Peacock Fairy Costume Dress

I finished this peacock fairy costume yesterday.  With the sunset getting later and later this time of year, there was plenty of time to head out to the arboretum for a photo shoot yesterday evening.  

I'm really pleased with how this costume turned out!  

I wear fairy costumes for a living so I designed this costume to be really versatile.  Instead of a dress, it's made up of 7 different individual pieces so I can mix and match with some of my other fairy costumes to create a lot of different looks.

The skirt is 4 layers.  There's an iridescent two-tone taffeta as the main part of the skirt.  The ribbons at the front are functional gathers, so I can let the skirt out into a floor length gown or gather it up for a saucy fairy look.

There's a lighter blue ruffle bustle that attaches to the skirt.  The bustle is really long, and can be let out into a ruffle train which follows me like a peacock tail, or adds a lot of shape when it's bustled up.

Layered over that is a tutu made of purple, blue, light blue and black tulle.  The tulle is edged to give it a lot of definition, and I used my new embroidery machine to embroider peacock feathers here and there in the tutu's layers.  This might be my favorite part of the whole costume.  I'm having SO much fun with that machine.

The 4th layer is another bustle / hip scarf that ties on with gold ribbon.  It's a lovely stretchy animal-print fabric with gold flecks.  This fabric was actually the inspiration for the whole costume.  It's simply gorgeous.  I also added a row of super bright LED tape to the underside of this piece, so in low light the LEDs shine down into the tutu and give the whole skirt a subtle glow.

There are 3 pieces to the top.  There's a sheer off-white blouse, an under-bust corset and a peacock bra.  The bra is covered in shiny gold fabric with real peacock feathers layered onto it (spray glue FTW).  

The corset is made from a sparkle velvet (left over from my Merida costume) has triple lacing in the front and is cut low in the back to accommodate my green Fancy Fairy wings.

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New Embroidery Machine Review - Brother SE400

My new embroidery machine arrived today!!!  I am SO excited.

It's a Brother SE400 Embroidery and Sewing Machine.  Originally I got the PE500, but the 500 does only embroidery, not regular sewing, and keeping that one would mean I would have to manage 3 sewing machines - one for sewing, one for embroidery, and my beloved Babylock serger.

I may just embroider penguins on EVERYTHING

I'm quite excited about it so far.

It comes with a whole bunch of preset embroidery designs, and you pretty much just get it threaded and then push "go", and change the thread when it's ready for the next color.  It's really super easy.  It also has 4 fonts so I can get it to spell stuff out.  Now I can stitch my name into my underwear!

I am fighting the urge to secretly embroider sparkly purple My Little Ponies on the butt of all Darrell's pants.

It's got a touch screen control panel, filled with icons which are slightly mystifying, but which claim to allow you to edit the size and rotation of the embroidery designs.  It also has a USB port so I can theoretically load in my own designs, although that promises to be a bit of a nightmare - the software is not mac compatible, and it takes a special .pes file format, and I haven't got the first clue about how to convert, say, my logo into an embroiderable design.

My first test was (of course) on fleece and it seems to like the fleece just fine.  I'm excited to see how this new machine enhances my hoodie designs.  Yay, Embroidery!

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Little Mermaid Seashell Bra Top

My Ariel seashell bra has juuuust about given up the ghost.  It gave me years of (mostly) loyal service, but elastic and sequins only last so long, and it was time for a new one.

I started with a very comfy purple bra from Victoria's Secret.  Hopefully it'll have lots and lots and lots of wear!

For the shells, I got "serving dish" shells from World Market and got some porcelain paint from Michael's.  I did a purple to white gradient and then baked the shells with the paint on, and this created a sort of porcelain-style glaze.  It made the shells both shiny and dimensional, and also added a lot to their durability (important, when you're wearing these to loads of kids' parties).

I drilled a few holes in the shells so I could sew them onto the bra, in addition to sticking them on with industrial strength velcro.  (In rev.1 of this style of seashell bra, I just relied on the industrial velcro alone.  This works fine for walk-around Mermaid shows, but as soon as I started using it for swimming mermaid gigs, it became a bit of a problem: the water in the pool just LOVED to scoop in over the top of the shells and pull them right off, where they floated daintily to the bottom.  "Okay kids!," I'd call, with my hands covering the empty spots on the bra, "Who can dive all the way down there and get Ariel's sea shells?")

I wanted extra-fancyness so I added some blue jeweled trim to the neckline and dangled two different sizes of pearl trim to the bottom.  Then I did the labor-intensive sequin application.  The sequins are GORGEOUS - they're little bitty iridescent seashells and they sparkle and shine and I just love the way it turned out.

I finished up with a sea-anenome-looking flower with a jewel replacing the center, right in the middle.  There's velcro all along the inside too, so I can easily attach a flesh colored bodysuit to wear underneath (so I'm less "naked" for the kids' shows).  It's super comfy and it looks absolutely amazing.. I'm SO proud of it!

Today I'm doing a swimming mermaid party (thank heavens for this gorgeous weather!) and so I'll have the opportunity to give it a really good water-test.  Here's hoping it all holds together okay.  :)

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Sewing by the Seat of my Pants

Usually when I make a new hoodie, my process goes something like this:

1. Get inspired
2. Do some sketches
3. Create a paper pattern
4. Cut & create the hoodie
5. Fix all the flaws in the hoodie
6. Transfer the fixes to the pattern

I'd love to do a blog post about each one of these steps.. perhaps I'll do that.  But yesterday I threw the whole process away and just .. created.

I think I've leveled up.

I had a little leftover black fleece.  I did a quickie sketch and then threw it away.  Then I got out 3 different hoodie patterns, picked a few pieces out of each, and laid them all in a jumble on the sewing table.

After that, I ignored all the pattern pieces and started cutting out pieces I thought looked cute.  I ended up with a flame shape, so I embroidered a flame.  Why not?

From there, I chose different pieces from the different patterns I have, and cut out one of these, one of those, two of this one over here.. pretty much I just used up all the fabric.

I ended up with one of the classiest hoodies I've ever made.  It's got pockets.  It's got flames.  It's seams are on the inside, which is a departure from my usual style, and some of the edges are purposefully unfinished.  It doesn't even have a hood - instead it's got a flipped-over collar.  (to be honest I did *make* the hood but then decided I didn't need it - it'll probably end up on another hoodie)

So, today's task is to reverse-engineer this thing and see if I can replicate it.  I'll do the shoulders an collar a little different maybe.. but on the whole, the design seems *marvelous*.. I think it's a keeper.  :)   Better pictures later!
 

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