Sewing – Page 2 – No Chaos No Order

Current craft room and sundries

Posted on August 25, 2010 by fairyguts Posted in Random, Sewing .

So, it’s still not completely organized, but the main furniture is in place and its even more workable … but there’s a long way to go. Part of my plan to get there is to finish some projects that have been hanging around for years!!! ARG!

But, first, I needed to make some curtains for the living room. There are already those roller shades, but they block out most of the light and I’ve never gotten along well with their type. Also, I like light and want more in the house, but I want to feel secure walking from my bedroom to the bathroom that I won’t scar someone. That, and W doesn’t want people scoping out our technology. SO: Curtains!

BUT, but! I noticed as I was sewing the tab curtains – the easiest curtains to make! – I found myself getting angry. ANGRY! Was it the fabric, slippery as it is? Perhaps the sewing machine, with gnarling bobbin thread? No, and no… it was while IRONING! Hm, ironing a flat piece of fabric should be calming and pleasant, yes? Normally, but in this case the ironing board cover kept flipping up onto the ironing board and shifting around and just making a nuisance of its self. So, now I suddenly have a new project that I felt compelled to start and complete RIGHT THEN.

CURTAINS: I used some old curtains that warren had, cut them up, threw out the lining and pleating, hemed the edges and sewed on some grosgrain ribbon as tabs. Easy!

Original curtain I cut up and made new ones from.

clean and breezy!

IRONING BOARD COVER: I wanted the cover to NOT MOVE while I ironed, so I used grommets to tightly lace it. A few items of note… I bought Soft and Natural batting for the padding, but I washed it and it destroyed it. I was embarassed and already spent money and wasn’t going to spend any more money, so I used pieces from some old sheets (visible on the chair) and cut out eight layers of fabric which I sewed along the top edge to keep them together instead. Turned out very nice actually – dense and sturdy! I also laced it up wrong the first time. You can’t open the board up when the laces criss cross in the tapered bit, so the next picture shows the final lacing. And then there’s the final board! Boring, but sturdy, clean and effective! Yay!

Lacing up the ironing board wrong.

Fixed the lacing

Ready to use! Nice!

2010 Skirts

Posted on August 22, 2010 by fairyguts Posted in Sewing .

I’ve been loosing a lot of weight recently and discovered that my pants/shorts would just fall off without liberal use of electrical ties or suspenders. And since altering pants/shorts is very tedious, I decided to sew up a bunch of skirts. This way I’ll be able to take them in much easier as I loose even more weight. They’ve been done for a while, but I wanted to share them as “Completed projects”! Since I have so few of those, sometimes…

These were all made based off a hip sloper I made in a pattern making class at the TechShop. The sloper is now too big, and TechShop has gone bankrupt. But once I’m at a more steady weight, I plan on drafting some pant patterns from a fitting sloper. Should be nice!

I just remembered … I gave away the body double that was made from me because it was too big and now I am without one. 🙁

lots o skirts

Winter coat, revisited

Posted on July 29, 2010 by fairyguts Posted in Sewing .

So, I finally finished the coat – enough to wear anyway… It looks great, feels oh, so warm, and gets many compliments! 😀 Yay!

If I ever have so much time that I can’t think of anything else to do – which, being laid up on the couch with a hurt knee may be considered one of those times, but I’m not bored enough – I may sew more vines on it. But its wearable and therefore, done enough.

Wearing my coat with my 1950's dress and crinoline underneath.

Here's the coat hanging on the wall.

Coat back.

Close up of flower.

I am officially a fan-girl

Posted on April 24, 2010 by fairyguts Posted in Sewing .

I am generally not interested in celebrities. I’ve gone to a couple shows or conventions and have only been somewhat entertained by the ones I’ve seen, yet not interested in meeting them or anything.

Today, I went and visited a friend from the now defunct Portland TechShop, Kathy, and we were catching up on random sewing and life news. Just as I was leaving, I mentioned that I was still working on my steampunk script and amature movie with the intention of sewing many Victorian costumes and cool steampunk gadgets and she says to me “You should go see my friends work. Her name is Paloma….” and my entire torso spasms in a visceral reaction that I was not at all prepared for. “No, Kathy, you don’t know Paloma…” and we say in near unison “Soledad.” FRITO!!

http://www.palomasoledad.com/

I confess to Kathy that I LOVE her work. I had known that she worked on Coraline, but I figured she’d only be staying up here for a while and then going back to California, but Kathy says she lives here in town and described her living room and shoe collection. How can that be? I found it particularly funny, because a major reason why I started going to the TechShop was to be able to use the machines to make costumes as elaborate and multi-media as hers… sculpting wooden blocks for leather forming, metal bending/cutting/casting tools, the hack space for electrified parts and pieces… And to only now find out that Kathy knows her? Wow! But, I immediately begin to talk down to myself. “She’s so creative and actually paid for her creative work and pretty, what would you possible have in common with her to maintain more than one, awkward conversation?” I rally, and defend myself: “I’m creative, too, in my own way! And I am really nice!”, but really… neither parts of my brain were convinced.

I discovered Ms. Soledad’s work through Dr. Steel’s website where I bookmarked her last June and check in on her webpage every once in a while, wistfully prodding myself to do GET TO WORK!

Neighbors

Posted on April 23, 2010 by fairyguts Posted in Sewing .

My neighbor came over tonight. He’s a first grader with some pretty significant behavior/attention difficulties, which can make it difficult to hang out with him, but I really enjoy him. He’s pretty sharp and not willing to take someone’s word as truth just because they’re old.

I was working out on my elliptical, the first song in the playlist finishes when I hear the door bell’s mutant tone down the hall way. I decide to ignore it. But after the second song ends and I hear that truncated tone again, I know exactly who it is. The neighbor kid. Who will stand outside my door for the whole half hour and keep knocking. I pause my play list and fume down the hallway, thinking that I’m going to give him what for, but by the time I get to the door, I’m just slightly irritated. His smiling face greets me when I open the door. He’s lost more teeth – some were baby teeth, some were permanent that he pulled out himself – and he’s quite proud of the spaces. He says “I can hear your dance music! Are you dancing?” and I respond “sort of, I’ll be done in 20 minutes.” “Can I come back then,” he asks hopefully and I quickly think: how much time do I want to give him? When will the pizza get here, because I’m not sharing my food, too. Things work for me, so I invite him backn. He’s sitting on the living room floor, playing a dolphin video game when I realize that I’ve never seen him with a cape. Doesn’t every kid need a cape? Heck yeah they do! So I ask him: “Do you have a cape?” and he grunts in confusion, still engrossed in the game. But the words eventually seep in, because he suddenly turns to me “A cape?! No, I don’t have a cape!” “Well, get up! Let’s go make you one!” So we troop down to my craft room and I sew up a cheesy cape from an old striped sheet while he watches, perched on a tall bar-stool across the table from me, questions spilling in a constant stream from his gapped-tooth mouth. He tries it on, we adjust the gathers, and wa-la! a 20 minute cape! His mom comes to get him and as we’re talking on my door stoop on the second floor, down through the landing you can see flashes of blue and white striped fabric streaming back and forth.

He’s flying!

My winter coat… too late!?

Posted on March 14, 2010 by fairyguts Posted in Sewing .

I bought a 3/4 length vintage wool coat early last month, thinking I could tack some ribbon flowers over some moth holes and wear the coat for another month or two before it was too spring-y. The coat is a burnt/rust orange which worked best with yellow, orange and begonia ribbons. But the flower making has taken me a LOOONnnnngggg time. I’ve gotten most of them made and then need to start sewing them and all the vining and leaves I’d like to the coat. Which will be another long process.

I think I may get to wear the coat for a week or two… If that! And, if I meet my weight goals, it will be too big to wear next year, so I feel that my efforts are being wasted. But, I tell myself, I can take the coat back to Fat Fancy (the FABULOUS store I got it from) and sell it for more than I bought it, so that’ll be good, right?

Here are some pix of my progress so far…

The black threads indicate moth holes.

These are my plans of where to put the flowers and vines.

Tentative flower locations.

Coat back with flowers.

SteamLit update!

Posted on March 5, 2010 by fairyguts Posted in Sewing .

So, this is uber exciting for me! After I finished the outline, Warren created a wiki page where we’re putting up lots of information about the story. 7 people have already volunteered to write episodes (only 4 left!) and one has already finished hers! Yay!

I’ve been researching cloths and taking a hat making class so I can make some super cool hats. I’d originally set the story in 1874-ish, (just because there was a cool dress that was the height of fashion then that I wanted to make), but the later 1890’s hats are OUTRAGEOUS! They’re called “Titanic” because they are so huge and ornate. That is appealing to me… 😀 I’m going to finish my little hat this weekend and will post pictures of the process and the finished product.

I picked a really pretty, fresh green corduroy to start with and am going to put a small, off center brim on the oval pillbox. I’m not sure how I’ll decorate it… I’m thinking of some brown velevet ribbons and some yellow/orange roses (to go with the roses I’m making for my wool coat – also to be finished this weekend! By golly!) but, I’ll have to wait and see… Since I’m taking this class at PCC I’ll get a 10% discount at the Button (and Ribbon) Emporium – one of the greatest stores IN THE WORLD!! They don’t have a webpage, so I can’t link you to it. 🙁

And, in related news to the Steampunk movie, Alex has started working on a robot costume, but has been delayed due to lots of work. I’m going to try to work on THAT this weekend, too… check out his progress so far!

: Alex in Robot Shell

: Side-view of Alex in Robot Shell

A somewhat unrelated question for readers: I’ve noticed that the pictures I’ve put in the blog are very small and I had decided not to link them to my picasa. What would you prefer? Bigger pics? Links? Or are the little pictures enough to convey what I’m doing right now?

Steampunk outline

Posted on February 11, 2010 by fairyguts Posted in Sewing .

So, I have finished it! yay!

The outline for my steampunk video series ended up being 9 single spaced pages with 11 Chapters. I’ve asked my friends to pick a chapter and write the script for it. So far I have three people who’ve committed to it and I hope several others will volunteer soon.

Tomorrow, at my weekly craft-night, I’ll be making ribbon roses to cover the moth holes on a sweet retro wool jacket I bought a couple weeks ago. I need to get this done soon because there’s maybe only a month left of 3/4 length, wool jacket wearing weather… I also plan to work on my life timeline as well as the MAME, so we’ll see how much I actually get done. I will take pictures and share them, things are getting too text heavy here!

I am SO looking forward to a three day weekend at home… I plan to not get dressed much and do lots of projects!

Random update

Posted on February 3, 2010 by fairyguts Posted in Sewing .

During a conversation with a friend about projects, I decided to try to reduce my focus. Instead of having 20 projects going on at once, I’d narrow it down to just a few and focus on those.

Obviously, the first thing I’m going to work on is the steampunk script. I’ve got to finish that so I can shoot the stuff my roommate is going to be in before she moves to Japan.

Oh, yeah, and I need to finish those 5 skirts I started – I’m running out of things to wear! So far I’ve sewn in all the darts and side seams and have finally put in 2.5 zippers. I just have to do the other 2.5 zippers and finish the hem and waist.

BUT! I’ve got to finish the camp box before my woodshop class is over.

And, the MAME is just sitting there and can’t even be used yet, so I should totally focus on THAT.

Plus, I just bought a nice vintage wool coat that actually fits me. There are a few moth holes, so I’m going to sew some ribbon embroidery over them and I want to get that done soon because it’s not going to be wool-coat-weather much longer.

And the quilts…

And the Lolita dress I REALLY want to sew….

It would be so cool if I could just quit going to this thing that takes up so much of my time!! That would be bad, though, because money helps me live and stuff.

Multiple project update 112909

Posted on November 30, 2009 by fairyguts Posted in Sewing .

Ack! So much going on… I’ve commited to completing four things by the end of the year:

1) Steampunk miniseries script. I finished typing out my outline last night and have asked a couple of people to review it for gapping plot holes. I’m kind of afraid it’ll be really boring for them, but it seems interesting to me. Sadly, I can see myself reflected in the main character and I’ve always found that annoying in other people’s writing. I’m hoping by encouraging more collaboration among friends that we’ll remove that blatant reflection and turn her into her own person. After I hear back from them and make changes, I’ll have to turn it into an actual script.

2) Business Plan. I’m nearly finished with my primary rough draft based on a magazine article I read a few months ago. Then I’ll go through it referencing a book that I’ve found usefull and add anything else that seems helpful.

3) Reference photos for web page and Steampunk miniseries. I enjoy this athestic and am going to base my webpage on this anachronistic style. Warren needs some photos to help him see what I’m thinking of so he can build the page. He also suggested I provide photos to the group as they work on the script so they can get an idea of the mood that I’m shooting for in the series.

4) Red dress photo shoot. This is a fun 1950’s era dress that I made for myself. It’s the first dress I fitted using my duct-tape body double and it turned out so nice! I actually like it and wear it! But now we need to take some pictures for the web page and in preparation for a rainy-day project I’d like to do soon…

SPEAKING of other projects… Here are some other things that I want to do:

5) Crochet gauntlets and hooded scarf. I bought a bunch of yarn and need to get these made – it’s cold enough!

6) Rainy-day project. My friend is going to dress in a 1950’s milk-man’s outfit and carry a crate with single-serve milk boxes while I wear my red dress and we pass out home-made cookies to people on the MAX. Covert photos to document the memory and/or arrest. I won’t be SELLING anthying, so I’m hoping that doesn’t happen…

7) A friend’s bride’s maid dress. The wedding is January 1st. She (the bride’s maid) is pregnant and getting bigger, so I’m putting the sewing off as long as possible before the wedding… a tight balance!

8) Pattern drafting. I have drafted a lovely hip-block that I’m using to make perfectly fitted garments. Skirts are good for me right now because they are simple and are easier to refit since I’m loosing so much weight (50 pounds so far!). I need to hurry and draft a pants pattern based on it before I loose much more weight, though, to make sure I know how the process works. I’ll have to do the whole thing over again when I reach my goal, but I figure a couple pairs of pants will be nice, since all of my pants are falling off!

Phew – lots to do!

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