they'd make a bird-of-prey frown, and held them there until the glue dried enough that I could let go. Then I did the same to the other lens.

And then I realized I'd RUINED MY GOGGLES, because I overlooked the fact that the eyepieces were sitting on a flat surface and not at the same angle they'd be when worn. You know that little scene in WALL*E when Wall-E wakes up and comes back to himself, and he adjusts his eyes until they're at just the right angle? Well, when I held my goggles up to my face, the angle of the feathers changed from fierce bird-of-prey frown to an anxious Wall-E expression.

I had to add more feathers. Then the goggles looked unbalanced, so I had to add a few feathers at the bottom too. They're more feathery than I wanted, but they also have a definitely owlish look, so maybe I'll get used to them.

I realized something while I was working, though. Back in April when I started this steampunk-my-garage project, all I really wanted was a space where I could work on crafts without making a mess in the house or running out of room. Well, I succeeded. Maybe the garage isn't as steampunky as I'd like--I can't afford to do more with it at this point--but I've got an awesome workspace.