HALLOWEEN 2012: A Toddler in a Tiara

Well, it happened. Saturday I debuted this year's 'Ween labour of love: a Toddler in a Tiara. Because nothing is scarier than a sexualized 3 year old, amiright?

The winner of the "Guess What I am Goin' As" contest is Claire Q. Please send me an email and let me know what Victory Pattern you would like!

This costume was shockingly fun to make. I did a ton of research on pageant dresses. As anyone who has seen the TLC show "Toddlers in Tiaras" knows, the Glitz pageants are the creepiest. Little girls are spray tanned, fitted with fake "perfect" teeth, hopped up on energy drinks and then sent on stage to pantomine being a beautiful, sexy little princess. It's horrifying. Perfect for Halloween!

Using a stretch knit I modified Vogue 8766 (view B) by lengthening the bodice; this acted as the base. Using E6000 glue, I fastened sequined trim, rhinestones, satin rosettes and fake pearls in what I can only describe as a Southern drag queen explosion. I made little cap sleeves with organza and a matching choker.

For the skirt, I followed some youtube videos on fishtail hems. Basically you get really heavy duty fishing line (I used 80 lbs) and sew it into the hem of an organza circle skirt. I made 8 circle skirts in total which is necessary for the "I'm an adorable little cupcake" vibe. I intended to use my baby hemming foot, but that was going to take way too long so I just folded the fabric over once and used a zigzag stitch close to the hem to catch the line. I sewed all the circle skirts together, sewed them to the hem of the bodice and covered all the stitches with some more sequinned trim. The skirt ended up VERY short so I had to wear some lacy bloomers underneath just in case.

Initially I was going to use my own hair so I could avoid the "Are you Honey Boo Boo?" question but in the end, I decided if you're gonna go over the top you might as well end up on the other side of poor taste. Hence the wig, dollarstore tiara, 25 pounds of blue eyeshadow, tube of brown foundation and the gigantic fake eyelashes. I finished it off with some very tan dancer's tights, pink rolled socks (I couldn't find any ruffled ones in my size) and white pumps I turned into maryjanes with some rhinestone trim.

Than I went to our annual dance party and creeped out all my friends.

If anyone is wondering what the key is to this costume, it's staying in character all night and making everyone really uncomfortable. Things got really weird when my friend Rachel showed up in what was more or less the exact same costume (total coincidence).

She is under 5' tall so I think she won the "Who's creepier contest". It was a lovely night. I danced my butt off (no award, sadly) and was pretty heartbroken to take this dress off. Not really the kind of thing you can pull out for a special occasion....

Did anyone do anything this weekend? Are my New Yorker pals surviving the Halloween smiting storm? (I hope you stocked up on lots of batteries and mini candy bars).

HALLOWEEN HISTORY: Part III

So we finally arrive at last year's triple header Halloween extravaganza (I just heard RuPaul say that in my head - too much Drag Race for this lady. Which by the way YOU HAVE TO WATCH WHY ARE YOU NOT WATCHING IT RIGHT NOW GO WATCH IT. It's Project Runway with drag queens. Seriously, quit your plans tonight and go watch the first season on Netflix).

So last year. Right. I wore 3 costumes which is excessive, even for me. The cutest one was this guy:

The story behind this is hilarious even though it didn't involve me going out anywhere. My friend Chris wanted to shoot a "Walk of Shame" calender for his final photography project at school. I demanded to be Ms. October because I've declared for years that the worst/best/most epic Walk of Shame is the day after Halloween when you have all these haggard zombies, disheveled superheroes and slutty bunnies trying to get home after hooking up the night before. Every year I am regretfully too hungover to get brunch on a busy street, sit at the window and laugh at everyone trying to get home with as much dignity as they can muster while trying to hold their now ragged costumes together.

So the idea for this shoot was that I would be trying to hail a cab at dawn in this AMAZING jelly bean costume. Chris' girlfriend made it by stuffing a clear plastic bag with blown up balloons, cutting two holes in the bag for my legs and tying the opening shut around my neck. Chris hired a makeup/hair stylist who came to my house the night before and put on a Drag Race amount of product on my hair and face, the idea being that I would sleep on it to get that authentic bedhead, walk of shame patina. We ended up taking pictures of me trying to hail a cab at 7am on a busy street while people driving by lost their shit laughing at me. Good times. Unfortunately the Walk of Shame project never totally came together, so the only evidence I have is this iphone pic taken shortly before hitting the streets.

I never wore this to a party but I think it's old school and charming and would be perfect for a last minute costume.

The second costume of 2011 was a quick thing I threw together for a disco night my friend was DJing. I basically wanted to go as Bianca Jagger in full Studio 54 cocaine fever so I tossed on this coral jersey dress (the first dress I ever made, from on an old 70's pattern). I couldn't find a crimper so I slept on tiny braids over night, took them out and then teased up my hair as big as it would get. Slathered on some glittery, glossy 70's makeup, and lots of gold jewelry. For the final touch, I coated my nose region with lots of corn starch for that "I could Hustle allll night" vibe (which I incidentally carried around all night in a ziploc bag and would touch up in the bathroom. Brings a whole new meaning to "powdering my nose"!) Less ambitious then most of my costumes but still a fun, easy idea.

Now. For my favouritest, most epic costume of all time.... I present you with..... PRINCE.

I know right? My boyfriend got SO creeped up when I showed up at his house. "You look too much like him. It's making me feel really weird".

This costume came about in June of last year. I had the absolutely life-changing opportunity to see Prince play live in a pretty small venue. He played for THREE HOURS. He did EIGHT ENCORES. The best show I have ever/will ever see. That man does NOT f*ck around. I watched Purple Rain pretty soon after and was like, yep, me, Prince, it's happening.

So I started hunting for a purple blazer. Strangely, I found one. I bought a bag of studs and spent a  few evenings piercing the shoulders of the jacket (and my fingers). I also thrifted a pirate-y blouse, to which I added a ruffly multi-tiered cravat/neck piece thing I made from some cotton & lace trim. I bought an afro wig and cut it into a jerri curl (that was the funnest part). I painted on some sideburns and mustache using black eyeliner. I added some dark eye make-up because, come on, it's Prince. I wore some black skinny jeans and black pumps, because Prince wears heels too. Just before leaving the house, I watched the Dave Chapelle sketch where Prince beats Charlie Murphy's ass at basketball. This was really key to getting into character.

This was one of those costumes where no one recognizes you and then freak out when they do. And for the first time ever, I won first prize at a costume competition. Maybe my proudest moment ever (sadly). And I still have this purple blazer hanging in my closet.... Is there anything more lonely and abandoned than an old Halloween costume???

Now, onto this year's costume.... It seems I was being too vague and coy about what it's going to be. Maybe you need a photographic hint? Here's what I've been working on for the last week. My living room is currently covered in fake diamonds and pearls (no, it's not another Prince costume).

One of you came kind of close to guessing last weekend.... it IS based on a TV show (itself based on a fringe American subculture), one that has been on for a few years now. A show that terrifies me to my very core. Come on guys, this is easy!

BURDASTYLE LOVIN'

Hey pals. I was interviewed as a featured member on BurdaStyle this month! (Queue me blushing and looking down modestly.... for about 2 seconds before jumping up & down in Sally Fields-esque "You like me! You really like me!" outburst).

It was a lovely opportunity to think hard about how sewing has changed my life and what being a part of this community has done for me (which is in essence, everything). You can read the entire piece here. Thank you to BurdaStyle for reaching out to me! I abstemiously adore their site and was blown away and honored to be asked to contribute.

HALLOWEEN HISTORY: Part II

I've been procrastinating all week on my costume; we need a name for the Fall Sewing Lazies. I gave myself a kick in the butt today and I'm finally going to put a dent in the somewhat overwhelming workload I've made for myself, but in the meantime, some more costumes from years past.

Oh human tornado costume... how I loved you. I had just seen The September Issue and was so inspired by Grace Coddington I decided to go high concept for 'Ween '09. I shredded some grey tights and wrapped an old black dress in yards of grey tulle and suspended farm animals, toy cars, airplanes and little plastic people to string. When I spun around it looked like they were caught in a twister. I made a tiny farmhouse fascinator that was modeled after Dorothy's home in The Wizard of Oz, and stuck leaves and sticks in my hair, which I had ragrolled and teased to high heaven. A couple of pounds of smoky eye make-up later, and I was a walking natural disaster (I got Method that year and got quite tipsy, which made me a human disaster by the end of the night).

So a priest walks into a tornado.....

I am still bitter about losing the costume competition to a girl who went as the Cathy comic. She wore an 80's sweater and held an "Ack" sign. So I stepped up my game the next year....

Yes, I covered most of my skin in gold body paint (which incidentally I was still digging out of my ears 2 weeks later....) My girlfirend Laura and I decided to go as Sopranos style trophy wives. I bought a crazy Jersey Shore sequinned dress, teased and curled my hair to within an inch of its life, sprayed a can of gold spray on it and spent over an hour coating sketchy gold body paint over any visible skin. We loaded up on cheesy jewellry and left weird gold schmears on everything we touched. I actually ended up meeting a future boyfriend that night. He was dressed as David Bowie from Labrynth; it was love at first costume sight.

Next week I will share my (three!) costumes from last year.

As some of you know, I am giving away a Victory pattern to whoever manages to guess my costume this year.

Hint #2

I've had to purchase 8 yards of organza, 3 yards of tulle, craft glue, rhinestones, pearls and 80 pound fishing line. Make of that what you will.

HALLOWEEN HISTORY: Part 1

To put it bluntly, when it comes to Halloween, I do not f*ck around. It's par for the course, really. I make all my own Christmas presents. I annually host 15+ people for Thanksgiving dinner. And I start thinking about my next Halloween costume on November 1.

My 'Ween madness gets worse each year. I''m constantly trying to top the year before, which means that I start getting serious about prep in September. I was pretty stumped until a few weeks ago when the most perfect costume materialized in my brain as if sent there by Elvira herself. I think it might be my most ambitious costume yet.

In honour of my favourite day of the year, I will be giving a Victory pattern of your choosing to whomever can guess my costume for this year based on the hints I will be doling out in the next few weeks. It's not a candy surprise, but it's still pretty sweet.

Now a trip down memory lane... My costumes from 2006-2008.

I drank almost an entire 26oz bottle of Bombay gin and got so into character I was still speaking in a southern accent when I woke up the next day (seriously).

This year we just hung out at a friend's house which is why I probably went the "slutty costume" route for the first and only time. Incidentally, this is one of the vintage suits that I based my recent swimsuit on. The photos are rather terrible but it has a rhinestone sweetheart neckline and a patch of a pinup girl silhouette on the hip. One of my all-time best thrift finds....
 

My friend Zoe and I decided it would be hilarious to go as John Waters & Divine from Pink Flamingos. I made her dress and did her make-up and hair. I still love this idea, and people had pretty amazing reactions when they realized who we were. Unfortunately, I am not a slender, balding gay man, so whenever I wasn't standing next to Zo I just looked like a creepy Latino hustler. Which I guess is a fine costume on it's own. As much fun as we had together, I felt so unattractive and asexual in this costume (although I did get hit on by a lot of girls, go figure).  Being in drag does weird things to your sense of identity.

Now, for the first hint!

The costume is a distant cousin to one of the above.....

Stay tuned for Parts 2 & 3!

TUTORIAL: Welt Pockets on Seams

Well la-di-da. I've been posting on this here blog for a little over a year and I finally feel qualified to do a wee little tutorial. When I decided to add some fancy-ass welt pockets and bound buttonholes to the cape I posted last week I realized the uber basic construction details from Vogue 8776 were probably not going to cut it. Welt pocket tutorials are a dime a dozen but I had a hard time figuring out how to add them when your opening happens on the seam line so I thought I would show you how I figured it out.

First off, you need to decide how wide you want your welt to be on on the finished side. I decided 1/2" added a nice graphic element to the openings so I interfaced some cotton sateen and cut pieces that were about 3/4" longer than the opening and about 1 1/2" wide when folded (you can be more precise here but I made my welt patches wider than I needed and trimmed the access later just to be safe).

You will want to iron your interfaced welt patch with the wrong sides together and pin it to the right side of your fabric. You also want to interface the opening on the main fabric, both for stability, and for ease of marking.

As for the markings, you will mark the following:

• width of the opening
• the seam allowance line (in this case 5/8")
• your sew line & the line where you want your welt fabric to end when lined up with your main fabric (both this and the sew line should be the same dimension - in my case 1/2")
• some general markings to show you where you will be cutting once you have sewn the welt to the main fabric (I marked 1/4" from the sew line and width of opening but you may trim this more if necessary)

If you want to be very precise, you can open your welt and baste the folded edge along the bottom line in the above picture to the right side of the main fabric. You would then fold the welt over the basted line, sew along your sew line, and then remove the basting stitches on the wrong side of the fabric. I skipped this step and just pinned and adjusted as necessary but the anal obsessives among us may want to go for the extreme precision route.

After you have lined up your welt patch properly on the right side of your fabric, you will sew along your sew line. You may want to baste it just to double check that it is the right width when it is turned inside and then sew again to reinforce your stitches.

Now that you have sewn your welt pocket to the fabric, you want to trim the welt along your cut lines (again, I marked about 1/4" from the sew line and width of the opening). Make sure you cut to the edge of your sew line on the diagonal. This will ensure you avoid puckers at the corners when you flip the welt to the inside of the fabric.

After trimming your opening, you will flip the welt to the inside of the opening and iron it into place. I hope the photo below makes this clear

After ironing it, this is what your opening should look like from the right side. Keep in mind, the edge of your welt MUST line up with your seam line so that when you sew your two pieces together, your welts will meet perfectly at the seam line.

After ironing your welt into place, you must sew down the edge of your welt to the 1/4" seam of your main fabric on each side. You can now trim the excess fabric on each side.

Once both welts have been sewn to each part of your garment, you can sew your seams together and press them open.

After pressing your seams on both sides, your finished welt opening should look like this from the right side (make sure you are as precise as possible when marking your openings or you find yourself with two slightly different lengths as seen below. Oops!):

Add caption

For this cape, I had 4 welt openings to produce. Two of them had pockets. You can easily sew in your pockets prior to sewing your seams closed. I forgot to take pictures of this part but I will show you how to finish the inside of the openings.

You want your lining opening to line up with bottom of the welt. Pin a piece of interfacing to the right side of your lining. Mark and sew an opening that is 5/8" (seam allowance) plus the width of your welt (in this case 1/2").

After trimming your opening to a 1/4" of your sew line, the wrong side of your fabric should look like this:

At this point you will flip your interfacing to the inside. Press it into place.

Your lining with interfaced opening will look this after being pressed:

To avoid puckering at the corners, make sure you trim your corners as closely as possible to the seam line on the diagonal.


Once you have interfaced, sewn and trimmed the openings of your two lining pieces, you can sew your pieces together, making sure to press open your seams. It will look like this on the wrong side:

And like this on the right side:

Once you have your lining and outer fabric prepped in the above fashion, you can assemble your cape. The final step is to use tiny pick stitches to attach the lining to the welt opening from the inside.

Whew. Describing this process was more difficult that I anticipated. Hopefully it is clear if anyone ever needs to sew a welt on the seam! Hit me up with questions if anything is confusing.

In other news, I will be dedicating the rest of October to making my most ambitious Halloween costume yet. Over the coming weeks I will be posting pics of costumes past, and would like to host a little giveaway to whoever manages to guess my new costume based on the hints I will be slowly doling out. Hope you are enjoying autumn!

TRIPPING THE WORLD CAPETASTIC

You'll have to excuse the Next Top Model face here but I can't help it - I feel like the hottest shit in this new cape.

Oh Cape. You challenged me at every turn. Like with a difficult child, I had to be patient, firm but loving, and spend many hours watching Buffy while handsewing almost everything (that is how you handle a difficult child, right? Future Mother of the Year, right here).

It started innocently enough. I had a random "Must make animal print cape" moment which gnawed at my soul for weeks. I searched the internets high and low for a reasonable leopard facsimile but most of the offerings looked like hive-inducing stuffed animal carcases. While hunting the fabric district of Montreal, I discovered this sinfully soft upholstery with a tiny abstract black print for only $8 a yard (I sensed a theme when I got home and realized it was a very similar print to this dress and this dress). It seemed drapey enough to use for a garment so I snatched it up along with a fabulous aqua coat lining, some big round buttons and a yard of wool interfacing I never ended up using.

Behold. Cape Cozy Fantastico.

I really have no words for how much I love this dude. Except for all the words I am about to use: it's hella warm (even without a wool lining), it goes with EVERYTHING (in my world animal print is a neutral), it is made with an almost couture obsessed hand (well, my hand stitching is kind of all over the place bit you know, the intent was there), it's softer than a baby cheetah, and unlike most capes, due to the placement of the armholes you can still wear it with a purse over your shoulder (CRUCIAL).

I made it using Vogue 8776 after seeing this beautiful version by the lovely Erica B with some overly ambitious modifications. Like many of us, I pre-ordered Gertie's book (which is amazing by the way and a must have for any sewist's library) and really wanted to try her method for bound buttonholes. I figured the low pile on the upholstery would look weird with machine bound holes. I've also been wanting to do welt pockets so I thought, oh hell, let's get knee deep in this madness and go ALL THE WAY. Yep. I lost my couture sewing technique virginity to a cape. It was so romantic.

I practiced on a scrap before braving the bound buttonholes and realized all my anxiety leading up to it was unfounded. They are quite easy to do, even on such a thick fabric, but may I make a suggestion? Don't mark your openings with ballpoint pen. I naively assumed that you would not see anything on the right side of the fabric but some of the ink leaked and you can see a little blue on some of the buttonhole corners. I would have had an emotional breakdown but I realized that with the busyness of the print you don't really notice. The wrong side of the fabric was too rough for chalk and invisible markers aren't as accurate. If someone could suggest a fine-tip marking solution I would be most grateful.

As for the welt pockets, I had to McGyver a solution since all the tutorials I found online were for cutting a hole in a single piece of fabric, and the openings on this cape all happened on a seam. I took a bunch of photos of my process which I will be sharing later in the week if anyone else wants to try to do the same on this or another pattern.

The pattern did not originally call for a lining but the wrong side of my fabric would have been too scratchy and I love that dramatic moment when you open a jacket to reveal a beautifully coloured lining. This one in particular has a warm fuzzy side which gives additional warmth. It was a little tricky assembling it since the exterior fabric is SO heavy but I managed.

And did I mention the epic amounts of handsewing? I'm glad I stopped keeping track of how much time I spend on projects because when you get really into the details, you can easily get halfway through season 3 of Buffy before knowing where the time went. All the buttonholes, inside and out, all the welt pockets, the hem... let's just say me and my thimble got real intimate. The only problem is that I'm not sure I lined up the button openings perfectly on the front and facing so there is a little distortion here and there. Nothing earth shattering, but still.

I think it's the perfect mix of modern shape + vintage vibe which kind of sums up my style in a nutshell. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go stroke and fondle my cape. Nothing weird about that at all.

KNITTING INSANITY

Hello friends. I just finished the most epic sewing trip ever - simply waiting for a good time to document it. In the meantime.....

AM I LOSING MY MIND? Let me rewind. A few weeks ago I shared a few modern knitting patterns here. Stephanie suggested I check out a few of her faves on Ravelry and I fell in serious like with this "Boxy" pattern: 

ISN'T SHE LOVELY?? So cozy and swingy. I love the oversized shape and the architectural sleeves and it reminded me so much of the beloved (now pilled and worn out) cashmere sweater I bought in Paris. I had to have. Had to.

So I bought the pattern and headed over to my neighborhood knitting store (owned by perhaps the MOST verbose man I have ever met in my entire life - he knew more about yarn than all of the Nanas so it took about 3 hours to get out of there) where I was faced with an unavoidable reality; this sweater uses sock weight yarn and requires teeny weeny needles. TEENY TEENY WEENY WEENY.

I am an instant gratification kind of lady. I will eat ramen rather than walk 2 blocks for pho. I will suffer through a bad streaming video of Project Runway rather than wait the 10 minutes it would take to download it. I ALWAYS make my self ill eating raw cake batter. So when I knit, I like big effing needles and chunky as shit yarn (that was really a poorly chosen description) so I can whip out a scarf in as little time as possible. As a result of this GIVE IT TO ME NOW mentality, I have only managed to make one, really, truly, hideously ugly sweater about 10 years ago that I only ended up knitting because it called for a chunky wool. Trust me when I say, no one, not even a homeless Icelander, would have worn this thing.

So I was faced with a real dilemma: continue on my path of quick yet unwearable chunky knits, or invest my time (possibly the whole winter, possibly the next 11 winters) in one project that I will actually love and adore. I chose the love and adore route, obviously. I picked a gorgeous silk and merino wool, bought a few slightly graduating sets of TEENY TEENY WEENY WEENY needles and got to work.

After 2 episodes of Buffy (yes, I'm rewatching it, and yes it's still possibly the greatest tv show of all time), I managed to get half through my gauge test. To be fair, I am really working on perfecting my tension so it's slow going:

I really hope you're laughing right now. BECAUSE I AM CRYING. If anyone wonders what I will be doing during the moments I am not sewing, eating, sleeping or brushing my teeth, it is knitting the merino silk albatross that is the Boxy sweater.

Good night.