Costume accessories and another Princess Peach sketch

Anticipate a corset-drafting update later — either today or tomorrow. For now, a quick peek into a few accessories I've collected for my Robot, Monster and Ghost Co. collaboration costume. (The RM&G costume, in contrast to the steampunk Peach costume, is mostly collection — meaning that documenting the costuming process would look suspiciously like shopping and showing it off. Here goes! ;))


Handmade bobby pins from Peasant and Raven on Etsy. Arrived today and I'm wearing them as we type! (I have to test them, you know.)


A weird glass bottle I picked up in New York, which might get used as an accessory. Funky, huh?


Another New York flea market find: Some keys for my character. And why deos she need these, you might ask? Stay tuned and find out! ;)
It also came to my attention yesterday that I neglected to post the second steampunk Princess Peach concept sketch — now with more Cute/Quirky and rather less Historical Flavor — so here's that:


Not as fancy and ruffly as the first concept, but I promise I will do a fancy Victorian dress someday.
Now I will bravely go and see if my sewing machine wants to work with me. I basted together my bodice sloper mock-up by hand, but I'm probably going to have to use a sewing machine at some point, so I need to find out if it's feeling well-behaved.

You remember the sewing machine cleaning/fixing extravaganza, right? It was reasonably successful — after that, my sewing machine worked. Mostly. But sometimes still not so much.

Let's try an experiment: Everyone clap your hands like you're reviving a fairy, and maybe it will bring back my Sewing-Machine Sixth Sense, which allows me to tame any rebellious sewing machine on the planet. Ready? Clap! Clap! Clap!

...Now imagine me running off to find a piece of scrap fabric to sew with...

Why things don't always happen on time (or, the tale of the wonky sloper)

On Tuesday, I took my measurements for the Princess Peach bodice sloper, drafted the front and back pieces, cut them out, made a muslin to check the fit, drafted a corset pattern based on the sloper, and with the help of my trusty leftover plastic boning and some hemp cord, I sewed my first corset!

Not.

That was what I was kind of hoping would magically happen, but this is what happened instead:

On Tuesday, I took my measurements for making a front bodice sloper. In case you don't know, a "sloper" is a super-basic pattern fitted to your exact measurements; you can use it for all kinds of stuff, including for making other patterns that you know will fit you, which is what I intend(ed?) on doing. In this case, I was measuring myself for the front half of a sloper for my upper body.

Anyway, when I got to the measurements for the back bodice sloper, I realized I would have to be a contortionist with bug eyes to take some of them myself.


My Special Tape Measure does let me, say, measure my own bicep with one hand, but alas, it does not come with sticky bits that would allow me to measure from the back of my neck to the center of the back part of my waist.
So I had to wait until the first mate got home (and he works the late shift, of course! ;)) to take the missing measurements. If I could have double-checked the measurements personally, I would have, but I couldn't even watch him in the mirror as he measured — if I could do that, I would have the "bug-eyed contortionist" thing down and wouldn't have needed his help.

So I had to trust his measurements, and went forward with the drafting of the sloper pattern. (Again, in case you don't know, that just means I was following the directions to draw the sloper pattern.) While doing this, I realized that the theoretical girl in the pattern-drafting example diagrams was definitely not the same shape as I am, and I started to doubt myself: Would my sloper even come out correctly if I couldn't follow the directions properly? Alarmingly, my across-shoulder and across-chest measurements don't work out so that there's a pointy bit where it should be. Here, let me show you.


On my version of this pattern piece, the Line of Wonk does not do what it does on the above example (image ganked for illustrative purposes from Andy Nguyen's pages on tailoring — meaning I do not claim to have created nor do I own this image).
See that line between points 6 and 9? See how it sticks out past the line coming down from point 7 and forms a little point? That little point is the top of the arm-hole (a.k.a. the armscye), which, in a lot of patterns, curves like that because people have cylindrical arms. And the space between points 4 and 7 is determined by measuring across my shoulders, meaning that that line needs to be a certain length in order for the bodice to actually make it across the front of my body.

But using my measurements, point 9 ends up to the left of the line coming down from point 7. That's right — using the appropriate measurements, my armhole wants to start on the inside of my chest width. Which seemed a little wrong (I swear I don't have arms on the front of my body) so I re-checked my body measurements, and had the first mate check, too. And yes, it's true: If I measure a little differently, I can get a different result. I can make the measurement even smaller. Perfect! You know, if by "perfect" I mean not. ;)

Oh, and just to confuse me a little more, the Line of Wonk, in my version of the pattern, angles UP, not down. After an emergency consultation with my costume buddy of Olde Times, I decided to just draw the dang line longer than it should have been and make adjustments in the muslin (meaning the mocked-up test bodice that gets sewn using the sloper as a pattern).


It's pretty faint in this photo (my pencil lines aren't that dark, since pencil point + too much pressure + newsprint = hole), but if you follow the photo link to Flickr, I've added a note pointing out the Line of Wonk in my sloper.
Tuesday ended with me feeling rather like some kind of genetic mutant, but at least I had a finished front bodice sloper to play with.

On Wednesday, I drafted the back bodice sloper without trouble. Which should really be taken as a sign of trouble in itself. ;) I even found some fabric that would work to make the muslin (that is, a mock-up sewn garment of inexpensive fabric, used to test the fit of the pattern in question), and applied pattern, pins, scissors, more pins, needle and thread to said fabric (in that order), indeed to produce a muslin.

Which fits perfectly from the bust point down, but horrendously from the bust point up. Ha, ha. So the part of the bodice containing the Line of Wonk is, indeed, wonky. I probably should have expected that, considering I knew I was doing something wrong in that part of the pattern. (But part of creating is hope...)

However, I realized late, late Wednesday night (so late you might *cough* even call it Thursday morning) that I don't need properly-fitted shoulders to make a corset, because none of the corset styles I was considering has shouldery bits. WHEW.

So my quest today is browsing my period clothing books and mooshing together what I find there with the information from various online corsetmaking pages.

Then maybe I'll play with other online sloper drafting instructions (like the even more complex sloper instructions at Leena's or the ones on Seamlyne.com), or maybe I'll raid my own closet for items of clothing with shoulders that DO fit, so I can trace them and magically meld the result with the bottom half of my current sloper pattern, a.k.a. the bit that fits.

Or maybe I'll do BOTH. Dangit. Yeah. So there.

If I do all these things, I will have momentarily channeled the spirit that made me name my blog "Quicksilver Crafter" a few years ago. That would be a miracle, so don't expect it ... but do feel free to send good wishes. ;)

In which costume hell week (or fortnight) 2010 begins

After ten years' worth of doing it, you might think I'd know better than to start a costume at the last possible moment. Of course, you might also think the Loch Ness Monster exists. I'm not saying it doesn't, but I am saying that there's not a whole lot of hard evidence for it. The same goes for the evidence that I will ever start sewing a costume before the last possible second.

This tendency, of course, is really a subset of "If I'm making it for me, I can put it off a little longer; oh crap, I don't have any longer." So if I were to sew you a costume, I would be fully capable of starting it in a timely fashion.

Since this costume is for me, however, I was required by the laws of my own reality to wait until I only have two weeks to finish.

What costume, you ask? Oh, it's an answer to my personal steampunk dilemma — to the love/hate relationship I have with this neo-Victorian costume and aesthetic trend that combines two things I love dearly (technology and Victorian-era style) but which somehow manages to offend me the way many people do it.

I know. I'm a terrible person for thinking some people's "steampunk" costuming is a horrible, mutant, self-indulgent, Mary-Sue-ish interpretation of techno-Victorian style. It's terrible of me because there's an attitude, in steampunk culture, that steampunk is a bit about uniqueness, and expressing yourself, and defying convention. I approve of and support all of these things — and yet I still think some people's steampunk costuming is more like visually screaming "LOOK HOW F***ING BADASS I AM!" than it is respectful of the Victorian/technological aesthetic and ideals. And that offends me because I love Victoriana and technology more than I like watching people preen and show off.

Hate me for it if you like. ;)

Anyway, if you do, you may be pleased to know my attitude has presented me with an inescapable conflict: Since the rise of steampunk costuming, I've felt driven to make a steampunk costume that I DO like — nay, that I love! And that requires me to research and confront what I dislike, so that I can fail to do those things.

Aside from starting a frickin' costume on time for once, this is probably the hardest costume-related thing I've ever done. It's taken me a couple of years to get to the point where I can even envision a steampunk costume I can bear to wear.

And so, the costume

One of the Things I Dislike is when a costume or character takes steampunkiness Far Too Damn Seriously. (Note that I am not accusing the people in the costumes of taking steampunk too seriously. I am, however, saying that if they don't, their costumes and characterization utterly fail to show it. ;)) At the steampunk fashion show at Dragon*Con last year, the models I loved best were the ones with a sense of humor.

Thus, I was inspired: Why not do a steampunk costume that inherently has a sense of humor? I could even pack a ton of over-seriousness into it and potentially be a walking piece of satire. A self-contained in-joke. But I don't want to be a standoffish in-joke. I want to be an in-joke that everyone can share. Something so ridiculous that people can glance at me in costume and go "OMG is that what I think it is? That is Hilarious! Take a picture!"

So, you know. I could do something like a steampunk version of the video game character Princess Peach. And what's a Princess Peach costume without a Mario to match it?

Yesssss. This is the light at the end of the brass-goggled tunnel. This I can do. This I will do.

...in the next two weeks.

Yes. Laugh at me. Laugh! Your laughter will fuel my own hysteria, and thus give me energy!

And even though I am doing a tongue-in-cheek, video game steampunk costume, my sense of steampunk (which pretty much matches that described in this blog post on the Steampunk Fashion LJ community) demands that I design using real research into real Victorian clothing.

So! Using the evil power of Amazon Prime, I magically made this book appear on my doorstep today! And there are two more that should show up tomorrow.


And after doing copious Internet research, I came up with this not-entirely-satisfactory preliminary sketch:


Steampunk Princess Peach dress idea. Obviously I still need to figure out the hair. Also: Pardon the fact that this is a photo and not a scan. My scanner is currently indisposed. ;)
It needs more insanity. More Peach. More steampunk. More everything! It needs to be more over-the-top in all ways! And really, this is just a structural idea sketch, not a complete costume sketch; this is basically just an idea for the bits that I would need to literally SEW. Accessories and colors will help transform it. A parasol will help. The Princess Peach crown, and the earrings, and the fabric choices will help.

More money would help, too. Turning the crazy ideas in my head into reality seems even more insane on this month's sadly credit-card-dependent budget. (On the off chance that you have an overabundance of charitable feeling toward me and my geeky costuming, and a bit of money you'd like to donate, feel free to drop me a line. Even a small donation would help, and I'd be happy to give you a big fat "This costume sponsored by" shout-out and a link on the official costume info/documentation page — when one exists, on my Web site and/or here on the blog.)

And because my life is meant to be overly complicated — the Quicksilver Crafter reality is driven by stuffing too much productivity into short spans of time — this is not the only costume I'm working on. A collaboration with the lovely Robot, Monster & Ghost Co. will be unveiled at Dragon*Con this year, too.

Imagine me surrounded by sketches, coffee cups, fabric, newsprint-turned-pattern-pieces, and vintage accessories, wherein two fluffy cats and a long-haired boyfriend are trapped, and you have a decent estimation of what my next two weeks will be like.

I shall costume!

My father's social butterflyism is actually paying off for me, for once; someone (I think) he went kayaking with wants some costuming done, and -- here's the amazing part -- there is no deadline. There. I said it. I know them's crazy words, but they're true.

Seriously, I'm used to working on like a month's notice, partly because I am a slacker when it comes to costuming for myself, and partly because it just tends to happen that way with other people's deadlines. They need a costume, and they need it a month from now. Two months seems like Easy Street when I can get it.

I can't bring myself to whine too much, though, because I know I can make a pretty darn detailed costume for myself in well under a month. It's the meetings with other people, the fittings, the getting approval that slow me down. Oh, okay. And sometimes the lack of motivation. ;) But that's a pretty reasonable side effect of working with people on a tight budget. I bet if someone said, "I'll give you $2000 for you, and cover the cost of materials plus next-day shipping for any supplies you need, to have this costume done in a week," I'd be done ... nearly ... ahead of time.

Anyway! I have a costume commission from a LARPer who wants a Count of Monte Cristo costume and some Ren-Fairey stuff, and there's. No. Deadline. I can't get over how giddymaking it is not to be under all that deadline-spawned pressure. Woo!

I need to work on my own costumes for D*Con, and on Brian's, too, though. That is a deadline, and eep! It's August already. See? I toldjaso.

Brian's shirt at last

I ended up fixing the thing with the hairpin lace by unraveling loops till I came to a point where I could put them back on the loom without the loom popping apart. Wheee, tension. ;D But I didn't feel like working on it after that, so I picked up Brian's much-abused pirate/fighting shirt and set to mending the re-tear and, so as to avoid a re-re-tear, finally putting in those gussets. I like gussets. ;)

As of right now I have one gusset set in, and I'm about to tear out the armpit of the other side so I can put in the second one. It must get done tonight, since Brian can't very well fight with a shirt with a giant hole in the armpit. ;D

Next shirt modifications: Actually put a patch behind the mend (I know, I should have done it before, but I figured the gusset would help keep it from happening again more than the patch ;)), and put drawstring casings on the sleeves. After that, when I have time, I ought to actually just put cuffs on, but that's probably not happening in the next couple of weeks, and the casing is a quicker, workable fix.