The Return of Lady Bug

When I was in high school—10th grade, I think—I made myself a ladybug costume. I wore black jeans, a black turtleneck, and black shoes and socks as the base outfit. I made a pair of extra legs (since lady bugs have six, so my arms + my legs + my extra legs = 6 appendages) which had loops at the top for sliding onto a belt, and yarn connecting them to my wrists, so when my arms moved, the extra arms moved, too. A red split circle cape with black dots completed the outfit. Over the years, I have worn the costume many times, and other than the legs and cape, and the fact that the base outfit is always all black, the rest tends to change every year.

This year I decided I needed some new antennae. At some point in the past I had made a pair using black pipe cleaners and pompons, but they never worked particularly well and have long since been discarded. After brainstorming a bit, I decided to use some scrap wood to make beads for the ends of the antennae, and wire for the stems. Since my hair is unusually long at the moment and I can, with some trickery and cajoling, anchor a hair comb in my hair, I decided to take advantage of that fact and use a cheap plastic comb as the anchor.

First, the beads. I used an extra piece of East Indian rosewood, because it is a dark wood (in retrospect, a paler wood probably would have made the antennae more visible). I decided to drill the center hole first, so I could drill both beads at once and be sure the holes were centered.
Next, I traded the tailstock drill chuck for a live center to support the length of the wood, and roughed it to round. I carefully cut the shape of the two beads (and got them pretty close to the same size and shape!), finished them with friction polish, but did not cut them off…I hadn’t left enough room between the two to use a parting chisel to cut them off.
So I used a hacksaw. I sawed with my right hand while spinning the part with my left hand. (I’d show you a picture of the finished beads, but it did not turn out well). I sanded the ends slightly, but the saw marks are still pretty visible. However, I correctly assumed that no one would be looking at them that closely.

Next I started assembling the whole piece. I cut a length of craft wire and centered it in the comb. Rather than placing the wire in the center, I gave it a wider stance for stability and wrapped it around.
I twisted the wires around each other , then started creating loops for a whimsical look. At the ends, I added the beads, then simply looped the wire around itself to hold them securely. And that’s all it took!
Finally, after getting the rest of the costume on I checked the look of the final product by jamming the comb down into hairdo I had created for the purpose.
I was going to a roller skating party, so I had to take the antennae off again while I drove over. As I was getting out of the car, I put my long black gloves on, re-inserted the antennae using the reflection in the car window as a mirror, and attached the loops controlling my extra arms (yeah, I don’t drive with those attached). And I am proud to announce that, despite my inability to skate, I successfully skated around the rink a total of 8 times (non-consecutively) and overall had an enjoyable time.

Sometimes, you just wanna wear feathers

My mom made most of my clothes when I was growing up. Well, many of them were originally made for my older sisters, but I ended up with them. That, however, is beside the point. The point is that when I would go to the fabric store to pick out my new skirts, dresses, etc., I almost always tried to find the fabric that was most similar to the picture on the front of the pattern envelope. Times have changed. Now I get an idea of what I want to make, think trough the patterns I have, and find the one that is closest to the basic shape I want. Wrong style of sleeves? No problem. I find a sleeve from another pattern and swap that in, until the finished product is what I want—which often has little relation to the picture on the front of any of the pattern envelopes. This is more or less what I mean by the tag “fun with patterns”. And this blog entry is going to show how I turned patterns for two evening gowns into one nightgown set.

For the second year in a row, I was fortunate enough to be voted as a calendar girl by the forums on a local website I frequent. No, not gonna provide a link…those of you who already know me from there don’t need the link, and since it’s not a sewing/craft/making stuff sort of forum, probably anyone else reading this wouldn’t really be interested in the site. Anyway, I chose February as my month, and decided to do something Valentine’s-y. Being a bitter old maid, I generally avoid such things, but I decided it would be good for me. Builds character. Besides, I’d been wanting an excuse to make a beautiful flowy negligee like in old movies.

For the actual nightgown, I decided something with a sweetheart neckline would be appropriately Valentine’s-ish. I remembered a pattern I had used for a previous Halloween costume. It’s a modern re-interpretation of a vintage pattern:

However, I’m more comfortable when wearing sleeves. So the sleeveless model wouldn’t do, but when worn with the robe I wanted, the rather full sleeves wouldn’t do, either. Another dress pattern I have come to love has sleeves that are basically a thin band—enough to make me feel covered, but not particularly noticeable or distracting from the general look:
Because this is just a nightgown, I decided it really wasn’t necessary to line it (the original dress pattern is fully lined). This did make it a little tricky doing the neckline. I ended up stitching a line at each of the corners, clipping, folding over the seam allowance, and stitching it down. Also, I wasn’t sure whether I would need a zipper. The original pattern has a back zip, and the zipper is definitely necessary in the previous dress I had made. However, I was making this gown in tricot, which has more stretch than the satin I had used before. If I did need a zipper, I wanted it on the left side, not the back. Fortunately, after stitching the right side and basting the left, I found that I could easily pull it on. No zip necessary!
For the robe, I used a pattern that I have had for several years, but have never yet used for the project for which it was purchased:
I also used tricot for the robe, but a very sheer pink tricot. Because of the sheerness, I used French seams throughout. The pattern calls for lining the bodice, but I didn’t. Other than that, I didn’t alter this pattern. However, after I finished sewing it, the real fun began! What is a classic flowy negligee if it isn’t dripping with feathers? I bought a few marabou boas from a local craft store…and then started puzzling over the best way to attach them to the edges. I wanted the feathers on the ends of the sleeves and the hem of the robe. I definitely did NOT want to stitch them on by hand. Finally, I thought of Liquid Stitch. I carefully applied the adhesive a few inches at a time, then pressed the boa in place with my fingers. It did get a little sticky, but was faster and easier than whipstitching it would have been! I found that half a boa was needed for each sleeve. For the bottom of the robe (which has a train), I used two boas. Because the bottom of the robe curves up into the front without a clear demarcation, I started at the center back and just glued until I ran out of boa. This way, I could be sure that the feathers would end at the same point on both sides.

To finish off the look, I needed appropriate footwear. A quick trip to a discount shoe store netted me a pair of cheap heels that needed only a little alteration. I cut the bows off the toes, then covered the whole toe-band in more marabou. This time I used a hot glue gun (and, yes, got more feathers stuck to my fingers).
The robe and the slippers are definitely costume items, rather than being particularly useful. However, the nightgown has earned its spot in my sleepwear collection!

Photo by Miriam Latour

A Nightmare Dress

No, the dress itself was not a nightmare to make. The title of this post just refers to the origin of the design. A friend of mine was feeling a little stressed about the prospect of making/finding the costumes for herself and her daughters for Halloween this year. I was feeling up for a challenge, so I took on one of the more intimidating costumes: the Sally dress. Here is the image my friend’s daughter provided for me:

The basic requirements for this dress were that it should look like the dress from the movie, both in color and fit, and that it should be made well enough to be worn more than once and be passed down to the younger sisters. Many commercially available costumes bore more of a resemblance to a circus tent—garishly colored and shapeless. My plan was to make the dress using patchwork and appliqué methods, using as a base pattern the design for a dress I made for Eve in The Diaries of Adam and Eve (performed at an extremely family-oriented theatre, hence the need for the title characters to wear clothing). Fortunately Sally had pretty much the same measurements as Eve, so that simplified matters somewhat!

First, I drew out the overall plan for the front and back, including using my 9th grade geometry skills to draw parallel grain lines on each section. The dress is bias cut, to allow for a nice fit without excess construction seams—there would be enough seams in this dress anyway! I traced each section, along with the grain lines and any placement markings, to individual pattern pieces, and added seam allowances where necessary.

Next, the fabric. There are a lot of pieces, and a lot of colors, and I didn’t want to waste money or fabric by buying strips of cloth for each color, and then end up with a bunch of extra. Plus, I wasn’t sure how well I could find fabrics of the right colors. So I bought a couple yards of unbleached 108” muslin and some dyes. After prewashing and drying the fabric, I laid out the pattern pieces roughly, and drew section lines (all lines I drew were either parallel or perpendicular to the selvedges). I also marked each section with a code indicating which color it should be, and sewed around the edges to prevent fraying. Then, armed with Dylon cold-water dyes and a number of white dollar-store wastebaskets, I set up a dye shop in my bathtub.

I chose the Dylon dyes because they seemed much better suited to multiple small batch dye jobs than the other dyes in the stores. Almost none of the sections were supposed to be the colors indicated on the dye packets, so I mixed powders, dyed lighter sections for shorter times than directed, and dyed and redyed darker sections. The sections I had the most difficulty with were the maroon and brown. I ended up getting some navy blue dye and overdying those sections to try to get them a little darker. The end results were not quite the colors from the movie, but coordinated well together and were still much better than the circus-y commercial dresses!

After cutting and marking the pieces, I drew swirls, stripes, and dots on several pieces (using a black permanent fabric marker), fused the brown dots and pink square to their sections, then taped my master plan of the front to a door by my sewing machine and got to work. If pressed, I could recreate the order in which the sections were sewn together, but for now I’ll just say it was a logical progression. The front went together very quickly and easily. The back was a little slower…because I’d forgotten to put notches on any of the pieces. Even so, it still went pretty quickly. When I sewed the front to the back at shoulders and sides, I left a section under the left arm where a zipper could easily be added, if necessary. Since this is a bias-cut dress, and bias needs to settle, I hung the dress overnight at this point.

The next day, I hung the dress on a door, set up my laptop nearby with the concept image displayed, grabbed my scissors, and started cutting. I have seen other versions of Sally’s dress where the lower edge was cut at angles and hemmed, but I felt that, A) that method looks awkward and bulky, rather than ragged and torn, and B) That method looks like a pain in the neck. So I just cut the hemline and sleeve edges, mimicking the concept image as closely as possible. After I finished cutting, I applied a healthy dose of Fray-Check to all raw edges. Fray-Check is supposed to be washable, but I did advise my friend that it may need to be re-applied in the future.

So, the dress is sewn, the edges are finished…should be done, right? Well, here’s where I started to get a little carried away. In the movie, the black thread used to sew the patches together is visible. Now, I did use black thread when I was sewing, but even if I had, say, zigzagged along the seams on the outside, tiny little black threads just wouldn’t show up. So I dug out some black yarn and a fairly large-holed sharp needle…and started hand-sewing big black stitches along the seams.

After a few, enough to get the idea across, I sent a picture to my sister and asked what she thought. She liked it, but said I’d better do the same thing across the rest of the seams. My fingers were a little sore by the time I was done, but it really did look good!

As I mentioned before, I left a spot in the left seam for a zipper, just in case. My plan was to try the dress on my friend’s daughter, then put in some darts and a zipper if she wanted it more fitted. However, I think I scared her off of that idea when she tried it on. I mentioned that the darts would probably give a slightly off-set appearance to some of the designs and seams. So Sally, weighing the designs against the fitting, opted not to have the darts.

So, lessons learned:
1. It is harder than I thought to get deep colors on cotton using cold-water dyes.
2. PUT NOTCHES IN THE PATTERN PIECES!
3. Maybe a thimble wouldn’t be such a bad idea next time I’m trying to stab worsted-weight yarn through muslin.
4. Probably would have been better to fit a plain muslin shell to Sally, then use that as the basis for the pattern. If I had incorporated the darts from the beginning, we could have had both the designs and the fitted look.

All in all, though, I like the dress!