Edwardian Hat Day! (or, Rabbit fur sticks to everything.)

"A hat is a flag, a shield, a bit of armor, and the badge of femininity. A hat is the difference between wearing clothes and wearing a costume; it's the difference between being dressed and being dressed up; it's the difference between looking adequate and looking your best. A hat is to be stylish in, to glow under, to flirt beneath, to make all others seem jealous over, and to make all men feel masculine about. A piece of magic is a hat."

 ~ Martha Sliter

In good old Victorian times a lady out-of-doors without her hat was either scandalous or in dire need.  Women paid as much attention to their hats as to the entire rest of their outfit and to go without a head covering of at least some sort was unthinkable. Now days we pay more attention to our hair and our makeup than to what goes on top of it all. (Makeup by the way in early victorian & edwardian days was only ever worn by actresses and harlots... powder being the only acceptable deviation from this rule)

So hats are almost a prerequisite to steampunk fashion. ^___^

Sidenote: Please forgive the rabbit hair everywhere. You don't know shedding till you've seen a jersey wooly rabbit during the spring molt. ;>.>

I came across this lovely felt hat on a clearance shelf, and couldn't resist the challenge. After all if I totally fail this it's only $2 to cry about.

It is made from FELT (so at least somewhat period correct already). It's simple. It's nice and neutral colored. There are just two things wrong with this hat.

1. The brim is lacking anything to help it hold it's shape.

2. The crown is WAY too tall/deep. It fits perfectly if I wanted to wear it with my hair down/braided, etc. But since I plan to wear it with a nice chignon (an elaborate hair bun/knot worn at the nape of the neck) it will need some reworking in order to sit properly on top of the head/hair. So we're going to turn this into a nice 'boater' style hat to fit better with an Edwardian themed costume. 

Step one is to take off the excess height. Because we want to do as little cutting/reworking as possible this has to be done CAREFULLY. I happened to have a nice old helix angle/circle maker that was the perfect fit. A lid or bowl might have done the trick too. When pressed in to the appropriate height it made it easy to chalk out the cutting line.

Next a sharp box cutter & some good quality fabric shears made swift work of that unwanted height.

Down to business. Being felt we have a lovely advantage here - A good quick soak in some warm water, a hot steaming with an iron, and a day or so of pressing between dry towels and heavy objects, and we suddenly get the new top for the hat, all perfect and flat and round as it if were made for the thing. (Which, of course, it is.)

Next I worked out the brim issue. Some double fold bias tape leftover from corset making provided just the casing needed. (turned the hat inside out and machine stitched the underside) I didn't have any milliner's wire so instead we're using a couple twisted strands of full hard jewelry wire to stiffen the brim and give us an edge we can use to reshape the hat. (A little florists tape also bound the edges so they won't risk poking through later on.)

Now comes the fun part involving tedious amounts of hand sewing. <3
(I think I'll post another blog soon regarding the glorious Thimble and it's essential nature to sewing. Rule #1 if you are like me: Do not sew by hand without one.)

Remember - small even stitches. This WILL show along the top of the brim, so take it slow and make sure your needle is in the right spot before you draw it through or you'll be stuck with a messy edge. 

Top gets re-fitted in place (the hat at this point is still being worked inside out) and held with clips instead of pins so I can get right to the edge. I could have machine stitched this first, but I wasn't to be sure I didn't end up with bunching or gaps so hand sewing here too.  

(I LOVE these little red clips btw. They are nice and small but have an amazingly strong grip. They were gifted me by my awesome friend Drakokatze who got them from Hancock Fabrics, and I now use them in practically everything. Thank you! )

For added neatness & to help secure the edge I then machine stitched on some twill tape to cover the seam (and make the exterior stitches look nicer). This is not an essential step but I did it anyway because I love to over-complicate things for the sake of it. 

Fini! 

(Turned right side out and with the edges pressed into shape.)

Now just trim & enjoy!

#steampunk #victorian hats #rabbitfureverywhere

BlogNouveau

I've deleted a good portion of the old blog, which was mostly complaints about the chaos life throws and my own venting spot, half finished tutorials, and more whining. *lol* If ever you read any of those posts and came back to look for one (and I don't know why you would, but still...) they have gone the way of the annoying floor-dust that you can never seem to get picked up no matter how many times you go over it with the broom. Under the rug.

New blog is not necessarily new, but I do plan to start blogging more seriously now. A lot has changed in our lives since the last time I got around to posting anything new. New house with an actual studio room for me (Yay!), new ideas, and I've picked up some more 'schooling' to improve my art skills again. Being a self-taught artist in the age of information & technology is SO much easier than it must have been in the old days, and I have to admire the amazing skills of our predecessors.

So now I need to learn some serious skills for internet communication and get a little more up-to-date with all of the weird new terms being thrown around. (Seriously... What is a hash-tag and why do I need to know?) Being the unsocial (not anti-social mind you, just UNsocial. People stress me out.) hide-under-the-rock type person that I am blogging does not come naturally.

But, since it IS the age of the internet, and I really do want to be a real artist...
New blog plans will involve weekly updates on current projects, costuming pieces, and artwork-in-progress. I may make a few tutorials or at least walkthroughs on a few things, and I'll try and share what I've learned about the field of art as I go along.

Now that I've made all those diabolical plans...I have to get my art programs working again, and my technical skills are somewhat lacking so it's back to browsing help forums looking for suggestions. (A week or so ago I ran microsoft movie maker for windows 7 for the very first time, and after that none of my art programs (photoshop, SAI, gimp, etc.) would load. I kept getting the error "(insert applicable program name here) has stopped working" windows would check for a solution, find none, and close the program.

Sir Irony, I am not amused.

In the mean time, here is our adorable bunny Vincent to look at. 

#cutebunnies #rabbitofdoom

Lazy Blogger

Admittedly, I am lazy about blogging. I often get so caught up in the creative process that I forget to stop and take pictures, record steps, or tell anyone about it. For those who actually read/follow my ever-lagging notations you have my most sincere gratitude for your time and attention, I hope in some small way I can inspire. 

April simply FLEW past me; with my day-of-aging-sideways (known to the rest of the world as "Sundri's birthday"), the sewing projects, major overhauls in the spring cleaning department, and flipping shifts for one of the roommates it has been a stretch to get online every day let alone type out a blog post. Honestly, I'd rather be arting than typing... is that terrible? 

But, I have been making progress in the costuming area. I finally unburied my art desk and pulled out the sewing machine. It took a bit to work out the design for my own costume (thank you so much to my dear friend Drakokatze for making me think harder about the bustle idea!). I knew I wanted an art belt and to take a wide range of my art & crafting supplies into the character, but figuring out how to pull it all off was difficult to say the least. Not because I couldn't come up with anything, I have overwhelming PILES of ideas for GORGEOUS costumes all over the place. No, it was because though I could come up with a beautiful design I struggled to come up with anything I felt would still look beautiful once on ME.

So I had to do some mental house cleaning, throw out the concept of caring, and buy myself a couple new pairs of jeans in celebration of the two inches I've lost on my waistline since fall. <3 It doesn't add up to a lot, but it's enough to make me feel a little more like a real person. The diet is apparently working, just slowly.... then I kicked myself back into my daily yoga routine (salutation to the sun anyone?) and bought a nice yoga mat and some blocks/etc to make me feel like I'm taking it seriously.

With all that in place I finally got around to settling on something, and now I can at least have the attitude of one who is trying, so I can say "I am going to make a costume so amazing that no one cares who is wearing it!"

Well... that's the theory anyway. 

Parts created recently: 

Wire EARS! <3 Honestly I love points, but the latex kind would take way too long to get into place when I have three other people to help into costuming on the fair day as it is... so I looked around and found a few lovely ideas to twist into my own creation. The wire backs are flexible enough that they can be formed to comfortably fit and I added in the cuffs to help hold the front in place so I'll worry less about them shifting. I may still put some small gold chain accents on... hmmm...

My art belt - which is not QUITE finished yet as I still have to make the sewing kit for one side and fill maybe one or two more spaces; but the grommets are in place and most of the accoutrements all fit. I think I may take out the taupe-colored rose print pouch in favor of more space... or definitely move it further to the side at least. Please excuse my kitchen apron (I spent so much time painting it that I only use it for sewing/crafting now, lol.) and the mock-up pieces of my bodice-in-progress - I didn't feel like taking everything off of the dress form just to get a picture. 

The under skirt is finished, and I picked up some lovely english coutil for the inner lining of the corset, and a beautiful brocade and some velour for the outside. Still have to find the right colors for the bustle (gold and red I am thinking) which means another trip to the fabric store for taffeta. <3 Yay!

Steampunk Paintbrush and a Black Ninja

So the past 2 weeks have seen me (and then a roommate and my daughter) fighting off a nasty case of bronchitis. (Ick, right? I know no one really wants to hear me complain about coughing up my left lung, so I won't bother.) >.<;

It's funny because usually when I get sick all my creativity flat-lines, and this time around I've had so many projects planned and ideas swirling in my head that I've just been plodding along at a snails pace desperate to do SOMETHING but with just absolutely no energy to accomplish anything. So now that I'm starting to feel a bit better we're getting back to moving forward again, just still a little slower than I would like.

This weekend I worked on three separate projects and though they didn't all get finished, I did at least manage to finish something! Halfway done still are the clockwork fairy wings and my own boots, but I did get somewhere with everything else.

Presenting: the Muse-Powered Steampunk Paintbrush (+3?)

Not the greatest picture of it, but I was too tired to care. (We can blame the evil existance of Daylight 'Savings' time for that one. Sheesh.... When are they going to get around to just being rid of it altogether? *rantrantrant....*)

The soldering job on it is *intentionally* sloppy... just in case anyone thought I have no clue how to solder. ;>.> I wanted to express the fact that creativity is rarely neat and tidy. ^___^This one is a tool to go on my art-belt-of-wonder for the fair. (Attending a renaissance fair in steampunk attire... yes I know, I'm a little odd. No one really cares.)

Now to finish those wings - which are more wire-work and less 'clockwork' though they will have a few gears when I'm all finished. Then some hand-sewn pouches, as I'm still waiting on good enough weather to open up the whole house and get rid of winter so I can make the space to haul out the enormous sewing-station-of-doom (read as: big pile of supplies and haphazard tool boxes) and get to work on the BIG projects.

My only complaint about this spring so far (aside from being sick far too long for my tastes) is that it is doing something horrible to my two rabbits! O.o; It's like some horror movie about personality flips "The Black Ninja and the Ghost Peanuts of DOOOOOM". They went from being perfect little gentlemen buddies to fighting to the point of having to live in separate hutches again.

And just to assail you with cuteness: my two rabbits - Mr. Black & Vincent. <3

Day 2!

 

☼☼☼

September 1st

Today pretty much picked me up and sent me spinning like feather in a Kansas tornado and it isn't the first time, nor will it be the last. Life changes, we adapt and things move on. But sometimes we find ourselves at a breaking point where in order for us to adapt in a way that makes the changes for the better WE have to change.

I will be the first person to admit that I am really NOT a social person. I'm a complete and total wall flower and social phobic hermit who could probably spend the better part of a lifetime without social connections and be perfectly content. Give me a hut in the woods any day. But here I am, facing the same roadblock that seems to be my arch nemesis... and I know that if I want to get anywhere in life I am going to HAVE to get out the flamethrower and take this monster down.

So here it is. Day 1 and my resolution - I have to find a way to go from being a social phobic wall flower to a recognized creative force... and I have no idea how to do it.

So my rational mind tells me that this is probably a lack-of-sleep + enormous amounts of stress induced daydream, but somewhere in all of this mess that is me something knows that I can't hide from the world forever. So here I come...

... as soon as I can figure out how to make this rock more portable.

~ Sundri ~