Sleeping Beauty Apron

Well, this will be a short post today, because, yet again, I forgot to take progress photos until I was practically done.  In my defense, I was thinking that I couldn't post about it, because this project was a birthday present for a surprise party for one of my best friends!

My friend Katie has always loved Aurora from Disney's Sleeping Beauty.  Aurora is her favorite princess, her favorite color is pink, and she also likes to cook.  So, in thinking about possible birthday presents, I thought about all those cute character aprons that have been all the rage lately.  Unfortunately, I couldn't afford the really fancy, and even those I could potentially afford would have been stretching my budget and would never have made it in time for the party.

There are a ton of great options, and some good ones within a $30-50 range are available on Etsy.  While I was searching, I came across these:

From SozzoniStyle

From OnceUponAPoodle

From loverdoversclothing

They're all cute in their own way, and I like the retro flair they all have, but the second is my favorite, hands down.  Still, they all take quite a few liberties with the dress, and I wanted to make a apron that wouldn't extend to the sides past the chest area and still had a clearer echo of the drop-shoulder collar on Aurora's dress.

So, between time, budget, and design, I decided to take a chance and make one myself.  I was halfway through experimentally making my first-ever apron, no pattern, no nothing, and it thankfully had already taught me a few tricks about the order of operations.  Unfortunately, I was also running into plenty of difficulties.  For Katie's, I didn't have time to do a mock-up, and the Aurora apron would be more complex than what I was currently making.  I hunted through apron patterns at the fabric store, but none of them separated the top from the bottom in a way that worked with the design I wanted.  So it was all up to brain power.

I spent an afternoon drawing out the basic design, figuring out some basic measurements, and writing down the steps in the correct order.  Even with all that time planning, I still ended up changing things (realizing that certain steps worked better earlier or later), so I won't post my unedited scribbles.  (Although if someone does want clearer instructions, let me know, and I'll try to write up a better version).

The fabric was just the basic bolts on the wall--I didn't want to use fancy-dress fabric for the sake of utility and upkeep, and the cotton bolts were the only fabrics that came in the right colors anyway.  I decided to buy enough for outside and lining on all the pieces, especially since I don't have a serger.  I didn't want any rough edges on this baby.

1. After washing and drying the fabric, I started with the top of the dress.  I used an old sweetheart corset pattern to get the seams in the right places instead of mimicking them with ribbon or trim, like many of the aprons above.  I ended up having to take it in in several places, as Katie is much than I am in height and frame, but I think I estimated it pretty well. I did this for the outside and a lining.

2. Then, I cut interfacing and two of the white fabric (front and lining again) to make the collar and sewed it into the lining.  This was difficult with the interfacing and shaping, especially with how small the collar was.  I also made the neck/shoulder ties, which were excruciatingly thin for turning right-side out after sewing.  I stitched those on the edge of the corset lining, away from the collar.

3. I cut the over-skirt using the measurements of the newly sewn corset top.  I eyeballed most of the measurements, so I can't say exactly how everything measured out.  The big trick was leaving room for the seam allowances to sew front and lining together.

4. Using the same measurements, I cut the underskirt, but I added about 4 inches to the top and bottom measurements so that I could put pleats in according to Aurora's skirt.  The pleats on the animated dress don't really work in real life, but at least it would give a hint of the original and add a little body to the skirt.

5. I basted the over-skirt to the corset front and then sewed the underskirt on top of it, making the pleats by pinning them in and then simply sewing all three layers together.

6. In the picture above, you can see how I finally took pictures after sewing the lining of the corset to the front, just along the neckline.  This was the trickiest part to sew with the sweetheart corset and straight/pointy (and stiff!) collar.  I ended up having to hand-stitch parts of it to get it just right.

We need side straps!

7. I remembered at this point that I still needed the side straps, so I sewed those up and stitched them into the lining.

8. With all the pieces in place, I sewed the sides of the corset, making sure I didn't accidentally catch the skirt or straps.

9. As the last step, I hand-stitched the lining to the bottom seam of the corset front, turning the raw edges in and using an invisible stitch so it looked perfect.  Sadly, I did not take a picture of this moment of subtle artistry.

And voila!  A finished Aurora apron, modeled by yours truly.  The top could probably have been taken in even more, but for a first attempt with no real pattern and without measurements for Katie, I think it turned out pretty well!  The only other thing I would fix is the angling of the bottom of the corset.  I designed it to come to a lower point in the middle, like Aurora's dress does, but I didn't cut enough from the top skirt, and it ended up straightening out.  It looks great on the hand-stitched inside, but then you don't get the over-skirt.  *sigh*

Excuse the mess of broken-down boxes and bed frame that compose the back wall of my craft room.

Unicorn Cupcakes

So, this past weekend, we had a little bellydance Christmas party.  I decided to make "sparkly unicorn cupcakes" after I promised them to one of the girls for a favor a few months ago.  It also served as a celebration for finally getting a working oven after baking with only my toaster oven for the last 6 months.  It's doable, but it takes twice the time, if not more, because you have to keep the batches small.

Anyway, there are probably a ton of better ways to do these cupcakes (and I've considered a bunch), but for my time and budget, this is what came of it.



So, to start off, these aren't from scratch.  For the sake of time and ease, I used box Funfetti cake mix and pre-made icing, hot pink with pink sprinkles, for one of best friends.

Once I mixed up the batter, I ladled it into different bowls for dyeing.  If you're OCD, beware.  Not all colors matched the bowls.  I  apologize for the dearth of good pictures--I tend to think of taking them after-the-fact, but I'm working on it!  Anyway, you can see the remnants of the different batters--five colors in all. I did ten drops of basic blue (Wilton gel food coloring, by the way) and about 7 drops for the neon colors, pink, purple, green, and orange.

The only two bowls that matched their batter colors, haha.

With all the colors done, it was time to put them into the pan/cups.  I did one color at a time and just eyeballed the amount.

While they were baking, I got to work on the "unicorn" part.  Ideally, I would have liked a molded chocolate or sculpted marzipan (or fondant, but marzipan is tasty).  Making unicorn-head cookies or something with a unicorn image would have worked too, but I just didn't have the time to find/get my hands on anything suitable.  So, I went with my back-up.

Our local Alberston's had pearlescent candles in lovely pastels, so I bought two packs of those.  While the cupcakes were in the oven, I used a standard butter knife to shave down the tops of the candles into a vaguely conical shape.  It wasn't perfect, but it at least kept that spiral look that I wanted.  I also decided to cut off the wicks; we weren't lighting them, so it didn't matter.  I wish I could have combined these candles with the ones that have a colored flame....that would've been cool.

Shaved on the left, unshaved on the right.

 Once the cupcakes were done and cooled, I frosted them (quickly--I was late for the party!!), added the sprinkles and some edible candy pearls.  Add the candles and voila!  Very subtle "unicorn" cupcakes.

I am terrible at icing cupcakes. XD

No matter how they looked on the outside, they tasted great, and everyone got a big kick out of them, especially biting into them and discovering all the different colors!

Apparently, Americolor will give you even more vivid colors; Wilton sometimes fades in the baking, at least in my limited experience.  But anyway, multi-colored, sparkly unicorn cupcakes!

Wedding Dress and Jacquard Textile Paint

So, although I don't have much in the way of progress shots for making the final version of Vogue 2903 (AKA my wedding dress!), I did do some cool stuff with it that I want to share.

Originally, my idea had been to make a green dress with white lace, but I couldn't find a fabric combination I liked.  I started plotting other possibilities and did some test doodles of ombré dying or painting a design.

The orange and purple at the bottom was to test petticoat colors.

Ultimately, painting the design looked best in the doodles, and it was more controllable and familiar.  I haven't done much with complex fabric dyeing, but I've painted plenty of stuff on fabric before, most notably the dragon on my Yue Ying costume.

Between drawing the stencil and painting it, it took about 8-10 hours in a 1-day stint right before the con.  I sat so long, I bruised my hip!

These past projects had all used basic acrylic paint with textile medium, and while I'd never had a problem with it drying or holding up to wearing without proper heat setting, etc., I wanted to make sure I did it right on the wedding dress.

I spent several days digging through cosplay forums and craft blogs looking for information on textile paints, and Jacquard had the most votes. I researched a little more and bought three greens: Apple, Emerald, and Metallic Olive.

The  metallic olive was Lumiere (seen above) and the others were Textile Colors.

Before I bought the actual fabric for my dress, I bought 1/8 yard of the two types I was considering for test strips.  I didn't want to by 6+ yards only to find out that the paint bled unexpectedly or the like.

I tested the paints individually, blended them, and tried them with a little water added, which you can do with Jacquard for a watercolor effect.  They're amazingly versatile, and almost every type and color of their paints can be blended together.  It worked perfectly on both of the satins I tried, with only a little bleeding on the watered down parts.  Update! I found some of my swatches!

This was the original test swatch with apple and emerald on cheap white satin.

These are different shots of the final test swatch.  As you can see, the metallic olive has a gold/bronze undertone.  It's gorgeous, but it was a pretty stark difference from apple and emerald.  I did blend it with the emerald somewhat, but ultimately, the metallic undertone didn't fit the look I wanted.  Plus, trying to keep a consistent blend for this big a project without potentially wasting a lot of paint was a bit more work than I was ready for that late in the evening.

So, while I didn't use the metallic olive here, expect to see some painted bellydance gear with this stuff sometime in the future!

Once you paint, you're supposed to let the work air dry 72 hours or heat set it after 24 hours.  These paints dried amazingly fast for humid south Louisiana, and I even accidentally washed a swatch after only 24 hours without heat setting--and the paint stayed perfectly!  It was amazing.


As for the design, I don't do well making up my own, so I tried to look up leaf and vine designs.  Eventually I came across a collection of Celtic woading designs at Mehandi.com.  I was a little worried about issues of appropriation, but the author of the history Finding Blue at Mehandi makes a strong argument that these designs are a separate, modern creation only loosely based on scattered clues about an ancient tradition.  Add that to my chunk of Irish and Scotch-Irish heritage, and I decided that simple vine-like designs or Celtic knots would be okay.

I had a couple of possible designs, and decided that I would make stencils of the individual pieces.  With stencils, I could lay out the design on the finished skirt however I wanted.  Sizing the stencils was a little tricky since I had to approximate the size of the space I'd be working with on the finished skirt, but it worked out well.  In the end, I only used four pieces out of the six I'd drawn and the eight I'd originally planned!

The one right above my thumb became the template, but the final design ended up looking half like the one above it.
And no, I have no idea what that weird orange doodle was supposed to be.

There were, like everything else, a million ways to the stencils, but for the sake of ease, I decided to go with contact paper.  It would stick to the fabric (and didn't leave a residue, again tested on the swatches) so that I didn't have to worry about bleeding under the edges of the stencil.  Also, I was able to cut out the designs with a relatively dull exact-o knife--not something you can say about plastics or even cardstock.  Ultimately, I just free-handed the designs, cut them out, and rolled them up to await painting day.

I can't figure out the exact name or brand anymore, but this is what the contact paper looks like.
I bought a cheap, multi-colored pack of four at Office Depot.

This was a pattern I didn't cut out--too complicated.
But note the orange triforce my sister added to the center triangle.  

After working for a few weeks to finish my final version of the wedding dress at my (now) in-laws' home, I was ready to paint.  It was absolutely nerve-wracking.  I was terrified I'd mess it up, but it wasn't going to happen at all if I let myself be scared.  So, around 8 or 10 pm (I honestly can't remember), I laid out the contact paper stencils.  My sister helped me figure out the best placement, and once we had it set, I took off the backing and stuck the stencils down.

I chose not to use the metallic green--it didn't blend quite as well as I wanted it to--and just started with the lighter apple green, filling in all the stencil areas.  While the paint was still wet, I started added emerald green to add some shading and depth.  It was kind of an accident, but it worked out well.  By the time I was done with that, it only took a few minutes before BOTH layers/blendings of apple and emerald had dried enough for me to remove the stencil.  All of the sudden, I could see the design unobstructed, and it looked AWESOME.

Still, it wasn't done yet.  If  you look at woading designs, they have a light, watercolor blue look detailed by a more concentrated form of the same blue.

If I wanted that look, I had to go back in and add that kind of detail.

This was the second nerve-wracking moment.  I was terrified of messing up or the detailing not looking good, especially since I have slightly shaky hands and the stencils were off.  I couldn't leave the stencils on, either: they would have messed with the natural lines and occasional detailing off of the wash that I wanted to replicate.

The paint was dry enough to paint over with another layer of emerald green with no bleeding at this point, so that should tell you how fast this stuff dries, at least on bridal satin.  Anyway, with just a few pictures from Ancient Blue for reference, I went in and added in the details with my finest brush.  I actually did have a few mistakes, but like with so many things, they either weren't really noticeable or I was able to cover them up.

So, how did it turn out?  Take a look!

See that little vine under the heart? I totally painted an accidental smudge there and made the vine to cover it up!
The purple stuff is extra contact paper helping protect the table from paint.

The contact paper was even forgiving with the seams.  I honestly put down that first layer carelessly fast in a weird moment of stress-induced insanity.  But it worked!

Luckily, I was able to take some wonderful bridal photos at the last minute with my amazing photographer, Madison Baltodano.  Sadly, she's just moved to Costa Rica and will soon be moving to New York.  If you live in either of those areas and need wedding/bridal/family/newborn pictures, look her up!!!

TWIRLS!!!

This is how the skirt looks without pleats, by the way.  I bought a cheap petticoat to help shape the skirt and add a fun pop of color.

For the wedding, I added a simple sash of green ribbon, because even with my mother-in-law's help, we couldn't quite get the fit I wanted through the torso.  In the end, though, it turned out great, and I was so happy to have a dress that really felt true to me!

Vogue 2903 Tutorial

After a long hiatus, I finally return, this time with a rough tutorial for Vogue's vintage pattern 2903!  It isn't perfect, but I haven't found any blog that's discussed the whole pattern. At least as of August, I couldn't find anyone who got to the facings and yoke, the parts of the pattern that give everyone trouble.  Well, I'm not sure how much this will help, but hopefully it will!

Vogue 2903

Note, this isn't going to be a complete step-by-step. There are a few parts I didn't document too well or skipped, but I tried to cover the trickiest parts.

For the first time ever, I did a proper mock-up for this dress, so that's what this tutorial covers.  Anyway, I started off just laying out the pattern.  I wasn't too worried about getting it perfect since I had a ton of muslin.

Sewing up the long seams is pretty easy overall, but the princess seams (the front side seams over the bust) can be a little tricky.  All patterns recommend you clip curves, but I've had a ton that I could get away with very little clipping.  To that end, I'm not all that great with it, but this pattern required it.  BIG TIME.  You will not be able to sew these without clipping, and I found I had to clip a lot to get piece 1 to line up with piece 2--you're essentially clipping to turn a concave curve into a convex.

Note: do like most people who've learned how to sew properly, and put your pins perpendicular to the seam.  This pattern slowly got me doing that a lot more frequently.

 You can see the basting stitch I cut through on this--I put it way too close to the edge and not the seam line.

Once you get these seams stitched up, the pattern has an interesting direction: "Stitch along stitching line between small circles."  You can see the marks on the pattern, but the instruction seems pointless.  This stitching line is to help you form the pleats in the skirt, so, technically, you can skip this step if you don't want the sharp pleats.  A lot of people have chosen to skip this and the other pleat steps, and I ultimately skipped it in the final dress.  Still, if you want to try it, this is what the stitching line basically looks like. Unfortunately, I don't have photos of the pleats I tried on the mock-up, but other bloggers have covered the pleats.

It's a little hard to see, even with the pink thread, so I traced the seams and marked where the circles were with little lines. The arrowed line is the main seam, and the short, straight line is the stitching line.

The zipper is a pretty standard hidden zipper, and there are a ton of good tutorials online for this, so I won't cover it.  Once you get the hand of it, it's actually quite easy.

I cheated for the mock-up and just used a cheap plastic zipper I'd gotten as a crafting hand-me-down.  I didn't even bother sewing around the mechanism in this case. Tsk tsk

And now we get to the facing.  This starts one of the several parts that everyone seems to have trouble with, and it's understandable.  The instructions are pretty confusing and different from any other pattern I've ever worked with.  But if you take your time and read carefully, it's actually not too bad.

First, sew the center seam of the facing pieces, and do your best to hit the small circle accurately.  You don't want a gap happening in the centerpoint as you progress.

Now, press the shoulder to the wrong side of the facing, 5/8" of an inch. (This might actually come first in the instructions, but it doesn't really matter.) If you need to shorten the top/shoulders (which I did on the final version), you can actually take it in by pressing this in further, but be careful that you're accurate on all the facing pieces, front and back.  

Now, pin the front facing to the right side of the dress front.  Note how you keep that shoulder pressing on the facing--the dress shoulder stays normal.

When you sew this seam, do your best to hit the end of your stitching (at the circle) on the facing's center seam.  If you don't, try to hand-stitch the little left of the center seam or redo the sewing you just did.  If it's a small gap, you might not notice it when you flip the facing inside, but it can be annoying nonetheless.

Once you've sewn that seam (your neckline, basically), you sew the other side of the strap down to the circle on the pattern (I'm using the bottom pin to mark the spot on mine).  Note how on the neckline side, my stitching has gone across the pressed part of the shoulder--this is necessary.


And voila!  Neckline and strap stitched.

Do this for both the front and back facing, and then you're ready to move on.

Flip the facings inside the dress, and turn the straps out.  Now, you'll start to see why you did the pressing.  I won't tell you why yet (we aren't there yet in the pattern instructions), but this is what your project should look like at this point.

Now for another weird part.  We need to attach the facing to the dress, and we do that by basically sewing the facing to the dress's seams.  Note, if you have fraying fabric, this can be unforgiving.  On the final version, I actually serged most of these edges, because this dress has no real lining.  My mother-in-law figured out how to use the mock-up as a lining, but I didn't document it, and it had its own complications.  It took us a couple of tries before we got it worked out properly.

But anyway!  Sewing the facing to the dress.  Here you can see where I started at the armpit.  I went way outside the original seam because I had no idea what I was doing.  It's okay to be a little out, but the closer you are, the better.

It's hard to see, but here's the zoomed out version of the other side.  Note that you tack together the center seams.  Pressing the straps and neckline throughout or before this process is a good idea.  My mother-in-law had a magical sewing foot that actually stitched down the neckline on the inside to help the final version's neckline lie flat.  On a lighter fabric (cotton instead of satin), this probably isn't as much of an issue.

The back.

FERRET BREAK!

Okay, moving on.  Now, we can finally sew up those shoulders.  Pin each front shoulder to the corresponding back, matching notches.  The pressed seams will be on the outsides.  Also, if you pressed the seams correctly on the facing, the pressed edges should match as perfectly as humanly possible.  I'm sorry I don't have a side view so you can see it.

 Now, stitch your 5/8" seam allowance across the shoulders, being careful not to catch the pressed edges.

 It's okay if there's a bit of space, but again, you want it to be as close as possible.

Now, it's a little hard to tell what's going on here, but I'm basically turning the raw edges of the seam into the little pocket created by the pressed seam of the facing.  You can see on the right how I accidentally stitched through the pressed seam on that side, but because it was the mock-up, I left it and simply pushed the seam into the open side instead of redoing it and then pressing the seam open and tucking each side into its corresponding pocket.  (I really hope that made sense.)

Here you can just see the notch under the pressed edge.  I don't have an in-progress picture unfortunately, but at this point you slip-stitch the pressed edges together.  This seals the raw shoulder seam inside the straps.  It's actually pretty ingenious.  But this is where you can have trouble making those pressed edges meet without stretching or bunching if you were off in your measurements before.

At this point, you can actually try your dress on without pins!  I found out it was kind of a tent on me.  Even though I followed the measurements exactly, I had a ton of extra space in the waist, so I knew I'd have to adjust the pattern on the final version.


Finally, we're at the yoke.  This part's pretty simple.  Wrong sides together, sew up the neckline, flip right-side out.  Then baste/stitch/serge the outside edges.

Now we start the sleeves.  First, do the cuffs and sleeves....

Then sew each cuff to its corresponding sleeve...

Flip the cuff inside and stitch it in (no pics of that last step, sorry)....

And now, you're ready to attach the sleeves to the yoke!  If you choose to make the dress without sleeves, you can skip all these steps with the sleeves, but you have to make an armpit facing essentially.  I chose to leave the sleeves off the final version because they didn't look good on me, and my mother-in-law made the facings (again, why didn't I document THAT?).

 This part actually tricked me, and I put the sleeves on the wrong way!  I had to undo it and think about it for a few minutes.  Making sure you have the correct sleeves on the correct sides, and lay them out like this:

Note, they are inside-out, with the armpits facing the yoke.

Now, when you flip everything right-side out, it should look like this!

Now we insert the yoke and sleeves into the dress.  Baste, sew, or hand-stitch the yoke to the seams of the facings. The tack at the center seam and moving from the side seams to bottom facing seam canmake machine sewing this tricky.  I chose just to hand-stitch mine.

Again, this isn't a great picture, but now you sew the armpit of the sleeve to the armpit of the dress.  If you've been good about matching circles and following seam allowances, this shouldn't be too difficult.  If you weren't, you might have trouble at the point where the straps hit the rest of the dress (basically the connection between front and front side pieces and back and back side pieces). 

Lastly, check your length and sew up your bottom hem!  This pattern was super long on me.  I wanted it to hit just below the knee, so I ended up altering the pattern to be about 5 inches shorter. 

And we're done!  Next time, I'll talk about what I did with the final version to make the final dress design unique for the wedding!