Labyrinth Masquerade Ball 2019

This year I got to attend the Labyrinth Masquerade Ball in LA.  This event is beyond phenomenal, the cast did an amazing job of creating multiple wonderful worlds, the entertainment was top notch and the costumes were to die for (I seriously recommend checking out the pictures on the website or facebook).  The whole event felt so immersive. We opted to attend the preshow, where you tour through the space with various cast members.  This was very worth it, the cast members were amazing and worked hard to orient the new people and to show you some of the unique things for the event.  We also attended the tea, which was amazing in both food and unique teas designed specifically for the event. I did take at least some pictures, so here are a selection from this magical event.

First, here is our outfits for the first night taken before we headed down to the ball.

There were so many amazing costumes, I captured only a handful of them, but here are some of my favorites we got to see first hand.  However, just looking at the facebook photos, we missed so many amazing costumes in the crowd!  I highly recommend this event for the sheer love of costume and hope to go again some day!

Nightmare before Christmas Tea

The first wearing of Lock, Shock and Barrel was to a themed tea party held by a local tea room, The Ivy Tearoom.  They hold one event a month and the 2 I have been lucky enough to go to have been wonderful.  Barrel's mother joined us as Santa to complete our group.  Very few people dressed as specific characters but many people dressed in the vein of Nightmare Before Christmas so it was so much fun to see everyone dressed up.  We did not take as many pictures as we should have, but here are a few we did manage to take. 

Us ready to leave

Barrel tormenting Santa

A very cool Sally and Jack

The costumed crowd together

Nightmare Before Christmas: Shock's hat

Examining the stills from Nightmare Before Christmas that I posted earlier, you can see the Shock has an absolutely ridiculous huge hat.  I was worried that using normal millinery methods would be insufficient to produce this hat and began to search the internet for an easy way to make this shape.  In doing so I came across Fosshape.  Fosshape is a buckram alternative that feels like felt and is sew-able, heat shape-able and dye-able.  I figured this was a perfect alternative to creating Shock's hat. 

I bought 2 yards of Fosshape and a very large Styrofoam cone for the basis of the hat.  Fosshape shrinks when heated, so I cut a 2 cone shapes larger than the cone out of the Fosshape and sewed them together.  I then turned the cone right-side out to hide the stitching and heat shrunk it to the cone. 

Styrofoam cone

Fosshape sewn cone

 Fosshape can be wet or dry formed using either a steamer or a heat gun.  I did not have a steamer so I used my heat gun.  Here I found a major problem, Fosshape can burn if heated too directly and the burns result in holes in the Fosshape......the heat gun caused this problem repeatedly and I ended up with a large number of holes in my hat.

After the cone was formed, I cut a large round piece for the hat brim and attempted to heat shrink to stiffen the hat brim.  Heat shrinking a flat large disk was really hard and I ended up with many holes and a brim that was not stiff enough!  I attempted to fix this by wiring the brim edge and hiding the wire with a length of Fosshape.  After this, I dyed both the crown and the brim.  The Fosshape took dye fairly well, but the damaged areas died less strongly and the dye bath weakened the already floppy brim. 

Fosshsape repair

Here are some photos of the damaged areas.  You can see in the first one, I patched a large hole by heating down a small triangle of Fossshape. 

Small pin prick holes due to heat

I did end up with a completed hat in time to wear it for the first wearing of Lock, Shock and Barrel, however I think I will redo this hat in the near future.  I am thinking about simply adding more wire to the base of this one and then fabric covering the whole thing, but have not decided yet.

Completed hat

Overall, I like Fosshape but it is a steep learning curve.  I do think I will get a steamer for the next time I work with this material as I have heard that it is far easier to control the heat with a steamer.  I am excited to try the Fosshape over some of my wood hat blocks.  I really think it would provide a great way to make hats in fun custom colors I cannot get in felt. 

Nightmare Before Christmas: Lock, Shock and Barrel Masks

The masks for Lock, Shock and Barrel have really accentuated features that dont look like any mask I know of.   I could not figure out a way to adequately modify a readily available mask to create the correct features so I needed to make the masks myself.  To do this, I decided to make clay bases and then form Worbla over the bases.  I will try to show how this process worked here but feel free to ask questions.  This is only the second time I have used Worbla so it was quite the learning experience for me.

So I would have a rough placement for nose, eyes and mouth, I bought cheap plastic masks from the hobby store.  To prevent the clay from deforming the mask shape, I cut hard foam to support the mask base and duct taped it into the form.  I also used this foam to alter the depth of the mask forms as the cheap forms sit very far forward on the face.  I then used cheap flexible foam to alter the face shape as needed and again attached this foam with duct tape. You can see the basic alterations on the mask to the left.










Once the base was ready, I began to add the clay.  In this case, I used Celluclay.  Celluclay is a cheap recycled paper mache which I often see referred to as paper clay.  It mixes easily and dries overnight.  It is chunky when first applied but can be easily smoothed out with a wet finger.  Here is the paper clay right after addition and before smoothing.  As you can see it is pretty rough, but easy to shape.  Another advantage to this stuff is that you can sand it.  It does dry really hard so sanding is not easy, doing as much smoothing as possible while wet is much easier.









Here are the finished mask bases for Lock, Shock and Barrel.

I let the clay dry overnight and the next day I formed the Worbla.  In this case, I decided to use Worbla Black Art.  This is the newest Worbla and it is supposed to be smoother in finish than the regular Worbla.  I have never used the regular Worbla but was I thinking smoother would be better.  This stuff is pretty easy to use, you just heat it with a heat gun until it is soft and then shape it over your form.  The Worbla can be reheated repeatedly so you can keep applying heat and smoothing until you get the shape you

want. I used some of my clay tools to help smooth the worbla.  I did learn not to press too hard, the worbla can rip easily when it is warm. Once I was happy with the base, I added details.  The teeth for both Lock and Barrel were cut separately of Worbla.  For Barrel, the teeth were then heated and pressed onto the mask base.  I used a dental tool (purchased cheaply from a flea market) to carefully indent between Barrel's teeth.  I also used the dental tools to carefully indent the 2 nostrils.



Once the Worbla was cool, I popped it off the clay and used an exacto knife to cut out the nostrils and the eyes. 
Here you can see the completed base, the excess around the edge was cut of with scissors and saved for future use!



Once the base was cut out, I used scraps of Worbla to attach D-rings to the masks as a way to allow elastic to be attached later.  This method worked pretty well, but you really need to press hard to mold the scrap to the base.  Since the elastic is under some pressure, we did have 2 fail and have to be glued back into place.





Lock was completed in much the same way as the Barrel mask.  The mouth was indented using the same clay tool and the teeth were cut out and place in the mouth.  In this case I heated the teeth in place rather than heating them first and then applying them.  There were just too many teeth with too precise placement to add them one at a time.




Once the masks were formed, they were coated with a primer and then spray painted for a base color.  The spray paint was allowed to dry overnight.







After drying, the details were painted with acrylic craft paint and then sealed with a spray sealant.  You can see the D-rings on Lock in this picture. 

While the Lock and Barrel masks went pretty well, Shock turned out to be a real pain. The very big nose caused a bunch of rips in the Worbla while shaping and the thinned out Worbla from fitting around the nose tore both near the eyes and around the mouth.  To repair this, I added a reinforcement piece of Worbla to both the mouth and the nose.  Doing this really affected the smooth shape, since the reinforcement was readily visible.  To smooth this out, I used wood filler.  This stuff can be smoothed onto the Worbla and dried overnight.  Once dry, the wood filler can be sanded down to make a smooth surface.  You can see all the repairs I had to make on this mask!

Once the repairs were completed, the mask was finished just like the other 2.  Here is the final image of the Shock mask and one taken at an angle to show how really big that nose is!

 

Nightmare Before Christmas: Lock, Shock and Barrel Intial planning

A group of us have decided we want to create Lock, Shock and Barrel costumes.  To start with, I grabbed some images of the 3 to start planning.

 While the outfits are amazingly simple. the masks, shoes and Shock's hat are a bit tricky. 

For the first round, I decided to focus on getting the masks right and the costumes bases and then we will work on improving the costumes each time we wear them. 

For Lock, I bought a red long sleeve T-shirt and matching fabric for the pants and tail.  I made the pants as simple elastic waist pants.  The tail is a tube with a triangle sewn to it.  I simply hand-stitched the tail to bottom of the shirt. 

Shock was a bit trickier for sewing. While the dress is really simple A line, the scalloped edging took a bit of work.  I still managed to sew the dress in one day. 

For the masks, I planned to make the bases in clay and then use Worbla to create the masks.  To create Shock's hat, I planned to use Fosshape since it should be stiff enough to hold the very tall shape.  I have used Worbla once before, but Fosshape is a totally new material for me.  We will see how it goes......

A Dr. Who inspired Victorian Vest

My husband's birthday was coming up and I found out that Jo-Ann Fabrics has Dr. Who themed fabric.  In particular they have a cotton print of the 'Blue Box Exploding' painting that in the show was painted by Vincent van Gogh.  My husband loves Dr. Who, so I decided a Victorian style vest made of the this fabric would be a great gift.

First, I wanted some unique buttons to go with the vest that fit the theme.  I could not find any buttons I liked, so I decided to resin cast buttons. I copied images from the web of the Tardis, Weeping Angels, Cybermen and Daleks.  I then shrunk these down to a size that would fit in my resin molds. After printing, I cut out my images and sealed them with 3 coats (front and back) with Modge Podge to prevent the resin from staining the paper. 

Using Clear Cast Epoxy resin, I filled each well in the mold 1/2 full with clear resin.  I let the clear set for 4 hours or so.  Really I should have let the clear sit longer, but I did not want my husband to see his surprise so I rushed the process.  I then mixed a new batch or resin and colored it transparent blue.  I placed the images against the clear resin, which was still the consistency of gel, and poured the blue resin over the back of the images to fill the mold.  After 4 hours, the blue layer was gel like, so I pushed rings into the resin to make loops for the buttons.  Again, a bit longer would have been better, but I was trying to make the present a surprise.   If you look at the image to the left, you can see that the rings moved a bit since the resin needed to sit for longer before I added the rings.

I let the resin cure for 3 days and then popped the buttons out of the mold. There are some bubbles that were trapped, but over all they look pretty good.  I could have dipped the images in clear resin prior to adding to the back of the curing resin, which would have reduced the bubbles even further.  I then used a nail file to file the edges of each button.  I did this just to remove the slight lip that formed on the back of each button since I filled the molds pretty full.

The vest was made using the Simplicity 2895 Men's costume pattern. I have found this pattern fairly easy to work with and the vest looks nice over all.  I have made this pattern 3 times now and it is my go to pattern for a simple men's vest.  The vest is cotton and lined in thin cotton muslin, so it should be nice and cool for warm weather events.  I edged the entire vest with blue bias tape to add a bit more color. 

The only thing I don't like about this pattern is the welt pockets.  I hate sewing welt pockets, but they look so nice when they are finished. Also, my husband loves to wear pocket watches and the welt pockets are fabulous for wearing pocket watches. 

Actually the pockets sort of disappear on this fabric, as you can see to the left, the upper pocket is almost invisible. 

Here is the finished vest!  My husband was happy with it, so I count this a success!