LoopTangle

I attended last week/end’s Squam Art Workshops up in New Hampshire, and I’ve been trying to process it all this week.  It was just beautiful, in every way.  I was very focused on the workshop aspect of it beforehand, but what happened around the workshops was just as valuable and healing, and taught me more about living life.

I spent the first couple of days with a breaking heart, hoping against hope to see my Mom peeking out from around a corner, or from behind another knitter.  Rocklywold Deephaven Camp is just such a Her kind of place, and she would have been so delighted by all the workshop folks who were there.  Not to mention that the natural surroundings are within about an hour of where I was born and spent the first 9 years of my life or so.

New Hampshire is magical in the summer, in a very Fae kind of way.  The natural beauty dazzles, and the insects are truly impressive in their voracity.  And yes, I ate the faery food.  It was delicious.

After the first couple of days, I began to feel a strong connection and camaraderie with my cabinmates, and one evening’s entertainment related the bittersweet joy, sadness, growth, and humor of one woman’s experience with losing her own mother.  It was cathartic, it ripped out that painful little ball I keep shoved down inside, and it forced me to notice that other people hurt too.  Losing a person with whom you shared an uncanny connection happens to other people, and I hadn’t realized just how inconsolable I had been feeling for all this time.  And that’s OK, but the last thing my Mom would want me to be is miserable.

The following days I dwelled on her absence less, and enjoyed myself in the moment more.  I found that cliche, my happy place, in a very real way.  I learned about geometry and the rhythms of designing interesting patterns, other creative women shared wine with me, I communed with the lake and the sun.

I learned how to sew French seams, and an invisible zipper, and made friends everywhere I went.  I talked to strangers and tried new foods.  I had dessert at least once each day.  I was gentle with myself and listened to others’ stories and giggled and smiled and cried.  I dipped my toes in the cold, cold water, so recently snow or ice on the mountains.

I marveled at the beauty of the Luna moths that seemed to be everywhere, and at the tiny faery cities in the moss and lichen on stones and stumps.

I wore ridiculous outfits and accepted compliments graciously.  I gave compliments liberally.  I gave away a hat I made to my roommate, because I like her, and she lives in Boston, and OMG her head is going to be cold and I don’t want that.

I met the Yarn Harlot, mostly because I wouldn’t shut up about her and how I don’t do well meeting people I admire, and my roommate finally dragged her over to meet me, and we had a fun conversation where I didn’t refer to myself nervously as “we” a single time, and she showed me how to knit right from the stack of dyed silk cocoons I had just purchased.

Magic.

I’m performing for the first time as my troupe‘s student apprentice at the end of June, so I’ve started working on my costume.  Since I’m the baby of the group (story of my life) I have a lot of catching up to do!  The troupe does a mixture of different folkloric styles and straight-up East coast American Tribal Style, which is an improv-based style.

Stuff I already have:

• jingly coin belt.
• Yeah, that’s pretty much it.

Stuff to make:

• Tunic dress
• Lightweight harem pants / pantaloons (I have a pair made with a crepey cotton, but they are quite warm…)
• Tassel belt to layer under the coin belt
• Coin bra top
• Flowered headband

Stuff to buy:

• Chinese flats for dancing on not-smooth surfaces

Here’s my color palette:

Materials I’m using:

• Dark purple swirly batik cotton for belt, bra top and headband
• Dark purple cotton shirting for pantaloons
• Bright teal rayon jersey for tunic dress
• Bright magenta, dark purple yarn plus spicy-gold accents for tassels
• Spicy-gold flowers with a touch of deep magenta
• Random beads and bits of trim to add that tribal look

Should be fun!  I’m going to work on stuff over the long weekend, so I’ll have some pictures to share next week, hopefully!

I finished up all sorts of things this weekend.  I got the Velveteen Vest to a fitting place, and I also finished up the Butterfly Bloomers with Bows for a friend’s costume.

(Spoiler Alert!  Friend for whom I am making the Butterfly Bloomers with Bows!  There will be pictures further down!)

So, the Velveteen Vest.  Velveteen is a bit of a pain to work with, but having fought epic battles with velvet before, it wasn’t quite as bad.  Sure, it squirms its way out of the places you want it to stay, but much less so than its silk/rayon fully napped cousin.  And I can iron it quite safely on the wrong side at high heat, and I use a damp little towel as a pressing cloth for the right side, and so far no ill effects.

It’s looking pretty good!  I still haven’t figured out why the side front piece has that odd join at the underarm.  Don’t know if it was a cutting error on my part, could be a dart miscalculation on the pattern drafter’s part, but I’m not overly worried about it.

It’s a BurdaStyle pattern, and with their new site design, there doesn’t seem to be a way to comment on the patterns anymore.  I’ve had some big problems with them and their new site, but maybe that’s because I know a little more about the behind-the-scenes web design and development work than their average user.  There were some really dumb mistakes, which I gently pointed out to them, and which after weeks they still haven’t corrected.  It’s sad, really.  I had a lot of respect for the old site and community.

Anyway, I also finished up the Butterfly Bloomers with Bows!  I drafted the pattern to my friend’s measurements using this tutorial, which is very straightforward and easy to follow. She picked out this fabulously soft and cute (although wrinkly, I had JUST ironed them and folded them when I decided I should take a couple of pictures) white-on-white butterfly print.

My friend and I both have a similar sensitivity to having elastic around the backs of our knees, so she had the idea to leave a small gap in the elastic at the back, and tie it shut with a bow.  Here’s a detail where you can see, if you look verrrrrry closely, how the 3″ gap is tied shut with the ribbon:

Love that Venetian lace!  It was surprisingly easy to work with.

We watched most of the episodes of Legend of the Seeker while I worked, and it’s not the Best Show Evar (B says they’ve departed wildly from the books), but it’s got great characters, beautiful scenery, lighting, and cinematography, and of course, delicious costumes!

I particularly love Kahlan’s Confessor dress (she can really get that thing flying in the fight sequences), Zedd’s Wizard’s robes, and of COURSE the Mord Sith’s highly impractical yet somehow utilitarian leather getups.

Jane Holland is the costume designer for the show, and if it’s got a familiar feel, well, she did Xena and Hurcules back in the day.  But more recently, she did the costumes for Underworld, and I see a new level of sophistication and detailing in her work on this show that I didn’t notice before.  I think part of it is thematic – Xena and Hercules were both often tongue-in-cheek, but B has been forcing me to watch Xena (yay Neflix watch-it-now!) and I’m enjoying it more than I thought I would.  And I did catch myself lusting after a kimono-style dressing gown she wore in a dream sequence.

The Sewing Panic has me in its scratchy horsehair grip, and I’m having difficulty seeing the sewing events of last weekend as anything less than a disaster.  I think I’m just being paranoid though.

Good Stuff I Did:

• Got the Punk Rock Kimono to a fitting place.  It doesn’t fit the way I’d hoped and I am really, really disappointed.
• Got a pattern drafted and supplies for a friend’s costume and had a good time doing it.
• Cleaned up my new work area and assembled all existing pieces
• Went to the best fabric store this side of NYC, according to Yelpers, and got a few items (stretchy black knit, velvety patterned knit, and black Russian millinery veiling).

Bad Stuff I Did:

• Poked around on the internet, looking for more ideas
• Slept
• Added more projects to my list
• Didn’t take any pictures

The current list is:

• Punk Rock Kimono (which I may break up with for a few weeks while I figure out how to save it)
• Punk Steampunk (whose elements change weekly)
• Steampunk Bellydance (probably the closest to finished, mostly need to adorn the coin bra and make the brass dangle chains, and get the scrappy skirt going.)
• Daytime psychobilly comfortable ensemble (hence the knits and veiling purchases)

I may strike Punk Steampunk and reprise last year’s Polonaise ensemble.  I really like the idea of exploring the punker side of steampunk, but I’m just not finding the fabric I want for the pants, and I think boldly patterned pants need time and consideration to do well.

I’m hoping I can find the joy in this again soon.  I think I’m just stuck in the midpart between the fun planning and supply buying stage, and the point-of-no-return you-just-cut-your-fabric-to-pieces stage.

I’ve begun work on my Punk Rock Kimono, which is loosely based on some tunics I stumbled across in a Google image search.  Since I couldn’t find any patterns for Punk Rock Kimonos, I decided to wing it.

It is exhilarating.

You can’t tell me I’m doing it wrong!  There are no directions!

So, I began with the binding, because I have a particular way I want it to sit off the shoulder.

Working with the muslin is really informative.  I can see through multiple layers to add seam allowances.

It’s also really soft and fun to rip along the grainline!

I draped/drafted the front panel first:

Looking at it again, I think I need to nudge it up a little and carve out the armscye a bit, instead of the traditional straight lines.  This is Punk Rock!  I don’t have to be traditional unless I want to.

It’s a little hard to tell in the pictures, but this is also a knee-length garment.

Next I drafted some sleeves.  Very blocky sleeves.  I’m not really sure how modern Western sleeves work, I’ve just cut them out and fitted them into bodices.  They can be tricksy.  In this project, I’ve decided to be OK with the idea that the underarms may not connect with the sides.  This is not entirely untraditional, and definitely is Punk Rock, and might be nice if I get a little warm!

I also discovered a great place to put pins.  Can you see where in the pictures above?  No?

In my dressform’s neck!

Next time, I will show you how the back works, and I’ll work on a distinctly non-traditional obi.  It’s a hybrid between a corset and an obi, and is designed to enhance rather than hide curves.

The prototype is complete!  Click to zoom in.

Part mini-bustle, part bellydance coin belt, part sassy underwear-as-outerwear.

Materials

I used some leftover medium-weight woven cotton and plastic lumber ties cut to size and rounded on the edges.  You can’t see them, which is good because they are green and have black numbers printed on them.  In a not terribly interesting way.

Successes

The front edge is curved up from the hem to the long sash ties.  I solved the problem by cutting two of the curved pieces for each side, then sewed them together along the curved edge, turned, pressed, and stay-stitched the other edges inside the seam allowance and treated the resulting piece as one piece of fabric.  That’s one of the reasons I was sewing through so many layers.

I think the sash is the perfect length and width.  I also liked making the angled tips.

Improvements

I think I’d like to make the front/side curves more obvious.

I may take a small dart at the back center of the sash to keep it from tilting so far down, which looks OK but wasn’t exactly what I was going for and might not work on all body types.

The fabric was WAY too heavy for the ruffles.  Good to know.  The last time I made ruffles, it was from a very light cotton fabric, so I’ll experiment with that, which gives fairly perky ruffles, and drapier fabrics like satin and velvet.  This fabric sort of makes it feel like a utili-bustle.

It’s not immediately obvious, but I’ve got some length issues at the side hem.  Chalk it up to my first pattern drafting attempt, and the complexity of construction.  My current idea for altering this is to shorten the ruffles, which allows the entire thing to be shorter.  Shorter is cuter.

Looking Forward

I have a lot of ideas for theming these bustle belts.  Of course, I’d like to do some up in various bellydance styles (American Tribal, Turkish, Eastern European, Egyptian), but I also want to do some in steampunk styles (Safari Adventuress, Naturalist, Cthulhu Enthusiast) and goth/industrial too.  I envision lots of jingly bits and yummy fabrics combined.

I got a lot of sewing done last weekend.  I’m nearly finished with it!  Here are some details to pique your interest:

A trail of pins marches off into the distance…  What strange construction is this?

At least 8 layers of fabric, all at once.  Plus, I hadn’t noticed til now that my thread isn’t through the last tension bit.   Good to know.

Extreme closeup!

And finally, a tantalizingly large photo of project and workspace.  Peacock feathers make everything better.

I should be able to get it finished soon, but there will still be lots of tweaks to make.  But that’s why we make mockups of our New and Interesting Ideas, right?

Shh by Ye Olde Wig Shoppe

I’m working on a secret project!  It’s going a little more slowly than I want, but efficiency is hard work.

It involves lumber ties!  And saucyness.  And pattern drafting.

So far I’ve drafted the pattern, figured out the construction steps, re-drafted the pattern (yay painter’s paper from Lowes!), ironed the fabric, cut out the fabric, sewn the first couple of steps, and ironed them.

There really is a lot of not-sewing in sewing.

Now I am thwarted by my lack of bias tape.  You would not believe the amount of traffic I have to fight to get to the bias tape store.  It’s ridiculous.  If they were an all night bias tape store, I would go after dinner, but they are not.  And I don’t really blame them.  Not everyone needs bias tape at all hours of the day and night.

Now with New and Improved Pregnancy capabilities!

Kate, Jo and I assembled a few months ago to create our doubles out of an old Tshirt and, you guessed it, duct tape.  It’s pretty straightforward, and it’s not dangerous to the baby (I’ve seen him, he’s doing great!) because you don’t wrap the victim tightly.  It’s not overly pleasant to be inside the duct tape, but only in the sense that a tight leather jacket is uncomfortable sometimes.

Kate went first.  She had a great sense of humor about it.  I was very nervous about taping her belly since I don’t have much experience with pregnant people, but it turned out great.

Left: The obligatory boob shot.  You just have to laugh.

Right: All wrapped up.  We put cling wrap around Kate’s neckline so we could get the duct tape right up there without any discomfort.  And what a cute belly!  She mentioned she’ll probably save it as a souvenir.

I was next.  It feels weird.

Left:  I got a little silly when it was Jo’s turn.  Arrrr!  Duct tape pirate!

Right: Kate drew a center line on each double, with a bellybutton marking.  Very handy for fitting purposes.

Lessons:

• A second layer of duct tape would be a good idea.  I don’t know about Jo’s but Kate’s and mine both seemed to stretch when we stuffed them.  I solved that by putting my corset on it, since I was working on the Polonaise (to be worn over said corset) anyway.
• Kate suggested the “old hanger through the neck, then stuff” method.  Very handy.  I hang mine in the doorframe of the studio, so the waist is around eye level.  Use your imagination to picture the plastic store hanger at the top…
  
  
• It’s interesting to see your shape from the third person vantage point.  Stuff looks different, sometimes better!

I must have this fabric:

Mermaids Aqua ~ Mendocino

That is all.