Category Archives: Sewing projects

The Wonderful Thing about Tiggers is This is the Only One

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For this entire project, the Tigger Circular Reasoning Song kept getting stuck in my head on continuous repeat.

The remaining scraps of orange fabric with which to update Tigger:

Cats freaking love burlap.

Secret Cat had a hard time containing himself, spending the entire evening alternately sitting a few feet off and staring longingly when I was too close or sneaking up to sit on it when I turned my back or when there was a protective cat barrier between us.

Tigger’s torso, tail to neck:

The black square on the left is going to be tucked into his tail and not very visible, but will help make sure nothing is exposed to frost. The Goddess of Adequate Yardage helps those who help themselves.

Head:

(Again with the black patch to cover the difference between his neck and his arms.)

The entire remaining orange fabric:

Lots of stripes!:

I switched my sewing machine to the Princess, though I haven’t had time to pull her apart and clean/oil her. She wasn’t doing the problem things she was doing the last time I used her, so maybe she’s had time to think about what she’s done.

I’d had to switch because I needed a certain zipper foot that I only have in her size (low shank; the big, slow-witted brute I’ve been using takes high shank) for another project, and decided to just switch back over.

 

 

Clothes for Plants

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The Project:

Fitted, semi-decorative burlap covers for 9 topiary animals for Cook’s Children’s Hospital

 

The geometry involved in coming up with the shapes involved in this project is crazy. While there are some near-circles and so forth, every single thing here is an irregular shape. I’ve got formulas for circle areas and circumferences, for right triangle sides, and for rectangles, but what is the formula for Pooh’s ear?

 

 

How many pins does it take to cross the breadth of an angel? Even the angel looks a little embarrassed about being so complicated.

 

The most time-consuming part of this project is figuring out the shapes and closures then drawing up pattern pieces.

This was my first optimistic planning option. Pooh is not going to look like either of these. Well, maybe Pooh will–I haven’t gotten that far–but on Tigger, the head involves 5 separate pieces and the velcro is not nice and neat up the center back. The more I planned and started drawing, the more I would realize more and more pieces that cannot be sewn together; these animals will not move their arms or wiggle their ears to squeeze into their clothes.

If cats knew math, they would be more helpful when drawing up pattern pieces.

I found a great local source for every shade of burlap you could want, 60″ wide; they could have renamed “apricot” as “Pooh colored” . . . on second thought . . .

But it turned out burlap was one of the things they can only sell as 50-yard bolts, which would have amounted to about a thousand spare yards of burlap by the time I was done using everything I could possibly need AND made myself matching burlap suits to wear while assembling each finished animal.

I found two sites online that, between them, carried a good enough selection, about half of which was 60″ and half was 48″. I managed to meet both of their free-shipping-minimums, though I had to order a few yards of lining fabrics and some samples to do it on one of them.

The client had requested me to start on Tigger first. I decided to make rabbit at the same time to help me determine how much yellow would be left over from Rabbit to share with Tigger. Once I finished Rabbit’s pattern pieces and went to cut out the yellow and orange fabrics, I noticed this:

I also noticed this:

Thanks to the Atrium, I could spread out both fabrics and switch Tigger snout pieces back and forth while I debated:

Then I returned to the location to test.

Okay, so it’s my first topiary animal. Tigger’s left leg has a large wire at his foot that is not very plant-covered, but is not forgiving at all, size-wise. His head is a really weird un-circle, and I overestimated the length it would take to cover his snout liberally. A lot of people passing by really liked him, though, and several asked if I was “making it Tigger,” and their wording implied that they weren’t previously aware that it WAS Tigger.

He has slightly defined hands, and I thought I’d be so cute and put in a drawstring to give him little mitten hands.

Burlap, however, does not slide against itself easily. What it does do easily is come unraveled. Drawstring hands are going to shorten the lives of these covers by about 99%.

 

On to Rabbit:

I had made his stuff a lot broader, with every intention of doing most of the planning with pins on location, so that actually worked out pretty well.

Notice the XOXOXOXO fence in the background. I didn’t either, until D. pointed it out. It was interesting how many people didn’t even realize any of the characters were from Winnie the Pooh. One girl even said, “Oh, are you going to do Pooh? He’s my favorite.” “Yes, that’s him next to Tigger.” “Ohhhh!”

A lot of the the kiddie-inspired accents around the grounds were subtle, some more than I even thought they were. It was nice that someone put a lot of thought into adding background whimsy all over the place to appeal to the subconsciousnesses of people who have a lot of other things on their minds.

 

Two non-math-related things I learned from this fitting:

1. I have GOT to locate the rest of my pins that I keep misplacing.

2. I need to bring a stepladder next time.

Neimans Window Covers

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As promised, here are some shots of the finished, printed on, and finalized plastic covers I sewed for the windows we’re working on for the Neiman Marcus Christmas window display:

They were too big to get straight-on pictures of without running out into traffic, so here is also one of the “small” ones:

Also, here is another preview:

Emergency Halloween Costume

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The Project: The slinky dress worn by Sigourney Weaver in Ghostbusters.

I whipped out my copy of Ghostbusters to get a good shot of the dress, as all the ones online show her sitting down. Here she is showing off her new look to Bill Murray:

And a convenient possession pose that shows more detail from a different angle:

Bill Murray can be seen examining the technique used to hem her lined skirt.

One of my clients commissioned me to make this for a relative who lives in California, and told me that its future owner was about my size. Convenient! I learned to sew on that size!

I draped the pieces on myself and decided to make it a shirt and an elastic-banded skirt for more size-range, with a whole lot of belt to cinch it at the waist.

I made the gold lining smaller for the top and cut the skirt at a different angle to maximize the movement and make it a little more obvious that it’s got two layers.

The fabrics used were tissue lame and crinkled tissue lame, so they puff out instead of draping nicely and looking wispy. I also tied a large bow on the belt because I was feeling too lazy to style the belt during the testing process.

I put it in these bags for transport because it was for a party:

Making Neimans Plastic

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The Project:

4 curtains with casings at the top and bottom, all of them 10ish feet high by 10 to 20 feet long

 

While we set up the Christmas display, we’ll be keeping the windows covered with plastic. I glued the sides down and kept them weighted with a drill as I was working. One of my cohorts came by to claim the drill and replaced my weight with a different drill. I think it’s the second one that’s pictured below:

Sitting on a box and sewing on plastic!:

That is a lot of plastic:

But it folds up small:

Photos of plastic in action coming soon!

 

Shaman in Training

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There is a class in Denton taught by a–well, I was going to say “shaman,” but he’s technically not an official shaman. If anyone calls him that, he’ll correct them. But to a layman who doesn’t know much or even knows a medium amount about shamanism, you’d have to be told he’s not one. The term he uses to describe himself doesn’t quickly clarify to the casual listener how similar he is to a shaman and how many shammany things he does, so I’d say he’s effectively a shaman, or close enough to one for government work.

So there’s this class in Denton taught by a shaman, and as the students progress, all the mini-shamans need certain items for ceremonies and so forth.

Here are a couple wraps for accoutrements:

Wrapping a pipe requires red fabric against the pipe itself:

A closeup:

As I’ve already called a non-shaman a shaman, I can at least clarify one thing correctly in this post: many people will call the pipes used in Native American ceremonies “peace pipes,” but they have a lot of further uses in many different types of ceremonies. At least some traditions will have separate pipes for different occasions, such as personal pipes that are used privately or are not to be smoked by anyone besides the pipeholder and pipes that are used in a group and smoked by everyone participating.

The reason we call them peace pipes is that the only times white people saw them for many years was during the signing of peace treaties. Since no one who honors a pipe would ever cross the agreements made in a pipe ceremony, this added to the confusion Native Americans felt when every treaty made during the growth of the United States was broken. All but one, that is! Between Commanches and German settlers: http://honorthetreaty.org/history.php

A Couple of Bags

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Last year, Sally Beauty Supply had two dancing ornaments; I had just started with the design crew, so someone else sewed them and I added some jewel bling. This year it was to be shopping bags a la 1950s cigarette girls.

Larry made one frame and sent it home with me to make a prototype that could test and be tested by some leggy models so they could start the selection process.

Cheap fabric pinned to the frame; obligatory bathroom picture:

Here it is again, not in a bathroom:

The printed fabric arrives at last!

I cut down the middle of each black side to make the fold and armhole. It was so tight there wasn’t much room for seam allowance and no room for error:

This is what an error looks like. It gets etched into this fabric:

I wound up using a combination of two different black fabrics due to the high stretch and density of the knit I wanted to use for the sleeves. Sewing a curve on the super-stiff printed fabric was a tad awkward.

I taped the bag to the frame to test it before finishing off the top and bottom. In the background, you can see a triplet of Big Texes painted by local artist Ty Albright. Big Tex burned down this morning after 60 years of greeting fair-goers. :”-(

There is no arm movement to be had in this bag. I tried several yoga moves to see my phone screen while wearing the bag all the way, then had to pull one arm out, and it was still tricky.

I put my machine up on a box to be able to get the bag around the base and keep it flat.

Attaching the bags to the frames:

Yay!:

Carlos, Denise, and I had big plans of putting the bags on and running around in the parking lot for an impromptu photoshoot, but they finished their work before I got the frames attached.

I discovered after I had put it on the frame that I had forgotten to wire the handle of one of the bags, and had to thread it in afterward. Near-disaster averted!

Next, to work on the “tissue paper.” I tested a scrap, serging wire into the edge as I went, bending at the corners.

The edge came out looking too home-made, and that was as tight as the stitches would go.

Trying again with woolly nylon:

I quilt-basting sprayed a sandwich of fabric and packing material.

Once it was edged, all the spray-glued areas had to be pried apart so it wouldn’t look like that foil weather-protector stuff some people put up in their windows and leave up year-round.

I have any number of woolly nylon spools in various colors, but only these two black ones, and one of them was low. I kept one eye on it the whole time I was sewing, hoping I wouldn’t run out at 11 o’clock at night when Joann’s is closed and we’re supposed to be attaching them to the bags before the weekend. Wooly nylon is puffy, so there’s even less here than it would appear:

Testing the bags and one sprig of “tissue paper” with Melissa, in town from Austin:

Two sprigs!:

On second thought, the tissue paper turned out a little too high. We cut it more or less in half, then gave four short pieces to each bag instead of two big ones. My small spool of woolly nylon DID run out, with about 6 inches left to edge, so I wrapped it with some from the larger spool by hand.

 

Everyone at the convention was thoroughly impressed with the outcome. Apparently, bag costumes had been done before, but printed on plastic sheets, making them look more like boxes; the arm holes had been cut wide enough to show the girls’ leotards, ruining the illusion of living bags that had sprouted limbs. People actually asked if we had used real Sally’s bags. A wardrobe malfunction would certainly have ensued from that.

 

What Size is Alejandro?

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The project:

4 Egyptian-style men’s skirts made from terrycloth; costumes for the entourage of a Lady Gaga impersonator

 

Having only tried the skimpy little men’s skirt on a plastic dress form that is not going to have to walk in it, I felt it necessary to test it on a live model. At my age, I am realizing, it starts getting harder to dig up a guy with a 30-34″ waist on a moment’s notice without having to think really hard.

Luckily, one of my cohorts who does a lot of the non-sewing end of various productions was working downtown and could drop by to try on the prototype.

The catch to this project was this: we had no idea who the guys were, just that they would be bodybuilders. Our best guess was that they would be shaped approximately like Launchpad McQuack, with shoulders out to here and no waist to speak of. We guessed 30″-34″ish. As the prototype was a little tight on Carlos, I figured I’d make the next three several inches bigger, then bring my sewing machines and be prepared to take them in.

When I arrived on location, I wandered in the basement for a bit before finding the crew, and came across this door:

Seriously, guys? Really?

The small outfit works great on The Littlest Bodybuilder. I thought that would be a great name for a musical; I kept thinking of “The Littlest Christmas Tree” from 1st grade when I did NOT get to play a Christmas tree. He wasn’t actually little; just the only one shaped much like the Launchpad McQuacks that had danced in our heads.

The next two weren’t great fits, and one of them was just a little too small, but they weren’t bad. I figured some pins would probably make it work. Then the fourth guy shows up. He’s not the littlest bodybuilder.

I was able to stick the costume on him for the dress rehearsal thanks to my ingenious multi-size elastic button loops, but as you can see from the picture below, that wasn’t going to work for the show. I didn’t have any extra whole towels, and there wouldn’t have been enough fabric between the decorative end thingies anyway. (Yes, that’s the technical term.)

The shirts and white boxer shorts are for the dress rehearsal. Can you spot the costumes that don’t fit?

Good! I knew you could!

I had brought the scrap terrycloth more as padding for transporting my sewing machines than anything else. Once I collected all the costumes–except, ironically enough, for the prototype, which fit perfectly–I set up my sewing machines.

I added a cornucopia-shaped panel, as well as multiple buttons so that it wouldn’t have to be exact. This plan hadn’t occurred to me before the event, because I thought it would be too pieced-together looking. Once I saw the scale of the event and the dim lighting, it seemed it would be fine; and once I’d done one, it actually didn’t show up much even close-up and in good light.

Some makeup stains or something had gotten on one skirt, so I went ahead and zigzag stitched some tiny scraps on top of the marks because it blended in so well.

I had used contrasting-colored velcro anywhere that it was definitely not going to show, thinking it would be nice to have very-visible closures while I was working so close to strangers’ junk.

The inside of the front panel, all done in beige:

Turns out, that wasn’t necessary; there is no room in these costumes to be looking at stuff. Let’s leave it at that.

So I get everyone dressed, and since it’s going to be awhile, I leave off pinning til later. I’m sitting around waiting, start realizing I’m getting hungry. Then realize that everyone else had gone to lunch while I was sewing; I had been so uncertain about how long it would take to fix and how long we had until the Lady Gaga number that I had done the repairs right away.

I wandered into the service hallway, hoping they hadn’t thrown everything away. Some used-looking food seemed promising:

No sign of lunch, but there was quite a bit of continental breakfast left.

Oranges, melons, mixed-filling danishes, grapefruit juice, coffee! Muffins, too, but I’m often wary of muffins. Don’t know why; always have been.

Score!:

Head back the way I came . . . the door I’d left through had locked behind me. All the other doors went straight to the event. I finally walked out through the middle of the food-staff people having a meeting in a kitcheny-looking area, trying to look like I belonged there and knew where I was going.

I straightened out everyone’s flaps and got the sides pinned in in place.

Lady Gaga kept everyone entertained while we waited.

Me and Gaga:

There were a lot of great shots, but the lighting was pretty much impossible. Here, you can see the two matching bags in the reflection. They’re hanging out not in their shopping bag costumes, but I still like calling them bags, as they aren’t girls who are likely to get called that very much:

The entourage asked them, “Wait, which one of you is the blonde? . . . You could have reintroduced yourselves as different people and we wouldn’t have known.” The one on the left was then renamed Veronica. I think.

Standing in the lobby, waiting for the musical cue:

Here is the bathtub, designed by Carlos (a different one than the previously pictured), and the hand towels I had previously narrowed. When given the task, I had thought it sounded unnecessarily specific, but whatever. It becomes clear now why they needed to be no wider than 14″.

A close-up of Carlos’s solution for permanent bubbles:

Lady Gaga alternately lay in the bathtub and stood up to dance while her entourage carried her to the stage. Carlos made it sturdy and ultra-light.

My phone camera literally could not handle the awesomeness. Below, you can see a man in the center right attempting to shield himself from the glare of fabulous. My camera simply cut Lady Gaga out of the picture and left a blank spot where she had been to stave off implosion.

So much better than the dress rehearsal:

The bags came out to dance for the finale.

After the show, Lady Gaga came up with the idea of mingling with the crowd.

Encouraging Sally’s people to show their teeth:

Doing a Harpo Marx impression (what? wrong generation?):

I think someone said this was the president, but I don’t want to repeat that without either verification or a wishy-washy “I think” to remove responsibility for faulty information.

 

 

 

To see the rest of the pictures I didn’t include in this post and also didn’t delete for being too blurry or too poorly lit, go here.