e'ery day we bustlin', e'ery e'ery we bustlin'

Worked on the bustle skirt some more tonight. I did the cut-outs for the three layers yesterday, and cut out the lace pieces tonight and sewed them on, and then did the gathering.

It is late and I am tired. I hope I can finish the skit tomorrow and start the shirt. 

Being sick sucks.

Spats is where it's at.

Megacon is coming up this weekend and my roommate and I are going to dress up as steam punk green lanterns. I basically don't have any piece of the costume, so I am making all of it either from scratch or doing some major reconstruction on things I already have. For the first project, I made spats to go over some victorian style ankle-high boot heals. 

Since my costume will be mainly green and black, I wanted the spats to be a different color that would stand out, so I got half a yard of dark gray cotton material and 16 black flat top buttons (8 for each spat). 

I won't go into detail on how I made them, but I roughly followed this video tutorial.  I only discovered this website recently, and I kind of love it.

 

 front view

 side view

 

button and button hole (unclosed)

 

 button in button hole

 elastic band on bottom, used to secure to shoe

 laid out flat, unbuttoned

My parents got me a Janome DC2010 a while ago, and while I have been using it, I have yet to go to any of the sewing classes offered for the machine, or even really looked up how to use it. However, since I needed to make button holes for the spats, I decided to look up A) what a button hole foot looks like (yeah, I've never used one before - shame on me) and B) how to use it.

Can I just say... IT BLEW MY EFFING MIND! The Janome DC2010 has a special button foot that has a slot where you place the button, and a little sensor automatically tells the machine what size to make the button hole. And then you just select one of three different button hole options, place the foot on the material accordingly, and push down on the pedal. Don't worry about guiding the material because it freaking does it for you, and it stops sewing once the button hole is complete! And it makes a perfect button hole EVERY TIME. I'm not kidding you. I was blown away. I am in love with this machine. I can't wait to see what other magical things it has to offer.

Project: Spats
Time: I didn't do it straight from start to finish, but probably a couple of hours.
Things I did right: Watched the tutorial all the way through multiple times; measured everything a billion times and made marks when necessary; ironed the fabric about a billion times and tried it on with pretty much each button to make sure it fit.
Things I didn't do that I probably should have: Made a pattern instead of just cutting away; pinned the material pieces when applicable; used some sort of backing to make the cotton stand up nicer.
Cost: 0.5 yards of gray cotton @ 5.99/yd = $3
         4 packs of 4 buttons @ 1.75 each = $7
         gray and black thread (already owned it) = $0
         about 1.25 inches of elastic (already owned it) = $0
         Total = $10 + tax
Tools used: Sewing machine - regular foot and button hole foot; seam ripper; hand needle and thread; marker with disappearing ink; iron and ironing board; measuring tape; scissors.
Difficulty: easy

cindy made... what?

For several years I've wanted to start branding my crafts under cindymadewhat? but somehow cindiasaurusrex took over and I thought the cindymadewhat? might be lost forever. Then I thought, no! I can bring it back. I just need to get it rolling. 

I'm still a fashion machine. No, really! I won't abandon it forever, but cindymadewhat? will be my crafting adventures and hopefully one day my line (I reserved the name on etsy two years ago just in case). So crafting adventures will live here, and anything else I feel like doing or saying will remain on fashion machine.

I've imported some of my sewing-related entries from fashion machine to get things started.

Ye ole fashion blog.

The Renfest is in town again, and in honor, I will share a medieval post!

A few years ago, my friend purchased a red peasant top and a blue corset from the festival. She had a friend who was a teacher that asked her to help chaperon a a highschool field trip to the festival, and she decided to dress up for the kids. She didn't have a skirt to go with her corset top, so she asked me to make her one.

We went to the store and picked out a few fabrics that matched the corset top - a dark blue, a dark red, and an off-white to resemble a petty coat. I didn't have a pattern (as usual), so I took her measurements and just started cutting away. We wanted the skirt to look as authentic as possible while staying on our zero-to-none budget.

I essentially made three skirts out of the three different colors, each one slightly different in fullness. I layered the skirts from bottom to top: white (for a petty coat), dark red, and then dark blue.

In order to create some fullness in the skirt, as well as show off all of the layers, I scrunched up the top two layers and sewed them in place. The result was some-what of a curtain effect.

I finished off the waist band with elastic, and the skirt was done! It took several yards of fabric, and just a few hours, and her outfit was complete.