Blue and Gold Hell

Hello, good folks.  My apologies for another long delay in posting.

Running a local steampunk group, and the pesky nuisance of having to work for a living, does seem to get in my way of sewing, making, and writing.  I will strive to amend this.  Let's call it ... my New Summer's Resolution.

Today's post is about my brilliant idea to make a cute short bustle out of an alluring leftover scrap of blue and gold fabric that was given to me by a friend (who had used it to make blinds).

This is the piece of fabric ... this is all there was.  So, pretty as it is, I was immediately constrained by size ... there was no purchasing more.

As I mentioned, I thought I'd make a cute mini-bustle.  A sort of stripey poof for my hiney.  Ah, perhaps you're seeing how this may end.

I tackled this with my usual tendency (lacking a pattern) to simply pin it on my model, play around with it, and see how it looked. (After trimming it down to a nice rectangle of fabric, which meant just removing a triangle off the side.

With a lot of draping and pinning and pleating, and having found a technique for pleating up the sides (which I will link here if I can find it again!), these were my various looks:

I decided to go with the last, more poofy form, largely because it seemed the best one to trim out.  For all of these, I pleated at the waistband to distribute the fabric evenly

Different views of the pleating on sides and back

I used a pieces of narrow twill tape to "bustle" the back of the skirt (i.e., to ruck the fabric up), attaching it at centre back waist and at three spots down the centre back (shown below).

I pleated the sides, bringing the fabric upwards for each pleat.

It took a while of fiddling to get the side and back pleating exactly right. 

I had some gold braid lying around from previous sewing projects, and some awesome steampunk buttons from a local store called Button Button.  I found both blue, and a deep blue & gold fringe at Dressew.  I also bought some blueish-gold ruffle fabric to use (either for this or a future project, and I played with the small triangular scrap I had cut off at the beginning.   I pinned everything on first to make my final design choice.

And these are playing with a ruffled fishtail back skirt (which I didn't do)

I opted for the shortest, pouffiest shape, decided not to use the triangular scrap, and selected the blue & gold heavy looped fringe, with the gold braid over top, and the tasselled decoration with the gold button.

These are the final effects of back and side pleating, below.

Once the back pleats were pinned as I wanted, I sewed across the back to reinforce the waist area and anchor the pleats.

To anchor the side pleats, I sewed through all the layers.  

The side pleating caused the edge to fan out, so I had to turn under the edge to straighten it. (left - pleated and fanned naturally; right - with edge folded under to create a straight line.)

However, this created an exception quantity of fabric, and I tried my best to trim all the excess fabric to reduce the volume (seven pleats, and then folded over ... insane).

Well, I tried my best.  I broke a needle attempting this, and never managed to get through the thickest part.  Seven pleats of this fabric, and then folding over, was simply too thick to sew through. (Really?  You'd think I'd have seen that coming.)

Above is the snapped needle, with the point jammed in the machine.  And the fragment once I pried it loose with pliers.

I used grosgrain ribbon as a waistband (double thickness to enclose the bustle's edge), with snap closure.  This will allow me to wear it under a corset or heavy belt with ease.

To help make it pouf out if I so chose, I made a removable bustle pad out of crinoline netting, (the making of which I shall post next).

So.  Here are side views of the penultimate product (missing the button & decorated tassel trim on the sides.  The bustle pad is underneath it for these shots.

 And here is the final rear view of the bustle.

And here are shots of it, at it's one and only wearing debut at Norwescon 35.  The first two are the most flattering angles of the piece.

However, I'm far less happy with how it looked from the back.  It seems ... odd.  

There were also serious logistical issues with it ... it packed badly, and the carefully crafted and pressed shaping in the centre back, and the side pleats, got pretty destroyed even in a bag of soft garments, and what didn't get smooshed in the luggage got smooshed by sitting on it.  

The side pleats kept trying to droop the other way (how odd, gravity works).  You can sort of see this happening in the photo above left.  And finally, the side edges & hem kept curling in on itself, hiding the lovely trim.  Local sewing friends have suggesting hand-stitching in millinery or thin wrapped wire along the hem, to help with shaping.

Does anyone have thoughts?  Suggestions?  

I'm trying to figure out whether to keep it as it is (after trying reinforcing the hem with wire, and after tacking down some of the pleating in the back), or whether to take it apart, and if there is a salvageable quantity of fabric, reuse this lovely small piece of striped fabric in something else entirely - or even work on one of my earlier permutations (I do still have the triangular scrap).

Tempest in a Tea Cozy

Sit, good people.  Have a nice hot cuppa tea. 

I confess I am not a big tea-drinker - I have a preference for fruit teas, rather than the traditional - and oh so British - black teas (and green tea tastes like I'm drinking the mowings from someone's lawn).  However, I am learning, slowly, to appreciate a good tea, heavily honeyed and with some lemon.  

My love of fruit teas at work, however, has often ended up with me in possession of a half-pot of cold tea.  NOT satisfactory.  So, I decided to make a tea cozy.  A steampunk-ish tea cozy.  Having never owned one, I went to Google as my online resource, and found Rusty Bobbin's simple and easy tea cozy tutorial, here.  Thanks Rusty Bobbin!

I selected a scrap of brown and black herringbone wool I had kicking around (from something I made about 16+ years ago, which I don't even recall!).  I purchased a roll of batting, though I was unable to find the insulating batting which apparently exists for such things.

As per the tutorial, I measured my wee teapot and drew up the pattern based on them.  Since I had enough fabric, I decided to line the cozy with the same wool as the outside, and figured, with the batting, this should keep tea nice and warm even without the fancy insulating stuff.

Now, of course, I needed trim.  I had some lime green velvet ribbon lying about, and opted for it, as a bright contrast to the dull wool.  I barely had enough to trim the base of both sides of the cozy (and only once the seam allowance was taken into consideration).

I also had some brown grosgrain-styled trim, with mock lime-green stitching along it, which I decided would be the perfect thing to compliment the green velvet and the brown & black wool.

I stitched the velvet down on the wool, leaving a margin at the bottom, so the ribbon would be above the base of the finished cozy.  I then centred and sewed the brown trim on top of that.

Trim added, I sewed the outside trimmed pieces, batting, and lining together as per the above tutorial, turned it rightside out as instructed, and stitched the turning opening shut.  Well, not quite so simple.  I'm not familiar with sewing and turning lined things rightside out, and, well, I ended up sewing it wrong way around, and had to undo all my stitches the first time.  Whoops.

A rusted-effect 4-hole metal button, picked up at an an evil little button store in Vancouver called Button Button, proved the perfect addition to the trim, and I sewed on a very 3-dimensional brass button to the centre top, to use as a handle (in lieu of the tutorial's little fabric handle).

Finished tea cozy, lying flat.  Note button handle and decoration.

Here are the button details - trim and handle.

Completed cozy & my wee teapot (which it towers over) - does an excellent job of keeping my tea warm.

I'm not sure if everyone will consider this a steampunk tea cozy - I'm not sure what the qualifying details would be - but in my humble opinion it is.  Thoughts?  Arguments?  

In closing, I fully acknowledge the fallacy of my title for this post -- there was no tempest (other than the part where I sewed it wrong way around the first time and had to unstitch it all, which resulted in a brief blue verbal tempest).

Every Table Needs a Cloth - Part 4 of Creating our Steampunk Group Promo Table

Greetings all!

This is the final installment in my four-part (long-in-completion) series on tricking out a Steampunk Group Promo table for our local group.  Today's post will be guest-written by Kelsey Silk, who saved me by offering to make the cloth for the table.

Kelsey's generous offer to make the cloth started when I posted, on Facebook, my realization that I needed to more for the Imaginatius Fantasticus Fair beyond just showing up in costume and looking smart.  I did put a shout out on Facebook, asking folks for suggestions.  The conversation between Kelsey and I started there:

Me:  Anyone have any suggestions? I have a 6' x 2/5' table. I need a cool steampunk-feel table cloth, at the least.

Kelsey:  What does a steampunk table cloth feel like? I'm free Sunday to help out.

Me:  I have NO IDEA what a steampunk table cloth feels like ... or looks like ... and I need to wait til payday til I can hit the bargain fabric room at Dressew. I might take you up on that -  I even just need help brainstorming!

Kelsey: If you want to do dressew, I am free tomorrow early-ish

Me: I'd love to but I really need to wait til payday, Tuesday, til I do any shopping. Boy, this running a steampunk group - she's-a-costing me money.

Me:  Well, I have a piece of shimmery gold silky satin, 120x60 inches. Not enough to reach the floor. But good enough for 2/3 or chair length.

This set the whole creation in motion;  and this is where I shall leave the rest of the post to Kelsey!  I'll be back at the very end to add some photos.  Take it away, Kels:

So when the question “what does a steam punk tablecloth feel like?” was raised, I considered several options – appliqué, iron on transfer, quilting, or an existing lace or other antique tablecloth.  Tracey had a piece of champagne coloured satin that was to be the basis of the cloth, but it needed to be extended.   I happen to love the look of a pleated ruffle, so I invested in a dark brown taffeta and some braided, sequined trim with a hint of red, think that the red was a nice festive touch for the Christmas craft fair.  I sat down and calculated the length of ruffle that I would need to go around three sides of the table cloth (thinking of leaving the back side un-ruffled, to allow us easy access to our stuff stashed below the table.  I could wrap my head around how to mitre a pleated ruffle around the corners of the table cloth, so I decided to make a fitted table skirt instead, which eliminated that issue.  At this point, I was aiming to make the cloth de-constructible, so that both fabrics could be re-used.  So I pleated the ruffle, and serged the top edge, so it was self contained.  Then I shaped the table cloth by taking large triangular darts at the four corners.

I had no table as large as the one the tablecloth was to fit, so I had to hope that my measurements were correct.  The ruffle went on, and the braided trim over the seam, and I could’ve stopped there. 

But I didn’t.  When I had first considered appliqué, I searched the internet for images of gears that I could use as patterns.  I came across a tutorial to create gears in a program called “Inkscape”.  Its an open source program similar to Adobe Illustrator.  So I downloaded it, and began playing around with the ‘gear’ tool.  At first I created several different sized and toothed gears, and played around with positioning, but the teeth did not interact, so I went back and created a graphic with several gears with teeth of the same proportions. 

The next step was to go through my fabric stash, and select different fabrics for the different gears.  I traced my pattern onto fusible interfacing, and fused it to the backs of fabrics, as it was easier to see the pattern on the white interfacing, and in an attempt to prevent fraying.  This was successful for the most part, with the exception of the reddish brown ribbed upholstery fabric.  It shrank when I attempted to fuse the interfacing.  So I printed the pattern on a piece of iron on transfer paper (which is what I should’ve done in the first place), ironed that on to a piece of white broad cloth, and used spray adhesive to affix it to the upholstery fabric.  It still frayed terribly, but it was such an interesting texture that I used it anyway.  Cutting out the gears was accomplished surprisingly quickly while watching my boyfriend play Skyrim.  Then began the really tedious part – hand stitching it to the table cloth.

The satin had an unfortunate tendency to run when I used straight pins on it, so I used double sided tape to attach the appliqué temporarily while I stitched.  Despite my best efforts, the two groupings are not quite symmetrical, but other then that I am quite happy with how it turned out. 

Thanks Kelsey!  I am delighted with this cloth, and can't believe the work that went into it.  I couldn't have conceived of or executed the interlocking gears.  Left to my own devices, I likely would have thrown fabric over the table as it was, hemmed if I was lucky.

Here it is in all it's displayed glory:

The final product - the finished table cloth - also showing the display, pamphlets and brochure cabinet!

Left side of the table cloth front

Right side of the table cloth front