"Adventure Time" Hood Pattern

This post contains free patterns. That's always fun. :)

This is a very simple project and should take no more than 2 hrs to make. It's ripe for alteration so if you make a variation please please please! Share! I'd love to see a unicorn hood. I truly would. :)

My youngest son is a hoot. His sense of humor is a bit off... The apple doesn't fall far from the tree I guess.

Adventure Time is a huge favorite... So Finn the Human was his choice for Halloween this year.

This is meant to fit a fidgety 15 year old. This pattern though includes a shorten/lengthen line, and instructions on how and where to measure the wearers face to get the hood to fit . If you want this to fit a size 8 kid remove the 1/2 seam allowance along center back. For every size smaller remove and additional 1/4". So for a size 4 kid remove 1".

I'm not going to give sewing instruction other than these four tips:
1. When cutting out 4 layers of polar fleece, don't pin, draw the pattern on the fabric and cut. You'll get a more accurate cut.
2. Fleece is sucky to sew. To make it better set the PSI on the pressure foot very low. You'll have to pull the fabric through the machine a bit. You can also use a walking foot or one of those specialty feet with wheels.
3. To set the ears accurately, sew one side of the dart, (your essentially marking the dart) and sew the preassembled ear to that side matching up sew lines. Then finish the dart. Sewing one side of the dart also acts as stay stitching, and makes a stable base to apply the ear.
4. I didn't mark it on the pattern, but leave a 2" gap open in the linings center back seam so you can turn the hood right side out.


The pattern was made by Amanda Lerum. She is very handy at making sewing patterns, in fact she makes patterns to sell on Etsy, you can also visit her facebook.

One other thing... There are 2 patterns, one with a chin strap, and one with ties. This is because my son couldn't decide what he likes best. Pitty me. And yet like the sucker I am, I made 2. :)

The pattern with the chin strap measures 10" from center seam down the middle of the face to the top of the chin strap. If you measure down the wearers face from the hairline, down the nose to under the chin, you will see how much you will need to shorten or lengthen the pattern.

Oh! you'll need to add a dart in the ear... mine are 1/2". You cut four of everything. The hood itself is self lined, or you can use different fabric to line it. Fancy!

Something is afoot, So where's the Circle K?

Hello all! how are you? I hope well! I've been absent, but quite busy. I have things to share with you, and I hope you enjoy it all. :)

I've been working on a Rockabilly and Lolita fashion line. I'm testing out the first three designs on Etsy. Please do take a peek, and buy if you choose. Give me some feedback. Tell me what you would like to change, fabric you would rather see, or designs you'd rather have. All that information is extremely relevant and important to me. Thank you so very much for helping me out! :)

All art Candy Rudolf

Bespoke... Dips in Time

Eventually... next month I'll be adding vintage bathing suits. Also the first of the EGL (lolita) stuffs.











I've made a Snow White Cosplay. Claire Hummel has done, and is doing, a series of artwork, all historically accurate Disney princesses. When I saw them, I had to get my greedy grubby hands on Snows gown. I mean... I REALLY wanted it. :) so I made it!

I finished the dress last weekend and sent Claire Hummel some pictures. She in turn posted them on her tumblr. :) SQUEEEEE!! All this is Quite EXCITING!

Everyone that in turn commented and reposted and liked my gown, Thank You all so very much. I sometimes forget how BIG, and yet how SMALL the world is. It's so amazing that the thread I play with in my little studio could touch so many people. I am overwhelmed, and grateful, and humbled. I seriously love you guys. :)

Please visit Claire's Tumblr. Shoomlah
I did do a Dress Diary entry about this gown on LiveJournal. You need to be a member of that comm to view it... Although I can repost that entry here.... hmmmm I wonder if I could just use the HTML??

And with that, I now have a DeviantART I'll be using it as my portfolio.... seems like all the hip kids are doing it. :) I'll add a link back to this blog so my tutorials and free patterns will be accessible from there. I'm looking to get my web footprint more cohesive.

Apron Pattern and Tutorial Part 1

As a Christmas gift for my family and friends, I made aprons to give out at a Christmas baking party that I had at my home. I thought it might also be nice to give a tutorial and a free pattern for the apron to my blog followers. They are super easy to construct and make quick and cute gifts. 

With all my heart I hope that your Christmas holiday is filled with joy and happiness, and that next year will be prosperous. Merry Christmas! :)

To make this apron you will need:

1 1/4 yards of 45' novelty cotton print or quilting cotton print.

If you want your waistband tie to be the wider width you will need the 1 1/2 yards.

The above picture shows the apron's cutting layout. The only time you'll need scissors to cut in this project is for the apron bib... the pattern for it is below... all of the straps, ruffles and skirt are torn on the straight of grain across the bolt, from salvage to salvage. It's important to ask the store to tear your fabric or to give you and extra 3 inches or so, because as you can see in my layout picture this fabric wasn't torn on the grain from the bolt, and because of that I'm missing 2" or so at the top right. I should have been able to get 4 half straps and 3 full straps from 1 1/4 yards of fabric

Cut List:

2 apron bibs... either Arch or Heart shaped

4 half straps... 2 of these are for the neck strap and 2 will be used for the bib ruffle. These are torn 3" wide across the bolt from salvage to the bib

3 full bolt width straps... 2 of these are for the waistband tie and 1 is for the bib ruffle. These are torn 3" wide across the bolt from salvage to salvage.  If you want to have the wider waistband tie, tear the 2 waistband ties at 4.5"

1 skirt... You don't really have to tear this out. Whatever is the remaining fabric will be your skirt.

 

I think the heart shaped bib front looks shorter than the Arch... they should be the same length. (I've no idea how that happened.)

 Next entry will be all the steps of construction! I am now headed to my 3rd Christmas Party!

Finished things

I've been very busy... and really shouldn't be taking the time out to edit these pictures and such... but I've been putting this off for too long. It really needs to be posted.

Regency Fairy

First off is the Regency Fairy. I took a million photos, that have been lost. I let my son borrow my camera, and I think the pictures from faire are no more. It's a good thing my friend took pictures! lol! So I did a bit of pilfering and photoshop-ing and now have these pictures to share:

 I bought a bottle of bubbles. I like the picture to the right, as you can see my new bracelets.

With wings.... you can see my sandals. I found a painting of a regency lady wearing some very similar to these. I was glad to have worn them, it was rather warm that day!

Without the wings.. you can see how the wings are tied to my stays with ribbon. I am glad I decided to do this. Although my stays are a bit visible, the weight of the wings was better carried by doing this. My friend had a neck ache the next day because she only tied the wings around her shoulders.

The dress pattern is: Period Impressions #464
My stays: Past Patterns #38
I'm NOT wearing a petticoat... soooo skanky.
My chemise: Shift I shortened the sleeves

The Second of Three Victorians

This is my Blue Bonnet.... the pattern is: The Clara Christine

I made the pattern for this dress... but mostly it's from... Patterns of Fashion 1 and 2

and would you look at that 2 posts to this blog in one day!

Early Victorian

This post contains a free pattern!! very exciting. :)

So... Early Victorian.... in my mind this spans the time when the young queen took over, and some smarty pants figured out that if you put steel wire in a corded petticoat instead of rope, chicks would dig it. So 1840 ish to 1850 ish. :)

If any paragraph that I have written would clue you in that I'm NOT a reenactor but am a costumer... I'm not sure I could write a more blasphemous one. :) for reals.


But this is actually really accurate. Hand to god. I swear. During this time period... Early Victorian. women liked big skirts... :) but it was hard to get skirts super big. So methods were devised. I guess this started with the romantic era 1825-1830 ish?... but corded petticoats (if not heavy and hot) solved the bigger skirt problem, a little bit. Corded petticoats and heavily starched petticoats (heavily starched in so heavy a starch that the skirts could stand on their own) used together would hold a skirt out pretty well. I didn't mention petticoats made of horsehair or crin... crin is french for hair??... and yes, that would be a crinoline. :) (dropping knowledge like a bomb)


I'm not sure when this particular pattern was published... I'm assuming sometime late in this era. But this corded petticoat calls for 3 rows of reed. Yah... reed, that grows... in like a river... and you can make wicker chairs out of it. Yah. REED.


So this corded petticoat is super BIG. and for the most part is strong, and can support a heavy starched petticoat, and dress.

Did you know... I wrote this post super long ago, and was going to edit it, and add something. I don't remember what it was... I think a tutorial on double piping. Well, it's been too long and if I haven't written that tutorial yet, I might as well post this without it. At least the pattern is there. :)

Regency Fairy... A wing Tutorial

My friend Katherine and I are in the sad position of being a pair of historical costumers in a landscape full of cos-players and fantasy costumers. To be honest though we have both costumed characters from movies, but for the most part, it's all about historical technique and construction.

She and I go to the Ren Faire most years. We try to make costumes relevant to the time period. We had planned on making rural Flemish gowns this year.. But wool?!?! Multiple layers?!? At 100'? Oh no. I just can't.

So Katherine and I were joking
around and came up with the idea of wearing light and airy Regency Gowns to Faire, but because it's Faire (not the most historically accurate event) wearing fairy wings had real appeal.

Being the big nerd that I am, I did a search for Regency Fairies and found this book..








It's a lovely little book, full of Regency Faries. I used the pictures in this book as a starting point for my wings.

As luck and serendipity would have it my friend MirthFairy is very knowledgeable in the construction of fairy wings. She even started her own fairy guild at the Ren Faire! She agreed to give Katherine and I, a crash course in wing making. It was very fun and educational... Plus I set out a pretty Tea. :)








No... I don't bake. Pic-link :)

With the information I learned and the magic of google I hitched a plan, and surprise surprise it was rather successful!

Like I said, I wanted my wings to have a realistic insect like look...
I found on etsy, and eBay... artist making printed wings on transparency film, for ball jointed dolls. They have dragonfly, cicada, and moth like veins through the wings. I was worried though that if I printed wings in a human size and tried to mount the printed transparency on iridescent cellophane the ink would smear... messy. So I decided cut work would do, even if it's not as realistic.

HOW TO MAKE CUT WORK FAIRY WINGS

You will need:

a self healing cutting mat
exacto knife
Hammer and a board to hammer on
steam iron
small box to spray adhesive
A needle tool... Or a thin screwdriver.

spray paint (black) for metal
spray adhesive
black shower curtain liner
clear cellophane
iridescent cellophane
galvanized wire


First thing you'll do is draw your pattern... Or copy mine. :) you might want to copy 2 as a guide for placing your cut work.









Sorry about the glare...
I drew mine on old Christmas wrapping paper.

Next you'll need to bend your wire frame.









Then smash the center section with a hammer... Best part of this project! HULK SMASH!







Paint the frame... Do this outside so you don't asphyxiate yourself. :( .... Hang it out on the line so it will dry... And eat lunch now. :)








Now layer your wing diagram over 2 layers of shower curtain
























Now cut out the wing








The cut wings will look kinda like this
















Set up your adhesive station








And spray!!! But don't go crazy breathing is good... And its wicked sticky.








Your going to apply this cut shape to a layer of clear cellophane... This is kinda tricky. I'm good at this kind of tedious arranging... But if you aren't I suggest that you print out a pattern of the original drawing and use it as a guide. You can use a needle tool or a small screwdriver to manipulate the cut work.... it's infinitely better than your fingers! :)

Next you'll spray the correct wire wing section with adhesive also spray the cut work/clear cellophane assembly with adhesive withe the cut work side up...and apply the cut work side to the wire wing. Cut another section of clear cellophane and encase the wire wing. Turn on your iron... And using a TEFLON COVER!!!! I don't think it's possible to do this project without this... If you don't have one experiment with your iron on different settings to see what sealing and god forbid MELTING effects you will achieve... Otherwise use a heat embossing tool.









Once you have all the cut work applied use your iron or heat embossing tool and shrink the cellophane to the wire frame.

Now... I wanted my wings to have an iridescent effect... You don't have to do this part if you don't want to....

Spray the wing








Apply the iridescent















Iron... I messed about with steam for texture.









Trim off the extra cellophane.









Now the middle wire section is a mess... So cover it up with some fabric, and bows... And maybe a big ol silk rose. :) mine ties on with ribbon... Mine came from The Ribbon Store... Do go there!

All done!

I maybe might wear this dress... or make another... we will see! :)



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The first of three Victorians

I like that title... sounds like a historical romance novel. :) But in this context it's just as it sounds. I need three victorian dresses... and I've just made one.

I need a gown for the Victorian Grand Ball, a day dress for a reenactment, and a tennis dress for a contest.

Actually the day dress is practically done... it just needs:
closures
trim
skirt attached
but that's a blog for another day.


To be honest, the ball gown was going to be a MUCH different dress. I was planning on making a dress from one of my favorite Tissot paintings. I have everything to make it... but the weather got hot, and I started thinking that dancing in long sleeves might be a new kind of hell... and opted out. Also, I found a dress on ebay that is so very lovely in it's simplicity, I just had to try my hand at it.

Isn't it lovely? I love how the watered silk makes the statement. I wore off white and gold to last years ball, and only white reads "wedding" to me... although I'm not so sure it did the victorians. Regardless... I couldn't find moire in white. In fact the only watered silk I could find were so expensive I was a bit shocked. I'm a budget costumer. I very rarely go over $20 a yard, and do my best to keep projects under $100. So I was about to give it all up and try to alter the Tissot idea so that the skirt was the same, but with a ball gown bodice, when I found a vintage length of rayon moire... 5 yards! $30. Although I'm a on a budget, fabric content is kinda a big deal to me. So a dilemma. I bought it... because a $30 dress?? and also, buying vintage fabric is good for the environment. Not really sure how... but yah, environment. Plus, it's red. :)

My finished dress:

 

It's a pretty dress... and I like it very much. I've ordered some ribbon to add to the shoulders in long bows... and a ribbon for lacing, both in red.

Next post I'll give you the pattern for the corded petticoat underneath. Also a tutorial for making double, and single piping, and some examples of early victorian ball gowns.