Steampunk poison doctor accessories

With the Poison doctor coat complete, it was time to add some accessories.  I figured as a poison doctor, he should wander around dispensing poisons to people.  To make the poisons portable, I got some used glass vials left over from my work and cleaned them thoroughly.  While  I loved the look of the glass vials, the caps were either grey plastic or white plastic and really really ugly.  I decided to hide the caps with polymer clay.  This is probably only my third project with polymer clay so I am pretty happy with how they came out.

Large bottles filled

The white caps were hard plastic and as long as I removed the soft inner lining could be place directly into the oven.  So I simply molded the clay directly onto the caps.  I tried to follow the plant theme, and used leaves, wood and vines as my inspiration for the polymer clay.

Largbe bottles from the top

Since the poisons referenced in the embroideries on the coat are both plants (hemlock, wolfbane, ect) and elixirs (Extract of wolfbane, Invisibility elixir, ect), I decided that some of the bottle should contain plant material and some should contain liquid.  Since the larger bottle are much easier to fill, we filled them with assorted plant material from our yard.  We then baked the plant material to dry it in the oven.  Once the plant material was dried, we glued the tops onto the bottles to prevent any accidents.
The small bottles were then filled with liquid.  In this case the liquid is distilled water with food coloring added.  These bottles were also glued shut to prevent spills.

Small bottles from the top

Small bottles filled

The brown bottles had soft plastic stoppers that would not survive baking, so I used a polymer clay cookie cutter to make some brown and green leaves.  Once the leaves were baked, I glued them to the top of the bottles.  As these bottles were dark, I did not put any contents inside.



Once the bottles were ready, I used craft foam and tape to create leather holsters for the bottles.  The idea was to make each holder unique to add some variety.  Once the pattern was made, the leather was cut out, edged and stained.  The staining was deliberately left streaky to go with the shady nature of a poison doctor.  We also stained a belt blank with the same green stain to match and used a random gear belt blank we had lying around.  Both holsters are entirely held together with rivets, entirely for aesthetic reasons. The holsters slip over the belt so the belt can be worn without them if needed.

 

Steampunk poison doctor coat

Almost a year ago my husband and I made leather steampunk plague doctor masks and then wore them to a local convention called Steampunk Spectacular. I was very happy with how the masks came out, but always felt that we really needed outfits specific to the masks.  I begun an outfit for myself based on the Dia de los Muertos skeletons to match the sugar skull mask, but had not begun an outfit for my husband.  His mask reminds me of those Mr Yuk stickers that used to get stuck on poisonous stuff when I was a kid, so we decided he should be a poison doctor and provide poisons to people.  To emphasize the poison tie, I decided to machine embroider the entire coat with poisons and evil elixir designs.  I purchased the Apothescary and the Pretty Poison design packs from Urban threads and set to work embroidering the base black linen.  The coat design was based off of Rasputin's black robe as the idea of a mad poison doctor also reminds me of Rasputin. To keep with the Mr. Yuk theme, all the embroideries were done in greens and golds.  To give people an idea of how these designs come out, here are images of each design.  Since each design was to be used multiple times, I altered the colors between runs, to give you an example. 'wolfbane' is shown twice, but once with an emphasis on yellow and once with an emphasis on green.  All designs were used at least 3 times on the coat and the designs are 6-7 inches in their widest dimension.

Even with the embroidery machine, the embroideries took about 20 hours to complete, but I really love the detail and dimension they add.  The embroideries were done on the cut out linen (edged with the serger to stabilize the fabric during embroidery) and were done with wash away stabilizer.  Once the embroideries were complete, I washed the coat to remove the stabilizer to keep the coat from being too stuff.  The coat is then lined with lime green cotton and edged with light green bias tape.  Once the embroideries were done, the coat went together fairly quickly and I am overall pretty pleased with how it came out. 

Coat Front

Coat back

Coat side

Leather steampunk masks

I am working on historical sewing and on embroidery.  Unfortunately, these projects must be secret till their reveals so I cant post about them yet!  I am dying to share them......but I will be good and wait till they have gone to their new homes...

In the mean time, I have always wanted a steampunk leather plague doctor's mask.  I also love celebrating Dia de los Muertos and sugar skulls. For some reason these things go very well together in my head so I decided to do a sugar skull themed mask.  My husband decided to do his literally as a plague mask and be sickly green.  His mask reminds me of the 'ick face' green poison stickers, although everyone I say this to does not remember these.  I swear I am not making up these stickers! 

To make the masks, I bought a pattern from this etsy site Steampunk Masks. The pattern is a digital download and there is a video to help with construction.  I will say that some previous leather working experience is a plus, this mask was harder than my previous leatherworking projects but not too bad.  You need to be really really exact on the holes since there is very little play in the pattern.  There are a lot of pieces so the construction took quite a while, but the effect is so worth it in the end! 

To create the masks, we cut out the pieces and then edged them to make the edges really smooth.  Then I painted mine with leather paint, Eco-Flo Cova Color paints.  These paints are water based and very easy to use.  The only downside I found is that it took many coats to get a strong color in the pale colors; white, yellow and orange.  Since this paint is water based, I had to seal the mask to make it water proof.  Together with multiple layers of paint and sealant, my mask was really really stiff!

 My husband stained his with green leather stain.  Rather than use a damp cloth, he used a dry cloth which resulted a streaked texture to go with the plague idea.  The masks were then stitch and riveted together.

I am really happy with how the masks came out.  The only issues I have is that I would like the mask to cover a bit more of my face and they can be hard to see out of.  It is a mask with very little fitting so the vision issue is not surprising and not something I will worry too much about.  I may rework the pattern for next time to get the mask to come closer to my ears, the next time I make one.