Dragonfly Faerie Ideas, Fabrics and Sketches

It all started with a button.

pretty pretty pretty button!

I found this button at the fabric store and it may be the most gorgeous, beautiful thing I think I've ever seen in my whole life.  I grabbed all they had.  They had three.

It's been sitting in the top of my button drawer, winking at me, for a week or two as I finished up the Steampunk Hoodie.  Finally, this morning, I turned my attention back to it and started dreaming, imagining, and designing outwards from the button.  Well, from the three buttons, actually.  (What on earth can I make with just three buttons?  I asked myself..)

It's gotta be faerie.  It's gotta be fancy.  It's gotta be iridescent and ornate and costume-y and it needs to be green.  With all that in mind, and a whisper of an idea that came to me while writing in my RealJournal, I headed to the Fabrics R Us in San Jose with my friend Miriam.

This place is *amazing*.   I have to be a little bit glad that it's a 20 minute drive from me.. close enough that I can go there when I need something special, but far enough away that I'm not over there every day.

They've got more fabric than you can shake a stick at.  Great prices.  And really unique and beautiful stuff.  We spent far too long wandering up and down the aisles, running our fingers over everything and doing the "ooooohh this is SO PRETTY" dance.  I took pictures.

I finally decided on a tie-dye green sparkle stretch velvet and an iridescent blue sheer.  Once I have the design hammered out a little more I will most likely go back for one of the incredible sequined overlay fabrics. 

It's going to become a fairy waistcoat dress.. similar in pattern to my Cigarette Girl costume.  Instead of tails, it will have folded dragonfly wings that dangle down the back.  There will be off-the-shoulder puffy sleeves, some purples and blues and greens combined into a wavy tattered skirt, and it's going to be made to accommodate my Fancy Fairy wings. 

Pretty fabric pictures!!  How will I ever choose? 

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Flower Faerie Hoodie Improvements & Updates

Just finished up this gorgeous Flower Faerie hoodie to ship off to the East Coast this morning.  This one was custom ordered with longer sleeves and no laces on the sides.  It's always fun to make modifications.  This is the second request I've gotten for no side laces and it makes it a rather different hoodie, I think.  Certainly it fits differently.  I like the clean lines of it quite a lot.

I'm also getting a little faster.  This one is my best seller and I've made quite a few of them at this point.  I think I maybe have shaved at least an hour or maybe two hours off the total creation time (so, down to 5-6 hours from 7-8 hours).  Details take time! 

(Also, the side laces take a lot of time.  Maybe that's why I finished this one so quickly)

I keep making teensy improvements too.  My serger does a lot of different types of seams and I keep changing my mind as to which seam type I like best for which seam.  I think my choices are getting better and better. 

For any sewing geeks who might be reading this, I use a Babylock Imagine serger.  It's got a feed differential, which means it can sew two pieces of fabric together at different "speeds" - i.e. it makes gathers or ruffles automatically.  The other cool thing it does is make "lettuce edges" if I sew just one layer of fabric on a stretch differential.  Like this.. see how the sleeve edge is wiggly?

Anyway, that's one thing I've started doing with the later versions of this hoodie, and I think it adds a lot.  Another thing is the way I assemble the wrist cuff.. the way I was doing it before, I ended up with a little uneven jag at the end of the wrist cuff, often as not, and I reworked it so the edges come out even and hidden this time.  It's those little things that make me so happy.

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Tahoe Trip, Labels and Spiral Embroidery

Up at the crack of dawn this morning.. making labels.  Yes, even the labels are handmade.  :)

I just got back from a couple days in Tahoe, at my family's cabin.  We went up there to get the cabin ready for winter - put up the snow panels on the snow tunnel, put the dirt bikes and the canoe away, and anti-freeze the pipes.  Just in time too - the temperature was down in the 20s both of the nights we were there.  

I woke up well before dawn on Tuesday morning, and finding myself unable to sleep, went downstairs and did some sewing.   (Yes, I take my work with me on vacation.  It must truly be love)  I'd brought 3 pre-cut projects, as there's no good cutting table at the cabin, and so I was able to concentrate just on the fun part.  

It's amazing how much time one has, when deprived of internet access.   Over the course of two days I completed three hoodies.  Well, mostly...  I'd forgotten to pack the zippers, and I was out of labels, but I got them pretty darn close.

Two of these were already sold.. a M/L version of the Green Flower Faerie hoodie but with leaf embroidery rather than swirls, and a S/M Purple Flower Faerie hoodie.  I made another Purple one (since that design just flies off the shelf) and took some creative liberties with the embroidery patterns here too.. I did stylized flowers and spirals, and used Wild Orchid fleece.  Pretty!!!

In between sewing there was time to do all the cabin chores, watch a dramatic hail storm, and play on my new Unicycle.  It being only my first time, I got up and down the street clinging to my hubby and managed about 4 feet solo at the end.  Woo hoo UNICYCLE!

Next up: my halloween costume.  I'm going to be a Fairy Ninja!!!!  Probably not on a unicycle, just yet.  What are you going to be?

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"Deep in the Forest" Coat Preview

I've been experimenting.  :)

I tried a lot of new things with this hoodie.  It was really fun to make.  I am getting to the point where I am confident enough with my basic designs that I can really start to play with the details and not worry too much about the outcome.. I can generally fix anything that goes to far awry and I'm relaxing enough that the "mistakes" or oddities seem to add to the overall look instead of detracting.  Also, making mistakes sometimes leads to a brand new idea that I wouldn't have come up with otherwise.  Love when that happens.

I'm still tweaking on this guy.. there are a few more little changes I want to make and lines I want to clean up, etc, but it's so close to being finished and so unusual and fun that I really wanted to put up some pics.  Please let me know what you think.


Also, not sure what to call this one.  It makes me feel like I'm deep in the forest, so right now it's the "Deep in the Forest" coat, but I think I can do better....  (sorry about the weird lighting but the weather is quite exciting right now)

the back is my favorite part.  The spiral hood design inspired the whole thing.

from the front.. the triangle neckline is really interesting to me

I love how long the hood is and I really like the sleeve cuffs, they're cool

pocket flaps are nifty too.  :)  

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Forest Fairy Hoodie is Up!

I just got back from the park where we took some photos of my latest hoodie creation.. let me know what you think!  I feel like an elf in this one.

This is actually a revisit of my original Forest Faerie hoodie, which was one of the first designs I ever did.  It may have been the first one I ever made after getting my serger for christmas last year, and I've worn that one so much.  It really was my favorite article of clothing for much of the year.  Unfortunately, I live pretty loud and that tends to be a little rough on the things I love (read all you want into that).  My forest faerie hoodie has been spilled on, climbed in, slept in, sat upon, rumpled up and used as a pillow, and lit on fire (I was fire eating in it and dropped the fire eating torch on myself).

I intended for this one to replace it, but this one somehow turned out to be a larger size, so I've listed it on Etsy so someone who fits it perfectly will be able to take it home and love it.

More pictures in the photo gallery

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Thinking about pants.. Fairies, Phoenix & Melodia

I made some fleece pants the other day and it got me thinking about my favorite pants.. the ones that make me feel like a fairy.. the ones that are so much fun that I have to wear just simple stuff with them so as not to go overboard with STYLE.  There are some amazing designers out there!  Here are a couple of my favorites:

Phoenix Rising pants.. I discovered these while looking for a fire-safe performance costume and they have almost become "signature" Fire Pixie Fire Performance pants.   

Melodia Pants.. these are some of the most unique and best quality pants I've ever found.  Love love LOVE them.  Yes.

Phoenix Rising and Melodia work together to make these:

Wow.  How fairy can you get?  I want a pair of these pretty badly.. maybe they'll trade me for a hoodie?  ;)

And, of course, I love Lululemon's stuff too.  Comfy and their fabric is really wonderful.. it's thick and stretchy and breatheable and tasty and it makes pretty much anyone look amazing.  Wish I could buy it by the yard.. wouldn't funky fairy pants look and feel GREAT in Luon fabric?

What are your favorite pants?

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Hoodie Production.. Design, Create, Polish, Repeat

So.. they like me!  They really like me.  :)  

I’ve sold my first few hoodies.. one is shipped and paid for, and two more are spoken for and ready to go.  I can’t believe how much fun this is.  I’m neglecting my other businesses (you know, the ones where I actually see a profit margin) because all I want to do is make hoodies.  I suppose I should just go with it.  This energy won’t last forever.

I made a second purple flower fairy hoodie since I got such great responses from the first one.  I had kind of mixed feelings.. I hadn’t re-made any hoodies before.. was it going to be boring?  Turn into assembly line work?  Was I just creating a sweatshop for myself?

Turns out, my fears were unfounded, at least so far.  I had a delightful time making the second one.  I was able to circumvent a few problems I’d run into the first time.  I came up with a slightly better way of doing the triple layer sleeves.  And this new one hangs a little better in the front when it’s open.  

I also have two more ideas I want to incorporate into future versions of this hoodie.. I want to change the embroidery on the hood, and I want to incorporate a pocket somewhere.. maybe on the sleeve, ipod-style.  I want to be able to carry my ID or my phone, but big pockets just won’t work without ruining the lines of this hoodie.

I’m already daydreaming about cutting a third one.  Also, since the first two sold so quickly, I might have to make a fourth, just in case I sell another one - I think I want one of these to keep!

But, I keep having new ideas too.  Maybe there needs to be two of me.

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Fairy Photo shoot at the Butterfly Gate at Coyote Hills

Today I finished my latest purple flower faerie hoodie and then Darrell and I biked down to Coyote Hills in Newark to find the mysterious and secretive Butterfly Gate and take some photos.  

We’d seen photos and heard tale of the butterfly gate several times but had never tracked it down.  Cool public art in Fremont is a little scarce and so we really wanted to find it.  After much biking hither and thither, and much back-tracking and iPhone checking, and even stopping to ask a ranger for directions, we located it at the back of the Nectar Garden near the visitor center at Coyote Hills.

We walked through the Nectar garden looking for it (did you know there was a butterfly garden at Coyote Hills?  Me neither) and eventually found it.. well, we found the *back* of it, hidden in a little alcove way at the back of the garden.   It seems the front of this gate, with the glorious iron work and gorgeous sculpting, is on the outside, approachable only from the employee parking lot.  We tried to circle around but were thwarted by a whole bunch of “NO ADMITTANCE” signs.  Hmph.  So much for “public art”.  

Well, I guess I just don’t let things like that stop me.  We snuck back there anyway.   The gate was GORGEOUS.  We managed to shoot a few photos before being chased off by a ranger (for, of all things, not having a permit to take photos in the park, WTF?).   No matter.. it was a gorgeous day for a ride, and we were successful in our quest.  

Here is a little more info about the gate.. I’d love to know the history!

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