Friday, September 16, 2011
Steampunk Costume: Bolero Update
Bit by bit, it's starting to come to life... still much more to be done:
While Brenda sewed the body of the bolero together (see the added details?)...
I started to figure out the shape of the cuffs - which will be multi-layered...
Labels: costume, sewing, steampunk
Posted by Dre at 10:58 PM
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Steampunk Costume: Starting the Spats
Before anything, Brenda and I needed to mock up a pattern for the spats. We've used some old fabric and have settled on a basic shape (which took a couple of tries to get to)...
Labels: costume, sewing, steampunk
Posted by Dre at 10:17 PM
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Saturday, September 10, 2011
Steampunk Costume: The Bolero's Beginnings
Brenda and I totally lucked out by finding some great fabric on sale at Fabricville for a mere dollar/meter. My goal was "awesome lining" as I'm a total sucker for that sort of thing. I had worked out a concept sketch of the bolero earlier the other week and Brenda taught me how to convert a concept into an actual pattern. She took on the tough job of adding the buckles etc to the main section while I got started on 420" of box pleats (which, by the way, wound up taking a total of 7 hours to complete, but was totally worth it!)
Labels: costume, sewing, steampunk
Posted by Dre at 10:57 PM
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Sunday, August 28, 2011
Steampunk Costume: the saga continues
It's a challenge to get a lot done when you can only get together for a few hours each week. Tonight we worked on the goggles and the hat and made a bit of progress with each.
Here's Brenda's wonderful work on the hat:
As for the goggles, we've decided to go with the tops of spice cannisters, held together with screws and bolts and an L-bracket (with a bit of extra bend to it). We fashioned leather sides and straps to it. Next step will be to add some of the embellishments, but at least it's a start that we are happy with...
Posted by Dre at 10:28 PM
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Friday, August 19, 2011
Steampunk Costume: Now to make a Top Hat
Since we needed to pick up some crin for the bottom of the skirt (before we hem it), we decided to start on the hat. Admittedly, Brenda and I are both pretty excited about this part of the costume and wanted to get it started.
Brenda started by designing the brim:
While I worked on building the cage:
Labels: costume, pattern design, sewing, steampunk
Posted by Dre at 10:00 PM
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Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Working on the good copy of the corset
It was akin to doing a logic puzzle. Brenda & I had made the necessary adjustments to the corset pattern and spent a good deal of time trying to fit all of the pieces onto the piece of coutil that we'd dyed. Once we got it cut out, it was time to start sewing things together.
We put an order in to Farthingale's for some spiral steel bones and a busk. You can see the busk in the image below:
Labels: corset, costume, design, steampunk
Posted by Dre at 10:23 AM
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Thursday, May 12, 2011
Dyeing the Coutil
Coutil is a heavy & very tightly woven cotton that is used for making corsets. It's fairly expensive, so Brenda suggested that she had a piece that we could use. Unfortunately it was white, and that would not suit the Steampunk costume at all. We picked up some black fabris dye and wound up with a lovely warm brownish gray...
Labels: corset, costume, design, dye, steampunk
Posted by Dre at 10:14 AM
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Thursday, May 05, 2011
The fit of the corset
Well our mockup has been very handy. By making it and trying it on, we have realized that we need to really re-work some of the pattern. We're going to make the waist area smaller, and we'll need to increase the room and height in the bust cups.
Labels: corset, costume, design, steampunk
Posted by Dre at 10:07 PM
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Tuesday, May 03, 2011
Goggles for the Steampunk Costume
I'm trying to make my own goggles. Attempt #1 is to use some crafting aluminum to build the frame. Not sure how well it'll work but so far I've found that mason jar lids are too large, and I haven't been able to find any appropriate plumbing fittings.
Labels: costume, design, goggles, steampunk
Posted by Dre at 10:02 AM
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Thursday, April 28, 2011
Back to the Steampunk Costume
Last year, Brenda & I came up with a plan for an original Steampunk costume. We got started on the project, and then we both got very busy with other things, and the project was shelved for a while. We have taken it back on and our hopes are to comeplete it for Halloween this year.
We took a basic 19th Century corset design and reworked it so that it would fit properly. We created our own pattern out of a thick brown paper (like the kind used for wrapping parcels) and then pulled out some inexpensive cottom so that we could make a mockup. We'd need this so that we can test the fit. Corsets have to be pretty spot-on if you want a good fit...
It's a real treat using the industrial sewing machine. It takes a little bit of getting used to and you have to be very careful when using it because it's rpetty powerful...
We sound up sewing channels for the boning with twill tape. Our plan for the actual corset was to cut the fabric a little wider and use the fabric itself to create the boning channels.
Labels: corset, costume, design, steampunk
Posted by Dre at 9:25 AM
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Monday, November 01, 2010
Halloween
Medeusa - costume by Brenda.
Lisa as a Lion tamer.
Labels: costume
Posted by Dre at 11:29 PM
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Saturday, May 22, 2010
The Necklace of Gaudiness (+2)
Brenda's mom started this and I decorated it. It was for Scott Thomas's character Roger (the very gay director) in SJTC's "The Producers". I tried to make it Scott-sized and as glittery and gaudy as possible. The "plus two" is a D&D reference - referring to extra dice rolls needed as a saving throw to ward against being stunned by the incredible gaudiness of it.
Labels: costume, sewing, theatre
Posted by Dre at 11:44 AM
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Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Steampunk Costume: Hoop Cage, Part 3
Brenda and I managed to get a lot done on the hoop cage in tonight's three-hour session. The waistband is complete...
Brenda made the holes for the pop rivets while I finished turning the hoop casings...
Once the hoops were set, we started to pin them to the vertical strips. (Brenda used a pop rivet to close them and the ends were neatly tucked in and sewn together over top.)
We managed to get the hoops pinned on. They will need to be adjusted before we permanently attach them with pop rivets and washers. That will be next time.
Labels: cage, costume, hoop, steampunk
Posted by Dre at 9:35 PM
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Monday, March 22, 2010
Steampunk Costume: Hoop Cage, Part 2
Brenda and I found a couple of hours on Saturday morning to continue working on the hoop cage. When I arrived at her place, she'd already taken the time to adjust things so that they hung better, and she marked and numbered everything (vertical strips top edge, strip number, and it has been pinned where the hoop will fit. and marks on the hops for each vertical strip.)
Brenda had a great idea to back the vertical silver grosgrain ribbons with a wider black ribbon...
While she put those together (leaving room for each hoop to slip through) and also covered the waistband, I got to work on the hoop casings. To begin the casings, I needed to join two long pieces of fabric at an angle. If I had just done a seam straight across, this would create a lot of bulk on the inside when I get turned and it could be pretty difficult to pass the hoop through it.
Once the pieces were sewn and pressed, it was time to sew them. The hoops that we have are 5/8" wide so I needed to make sure that each casing had a bit of extra room...
We noticed that the fabric was fraying a bit so we took the time to serge the edges. This was the first time I've had an opportunity to use a serger and after a quick tutorial from Brenda, I was off to the races with it. She was right when she said I'd fall in love with it right away! The edges are so neat & tidy!!
Once that was done, I managed to get one of the casings turned, put the hoop in and pressed it. The next time we meet to work on this, we are hoping to be able to finish this portion of the costume. We have great plans for pop rivets and washers!!
Labels: cage, costume, hoop, steampunk
Posted by Dre at 12:50 PM
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Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Steampunk Costume: Hoop Cage, Part 1
Brenda and I decided the best way to get started was to start from the outside in. Build the support structure and the bigger pieces and then the details would follow.
We started with the waistband. This is sturdy enough to support the skirt. We measured and cut it to size (plus some overlap) and put it on the dress form. From there, we added the following marks:
• 3.5" on either side of the front center so that we have 7" of flat surface across the front of the skirt
• side points
• a point between each side point and the 3.5" marks
• center back point
• 2 points equally spaced between each side point and the center back
Once we had the waistband marked, we cut some grosgrain ribbons to hang from each point. The ribbon is sturdy, has a great texture, and is a lovely silvery gray color. We used the measurement from my waist to the bend in my knee plus a couple of inches (to loop it at the bottom). We then taped each ribbon to each waistband point...
Brenda had gathered the green plastic strips that we will use for our hoops from a local company. It's nice to be able to recycle these. All they needed was a quick wipe with a baby wipe to get the dust off and they were good to go.
We took a guess at the circumference that we wanted for the bottom hoop and marked out some measurements on it so that the vertical ribbons would flow well. We had to make sure that this would hang evenly. It will be important when we make this to make sure that the vertical strips are attached to the hoop. (Imagine if they all slid to one side while you were wearing the costuem or tying to get into it. We'd like to avoid that.)
From here, we attached a couple more hoops, making sure to measure things as we went so taht it was all even...
After that I carefully climbed into it so we could get a good look at our start with teh hoop cage. we agreed that we'd initially made the bottom hoop too small. We wanted a larger silhouette, so we made a new larger hoop (100" circumference) and used that one on the bottom and then moved our original 80" hoop up. When I'd tried it on, we were happy with most of it, although we now saw that our top hoop needs to be larger.The next time we meet to work on this, we will make our top hoop larger and we will add an extra partial loop around the hips (all the way around except along the front 7".)
We also cut the fabric that will be covering our hoops. we are going to sew casings and enclose the green plastic in them.
Labels: cage, costume, hoop, steampunk
Posted by Dre at 10:40 PM
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Monday, March 15, 2010
Steampunk Costume Fabric
Brenda and I made a trip to Fabricville yesterday where we found some lovely fabrics for our costume. From top to bottom, the fabrics are as follows...
• The top silver with black striped organza (0.5m of Iowa 53760) is for the airship that will be on top of the top hat.
• The purple fabric (1m of Stapleton 64740) will be for the corset and will be underneath a black lace.
• The purple and black fabric (5m of Stapleton 64740) is for the skirt.
• The pewtery-striped fabric (1m of Liverpool 65040) will be for covering the hoops for the hoop skirt.
• The grey-green fabric (1m of Velveteen 44525) is for the gauntlets and knee-high spats (and possibly a band on the top hat).
• We found some great 18 mm buttons (Elan 15 2055 Y) which we will use on the spats and gauntlets.
Labels: costume, design, sewing, steampunk
Posted by Dre at 12:57 PM
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Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Primo Compass
So one of the things that I wanted to try was using polymer clay to make a design that could be made into a mold that we could use so that we have our own buttons for the costume. Except that I'm more of a 2-d artist, so sculpting things is a bit of a challenge. Here's my first try at a 20mm diameter button concept. It's a start, I suppose. I won't bother doing this though if I can't get something I'm actually happy with.
Labels: costume, design, polymer
Posted by Dre at 10:31 PM
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Steampunk Costume Concepts
Brenda McLeese and I have been talking about work-shopping a costume together for a couple of years, and now that we finally have a bit of spare time, we've gotten started. We agreed on a Steampunk costume (think Jules Verne alternate reality with airships and Victorian stylings and perhaps a touch of Goth). We wanted to create and build something that would be inspiring and that would give us an opportunity to practice some good quality craftsmanship. Not to mention, it is a great excuse to hang out!
We both did some research and pulled together many concepts and bits of inspiration, and then we narrowed it down to an outfit that will have a knee-length hoop skirt, 19th century under-bust corset, shirt, bolero, knee-high spats and matching gauntlets, a refurbished parasol and a fancy miniature top hat.
Here are some concept sketches as we were working things out...
Labels: costume, design, steampunk
Posted by Dre at 9:47 PM
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