I really only spent one day out of a four-day weekend working on our Sleepless costumes, but progress was made. Since we’ll be heading out a ren faire this weekend, and the kiddos have outgrown all of their acceptable garb, I’ve put my Lady Pyppenia on hold again.
Last week’s sewing hours were used on my [not a] baby’s guard ensemble–tunic, pants, and hat. The slouchy pants were traced from a pair of sweggings (slim fit sweatpants, masquerading as jeans), and are made from some sort of jersey that I grabbed at Jomar years ago. They’re thin and super soft, and he loves them already. The hat is purple satin with an interfaced lavender cotton band–nothing exciting, but it looks adorable with his curls. The lavender tunic is the last of some broadcloth that I’d originally used for Her Little Highness’ Tudor-ish Rapunzel gown. The basic shape was traced from a football jersey, then length and width were added to the bottom. I rough cut an old dance skirt into bias strips for the trim, and used a remnant of goldenrod cotton for the Sleepless applique.
One day, I’ll firm up my process for appliques, but today is not that day. I had planned to use Silhouette’s Trace functionality on a photo of the guard logo, but it turns out that this art style, while gorgeous, is absolutely not conducive to copying. Good to know. In the end, I just stacked a bunch of preset shapes together to make the outline. I ironed Silhouette brand fabric stabilizer to the cotton, sent it to the cutting machine, realized that I was supposed to add the EZ-Steam, painstakingly cut out the EZ-Steam against the fabric, then ironed the piece onto the tunic. I used a 2.5” stitch to secure the applique to the tunic, then did a little free-arm embroidery to add the details.
Because he’s four years old and will not accept “no” in any form, the Princeling has requested ears and a tail, like Bini, to go with his outfit. In an effort to avoid spending a stupid amount of money on a small amount of faux fur, I plan to sacrifice a stuffed toy. I’m hunting an unknown prey through our house, and I feel completely justified. After I skin the sacrifice, I’ll stitch it’s soft hide into fox-like ears and a tail, and use magnets to attach them so that I don’t have to ruin my [hours and hours of mostly slapdash handi-] work by adding buttonholes or other attachment points. The tail will also be attached to his belt. The ear magnets will probably need a headband, hidden under the hat. Ugh. This is why I don’t work with kids…for them, sure, but not with them.
The shining gem of the last few days was the Sleepless brooch for the Husband. Same as the applique, I merged a bunch of shapes in 123D Design and ran a test print. I don’t know why I’m surprised when my 3D prints work. I really should have more faith in my ability to learn from YouTube. The only change it needed was to enlarge the slots for the pins on the back. I’m waiting for a few printer upgrades to run the piece in gold colored filament, but they should be done in the next month.
Tonight, I’m going on a resource hunt through the house for the fur and some kid-sized undershirts, then I’ll start on HLH’s gown. As I’m sure you can imagine, their room is a wonderland of toys and cast-off costumes. Hopefully, I’ll emerge with the quest items so that I can avoid another Prime & Pray con-crunch over the next four days.
