Steampunk at the Natural History Museum

One of the lovely ladies (the green fairy in the pictures) in the local steampunk group suggested an outing to the Albuquerque Natural History Museum.  We first met for tea in the park across the street and then all went over to the Natural History Museum for photos and fun.  I love the Natural History Museum and was so excited to attend. I decided to wear the new Victorian skirts that I worked on for HSM 2015 practicality challenge and the corset from the first month of HSM 2015 foundations challenge. Although not visible much in the photos I did floss the boning channels of the corset since I made it in January.  I bought pith helmets for myself and my husband, which we still need to personalize but they were fun to play with.  My husband wore his new Dr. Who vest.  The whole costume thing for this was a bit of rush job with both my husband and I cobbling things together from what we had on hand, but it has given us inspiration for costumes to work on latter.

This whole event was a blast, it was so much fun to wander around the museum and take photos with the dinosaur skeletons.  Anyway, on to the pictures.

Nightmare before Christmas Tea

A new tearoom has opened up in Albuquerque, the Ivy Tea room.  The Ivy Tea room has themed seating areas inspired by childhood favorite movies such as Alice in Wonderland, Clueless, Hocus Pocus, The Great Gatsby, The Secret Garden and my personal favorite The Nightmare Before Christmas!  The Nightmare Before Christmas is one of my favorite movies ever so I made a reservation for a visit with a friend.  Of course now I really wanted a new outfit to wear. 

The night before the tea reservation, I searched through my UFO pile and found an almost finished Chemise dress made of shear material detailed with copper skulls.  I thought this would be perfect for the theme, so I sewed the remaining channels for elastic and ran some elastic.  The whole process took about 2 hours to finish up the bits on the dress.  The dress fits very comfortably and I am pretty happy with the fit, but the first thing I noticed is that I was very hot in this dress after less than 20 minutes! Given that it is summer here, about 95 degrees, and the tea room is in an old converted house with potentially limited cooling, I decided I need to scrap the idea of wearing this dress to tea. 

So on to plan 2 the morning of the tea reservation!  I found some black cotton gauze (much cooler than the synthetic from the chemise dress) in my stash and whipped up a quick sheath dress.  The gauze wanted to stretch a bit when I sewed the neckline, so I added a couple of quick pleats to the finished neckline by hand. 

I still really wanted something that fit the Nightmare Before Christmas theme, so made a quick caplet out of some skull lace, bias tape, ribbon and lace trim from my stash. The caplet is basically a square with a hole cut in the center for  the head.  I bound the edges of the neck hole with bias tape and then edged the square with the lace trim.  I had some stashed ribbon with a graveyard scene left over from a previous project that I also wanted to use.  Originally, I wanted to lay the graveyard ribbon right along the lace trim edging, but I did not have enough ribbon.  So I improvised and laid the ribbon is a square between the edge and the neck hole.  The size of the square was entirely dictated by the amount of ribbon!.

I also found a black widow button in my stash as an accent.  The black widow reminded me of the mayor from the Nightmare town.







To finish off the outfit, I pulled out the choker and feather fascinator I made with the ribbon the year before. With all these pieces I was ready for tea in the Nightmare Before Christmas area!










The tea room was really lovely and the food was amazing.  The themed areas are more inspired by than based on a particular movie, but I really loved the whole experience. My friend and I had a great time and the staff was very friendly and helpful.  The staff is happy to rearrange things as well if a larger party space is needed.  I am so happy to have a new place to go for tea!  Here is a picture of us in the Nightmare Before Christmas area.

HSM for May: Practicality a simple set of Victorian Skirts

I was wandering around the internet trying to decide what I wanted to make for the May Practicality challenge when I ran across the skirts shown to the left.  I love these skirts and I love the pockets, they are so functional and yet stylish at the same time.  Even better, these skirts were one set of 3 that were the subject of a very well written article by Sunny Buchler for Your Wardrobe Unlock'd (for those with subscriptions, the article is here).

Sunny did a wonderful job fully analyzing these skirts and there was so much information to aid me in creating my own, yet I still managed to mess the skirts up pretty badly.  I have gone back a forth a couple of times on if I wanted to post about this attempt or not....but with all the talk lately in the online costume community about the myth of perfection, I figured I would go ahead and post anyway.  This was a good learning experience for me, particularly since I am still pretty uncomfortable with the construction of Victorian clothing.

The brown skirt set is from 1869-1874 and I love that the pockets on the front are no only functional but show staining that suggests they were actually used.  The original skirts were wool, but I had some brown twill laying around that I felt would be perfect.  I also decided to vary my skirts a bit from the original and add a 3rd color trim as a method to use up a ton of oyster colored bias tape that has been sitting around my stash forever.  I was inspired to do this because the pockets on the original were piped and I also had matching oyster colored piping in the stash I could use on my own pockets.

Sunny's analysis was absolutely wonderful!  She provided information on the number, size and type of pleat for every position on the skirt.  Using her article, I easily made the underskirt.  The underskirt is kept fairly flat in the front with only one very shallow and wide pleat. The majority of the fullness in the skirt was kept to the back.  The sides of the skirt had knife pleats with a set of stacked pleats in the center back for fullness.  The is skirt is really very satisfying to wear as it moves beautifully!

Underskirt Front

Underskirt Back

  The overskirt is where I got myself into trouble and I should have realized it earlier in the process before construction.  I remember thinking I would probably not have enough fabric for both skirts and that I would likely have to piece the underskirt significantly.  When I made the pattern pieces and laid them out somehow they fit.  I should have realized this suggested that I made the pattern wrong and I should have remeasured the pieces and compared again to the original article.  I missed adding the measurements for the fact that the overskirt also had layered pleats in the back and only added enough for single pleats. Now the overskirt is way too narrow across the back bustle area.  As a result, the lack of room across the back pulls the sides of the over skirt back and creates a very narrow front silhouette.  As you can see below how narrow the skirt is from the front and the pulling across the back.

Both skirts Front

Both skirts Back

I do like the way the pockets came out, although I attached them upside down from the original (oops!). And I do like the way the buttons came out.  I was a bit leery of hand covering large buttons and if they would look OK, but I do love them. 

I have since fixed the pattern issue, but I cannot get more of the twill to match.  The brown set of skirts will need to stay too narrow, so they will not be appropriate for Victorian wear.  I think I will keep these skirts for Steampunk, but I plan to make a new set of skirts using the corrected pattern for actual Victorian wear.  I guess I can say that my May Practicality challenge produced a pattern, if not actual skirts! And I learned quite a bit from this experience.

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!

HSM for March: stashbusting a Regency hat

For the few of you asking what happened to the blue challenge in February, I am still working on it but the handwork is taking forever.....I do intend to finish the dress one day but February was unfortunately very optimistic for me.

The HSM challenge for the month March was Stashbusting.  Like almost every costumer I know, I have a ton of accumulated stuff.....bits of fabric that was perfect or cheap or maybe a bit of trim that was too much to throw away but too little for most projects.  Stashbusting is a good thing and something I need to do far more often as my stash is embarrassingly large.  In searching through my stuff I found a lovely piece of dupioni silk in forest green. This piece has been in my stash for years and is too small for anything other than a hat or a purse.  I have been in need of a new Regency hat so I decided on a quick Regency hat for my stash project.  Going through the rest of my stash, I found buckram, millinery wire, flannel, gold buttons, gold and green trim, a small piece of gold ribbon, green glass bead trim and forest green thread.  This project came entirely from my stash at hand.

 My inspirations for the shape were the Quickie Capote by Jen Thompson of Festive Attyre and the fashion plates webbed by Ginger from Scene in the Past on her flickr page.  However, I did make most of my hat up rather than copy any thing exactly simply based on personal preference.

Basically, I played around with paper until I got a brim shape and size I liked the look of. Once I had the size, I cut the brim out of 2 layers of millinery buckram and then machine stitched wire around the entire brim. 

The wire was stitched down using zig zag stitch and the edges of the wire were just overlapped by several inches as you can see in the photo.  The stitching of the wire was the only machine sewing I did on this hat.  I just really hate to stitch wire down by hand.

Since the wire would easily show through the thin silk, I added a flannel layer (called mulling) to give the silk a smooth line and hide the millinery wire.  The flannel is just hand stitched down with big stitches.  
 At this point I held the brim up to my head and measured the distance around the back of my head not covered by the brim.  For me this was 7 inches.  I needed this measurement to cut a small piece of the silk that could be used to bind the edge of the gathered back of the hat that would not be hidden by the brim.  I cut an 8 inch (1/2 inch added to each side for seam allowance) strip 2 inches wide to bind the back of the hat.

Hat back

The back of the hat is simply a huge circle gathered to fit the brim and the 8 inch strip of silk.  In my case, I have very long hair and often need to make extra room in my hats to accommodate my hair. If you are making your own hat a smaller circle may suffice.  Mine is 26 inches across. Since the silk is so thin, I flat lined it with some cotton muslin I had laying around to give it a bit of body.  The gathered circle was handstitched into the brim and the small strip of silk.  Then the brim lining was handstitched  down to hide the raw edges. 

Hat side

Hat front

The hat is decorated with some stash buttons and stash trim. All the decorations are handstitched onto the hat.  Although I needed lots of room for my hair, I felt the back of the hat could use some structure.  I took inspiration from Jen Thompson's Quickie Capote and gathered the very center of my big circle of fabric to make pleats.  I covered this gather with a button from my stash. 


The Challenge: Stashbusting

Fabric: green silk dupioni, white cotton muslin and cotton flannel
Pattern: none

Year: early 19th century Regency
Notions: thread, buttons, antique glass beaded trim, gold ribbon, gold and green braided trim, millinery buckram, millinery wire
How historically accurate is it? Maybe 70%? I made up the pattern and it is more likely historically inspired rather than historically accurate. Also, I am not sure if this grade of silk would have been used in the Regency period. 
Hours to complete: 15
First worn:  not yet
Total cost:  None, all of this was from my stash.
Stashed for how long? The trim and fabric have been stashed for at least 8 years.  The buttons are part of of a button stash passed onto me by my mother-in-law 16 years ago, so I have no idea how old they are!

Steampunk Vented Top Hat

My husband's one complaint with Steampunk is how very hot everything is and since we live in the desert, I often have to find ways to make thing a bit cooler for him.  At a previous Wild Wild West Con, Susan Holt taught a wonderful class about adding vents into your Steampunk hat to make things a bit cooler.  Since we were returning to Wild Wild West Con and Tucson, I thought my husband could really use a vented hat!

If you are interested in making a vented hat, Susan Holt makes the leather gaskets and the mesh vents in really cool shapes and sells them.  Susan is happy to provide information on installing the gaskets and she has an album with the gasket shapes on her professional facebook page here.  Susan even has shapes like butterflies, gears and stars!  I highly recommend her gaskets, I saw them in person at the recent Wild Wild West Con 4, the gaskets are lovely and come with the matching screen. She also occasionally sells premade and wonderfully decorated vented hats on her etsy site here. 

The base for this hat is the John Bull Top Hat from Hats in the Belfry and is wool felt.  I talked to Susan Holt to tell her how wonderful her class was and how much I enjoyed making one of the hats and in this discussion she told me that the felt hats are much easier to work with than the cheap costume hats.  Secondly, the copper screen that Susan uses is much easier to work with than what I used.  I planned to use copper screen for my vents, but could not find any so I am using decorative aluminum punchwork stuff I found at the local hobby store. The aluminum stuff was a pain to drill holes for the rivets and I think the screen would have been easier.

First I played around with powerpoint and figured out the size for both my vent hole and my gasket.  Once the sizes were right, I then cut out both sizes in paper.  I decided on 2 vents, one on each side of the hat.  I cut 2 of the large size in leather and 2 in the aluminum.  I then centered and cut the smaller oval in the leather to make the gasket and provide an opening for the vent.  I used leather shears to cut the leather and tin snips for the aluminum.

Next, I cut a hole through the hat where the vents would be placed.  This whole is the smaller window size NOT the large size since I want to be able to rivet the gasket and the vent to the hat.  To cut the felt, I used an Xacto knife and carefully cut out this hole.

Next, I punched the rivet holes into my leather gasket using my leather punch.

I then, used this gasket to mark the drill holes in your vent material.  I then drilled holes in my aluminum vent to allow the vent to be riveted to the hat. 

I then took my gasket and lined it up with the vent hole in the hat.  I used a chalk marking pencil and marked the rivet holes in the hat.  I then used the same leather punch to punch matching rivet holes in the hat. 

In addition to vents, I planned to run PVC tubing with EL wire in it in and out through the hat.  I punched some large holes and set these holes with grommets to facilitate the tubing going from inside the hat to outside the hat.

Next, carefully rivet your vent and gasket to your hat.  This part sucks, it is really hard to set rivets in a hat, but I thought the effect was worth it.

Now repeat for all other vents!

For my specific hat, I was going to a 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea sort of theme, so I made some octopods out of polymer clay to add to the hat.  The blue clay has glitter in it and I hated working with it so much!  The blue clay was really brittle and did not want to work into any shape. The white clay is actually translucent and it was fine to work with.  I really don't know why the blue glitter clay was so awful to work with. 





I then added the EL wire and tubing as well as some brass pipe fittings to complete the look.  Here is the finished hat!  The power source for the EL wire and the extra EL wire are hidden in the top of the hat.

Hat front

Hat back

hat side 1

hat side 2