Monday, September 29, 2008

12:11 AM - your regularly scheduled program

steampunk, day 05

Remember that deadline I made for myself of finishing the jacket and the pants by tonight? ... tee hee.

This weekend I made the lapel and collar pieces for the jacket. Bias taped them. Pinned the lining into the jacket. Got ready to attach them all to each other and... ran out of thread. Honestly. I've never run out of thread before, so to me, this is kinda ridiculous. The technique I used on the lapel looks so freaking awesome that I've decided to use it for the rest of the jacket, too... but that's not going to do me any good without thread.

So... I started on the pants. The easy peasy 1-day pants that I expected to put together without a fuss. It's going pretty well, except I'm having a bit of AJ luck on the pants. The design I made ended up having a second panel in the front, and that actually looks like a miniature siamese twin of the larger pants. I kinda assembled them in the wrong order, but even worse, the mini-twin pants are too large. So. I'm going to have to disassemble a good portion of the pants to make the front panels smaller. The good news is that this will allow me to assemble the crotch in the proper order this time. Tonight I used the official buttonholer stitch for the first time ever.... and it works really well. No more fake buttonholing for me.

OMG the toilet just exploded for no reason while I was brushing my teeth.

Okay, now that's cleaned up, and I am going to bed. No pictures today. Oops, I actually forgot to finish brushing my teeth. Needless to say, I was a bit distracted.

Friday, September 26, 2008

1:34 AM - ...still sewing

steampunk, day 015

These panels are taking forever. I've run through two bobbins already and I'm wondering if I have enough thread to finish the jacket. Hrm.

I've been cutting the panels as I needed them, to reduce fraying. Actually, I could cut and zigzag them all before doing anything else, so what I am really trying to reduce is boredom. Here's where I've gotten to:



Up next, the hardest 3 parts: the lapel/collar, setting the sleeves, and hem finishing with an ornery bias tape. It's also great fun setting the hardware pieces in panels before they get attached to the jacket and trying to make them all line up. Great fun indeed.

Thank the stars the pants design is easy, because this jacket is a bear. *shakes fist*

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

12:41 AM - the first 4 panels

steampunk, day 0111

First, let's get this out of the way. I was cutting up some strawberries, which are my favorite, and I accidentally cut my finger. Owwies. This is just a shameless cry for sympathy. That is all.

Today I attached two more panels to the back of the jacket while watching Heroes on Hulu.com. They need to cancel Heroes so I stop watching it, because it's terrible. This season does seem to have marginally better writing than last season overall, but the whole thing is so trite and unsalvageable that I can't really stand it. Why do I keep going out of my way to watch something that inevitably makes me feel bad?



I finally have enough done that I can see that the jacket is not going to be a total disaster, which is good because I need to finish both the jacket and the pants by Monday if I intend to stay on schedule. The good news is that tonight I also practiced the bias tape finish that I want to do for the hems. I wasn't sure that it would work on the lapels, but I am pretty sure that I now have a way to make the lapels look fantastic. Which is good, because there is work to do.

Tomorrow, I might take a jacket break and bust out a pair of pants.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

11:54 PM - the jacket fiasco

steampunk, day 011

I sewed this weekend. And sewed and sewed. And what I've learned is this: I'm not sewing fast enough. I'm working on the jacket, which is the hardest part for me. I finished my second muslin mock, resolved the last of the outstanding sizing issues, decided on all the seam finishes, created pattern pieces, created a lining, sized the sleeves and attached them into the lining, attached shoulder pads.... So it's time to start working with final fabric on the outside, right? The gorgeous red stuff I bought? Right? I'm nervous.

Cut out the first two pieces, and they started shredding like... um... something that shreds a lot. So I take them over to the machine and sew the center back seam of the jacket. I bring the fabric over to iron the seam open and...



You guessed it. Quality synthetic. My gorgeous red fabric is pretty much made out of wax.

Luckily, i only ironed the seam allowance, which prevented further shredding. I had to take the two pieces and go ghetto serger (aka zig-zag stitch over the edge) them, and it looks like I'm going to have to ghetto serge every piece as soon as I cut it. And press all seams open with my thumb. And try not to stretch the red stuff too much, since it seems like it's going to be easy to distort it if I pull too hard. Because, you know, it's made out of crayons.

I need to figure out how to either clean this iron or I'll have to get a new one.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

2:36 AM - the list gets longer

steampunk, day 01

So, I said the corset was done and as of today, I actually am not lying about it. Spent the day with AJ and Judy and Cheryll in the South Bay. Finished all the hardware on the corset, and cut out a mock of the jacket and used it to drape an actual jacket pattern. I spent a couple of hours just pinning fabric into different shapes and then staring at it and re-pinning it and drawing on it. But now... I mostly have a jacket pattern.

It was fun to see the fabrics and choices that other people are making, because up until now I've only seen what I've been working on. it's nice to see that I am not totally off base in the color department, and there are some really neat ideas floating around out there. Also, even though corsets are exciting and new to me, it's clearly not a technology that no one has ever heard of before... There were tons corsets out and about in various states of completion.

Here's a look at the front:



Enjoy it now, because once the jacket is finished, people will only see a couple of inches through the jacket. I hope I like the rest of the outfit as much as I like this bit of it! hee.

Next up: building a jacket for reals, and painting the plastic so that it doesn't look orange any more.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

12:42 AM - corset done

steampunk, day 0

I finished the corset tonight. When I say finished, I really just mean "finished the part that involves sewing vinyl with pins and stabbing and bandaids" because I still need to do the hardware. Strap, snaps, grommets, and tacks for the boning, if I want to get decorative. I don't think I've mentioned this yet, but due to cumulative errors in the sizing and construction of the corset, I decided it was best to start over rather than keep hobbling toward a pile of junk. So last weekend I started the second attempt at the corset, and it's really quite a lot better than the first. Starting over was the right decision.

Tomorrow, depending on how crafty I am feeling, I will either do all of the hardware (except the grommets, which I'll need to travel south for) for the corset or make the muslin mock for the jacket.

I wish I had a life-sized mannequin that I could dress up with the completed parts of the outfit.

Also, has anyone seen this neato steampunky cane? Anyone know how to make things like that? We are lucky that the ship date is after the photo shoot date, because it's more than I want to spend on a prop.

Thursday, September 04, 2008

1:10 AM - fabric photos

steampunk, day 10, part ii

There's not enough yet to show "progress" photos, but I did pick out some fabrics. Red jacket, brown corset, purple striped pants (apparently the stripes are subtle), and a brass collar and armpiece. Hopefully the brass and purple stripes show up better in photos than they do here.



Also, here's the state of the collar. Thermal plastic is amazing, for the most part, but I had to change things around a bit if I didn't want to be strangled.



Edit: You know, I really love the way these colors go together. I thought I had come up with a really beautiful and interesting new color scheme. And I did... three years ago when I designed the color scheme for my website. Practically identical. Frak.

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

4:56 PM - catching my breath and my perspective

steampunk, day 10

Today I drilled the holes in the collar pieces. The collar was a bit too small and made me regret having an adam's apple, so I made a newer, larger front piece and it pretty much fits now, after some reshaping. Also, I tried sewing the bias tape onto the corset, and the needle broke. 3 times.

Okay, so I am taking a break. I'm not going to go to the Peers event in costume. I won't be done, and I'm not going to half-ass this thing or get stressed out about it. Seriously. I've designed some really tough things to accomplish, and I'm almost done with 2/5 pieces now (and these are 2 of the 3 hardest pieces), and I am just not going to let myself get stressed about it.

I think I am going to take the night off and play Warcraft. Sparkles for everyone.

In other news, over the weekend I purchased a framed piece of artwork from Julie Christine, and it's on the wall as of 5 minutes ago. Happy.

12:05 AM - bedtime!

steampunk, day 5111

Gah. Spent much longer than anticipated re-sizing the corset and adding bones. Removed all shape from the corset in the process. It's now just a fancy, tight vest. Yay? It just needs to be bias taped (a process that I hope magically fixes a couple of issues with the lining) and then it's done. Despite all of my topstitching issues, because of the way I did the seams, you mostly notice the folds in the vinyl and not the erratic stitches. 1 piece out of 5 almost done, and of course it's the piece that barely shows.

This evening, I cut out all 6 neck brace pieces from thermal plastic with a saw. Plastic bits everywhere. Sanded everything down, then boiled the plastic (approx 20 secs per piece for the right level of droopy) and pressed them onto the double to become armor pieces. This, sadly, ruined some of the nice inner foam pieces. The thermal plastic is really easy to use. Will the new plastic neck brace fit? It's midnight, so I am going to wait until tomorrow to drill the holes in the plastic. If it doesn't fit, I can probably mush it so that it does, thanks to yay, thermal plastic!

Next up: drilling and fitting the neck brace, sewing the bias tape on the corset. Oh, and making a jacket and pants. Um.