Halloween Spooktacular

So, time for a little recent bright spot to distract from the last few days...

On top of our usual door monster, this year's Hallow's Eve decorations included some skeletons in our window boxes demonstrating how to be helpful.

For instance, why not knit your buddy a scarf for the coming bone-chilling weather?



Or take your pet out for a moonlit stroll after making sure that collar is very, very secure? Just don't yank that leash too tightly!



And finally, if a neighbor is in over his head on a backyard project, why not really dig in to help?



Of course, we were out in our regalia as always. Actually, before trick or treating, we hung out at the Renaissance Faire on its last day of the season, where many people skipped the pseudo-medieval in favor of their Halloween get ups.

Here is our version of Kubo from the fantastic Kubo and the Two Strings. Have you seen it yet? It was pretty incredible origami-based stop motion animation. Her hair was perfect for his top knot + long bangs style.



Another front view of Kubo with a shemisen and an eyepatch, and a nice shot of a skeleton friend along for the ride. And, by skeleton friend, I of course mean, an animated skeleton warrior raised from dead to avenge his enemies.



So, what do you add to a Japanese-influenced fairy tale and a DnD monster to complete the thematic coherence? Steampunk Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson of course.



What's the last fun thing you can look back on to ignore recent news?

Steampunk, Family-Style

What is it that's so appealing to me about running around in costume? I mean, I know that I really enjoy the immense amount of making that surrounds each of our outings to some dress-up thing. This makes sense to me - I'm a reasonably creative person who really loves doing stuff with my hands. But I'm hard-pressed to pinpoint why I, a pretty introverted person whose danger and excitement level is firmly set on "medium," want so much to put on crazy clothes and encounter a bunch of other people who share this particular drive.



Part of it is probably the same thing that's so appealing about craft and art fairs. I love seeing other people's work. Seeing beautifully handmade, carefully crafted things makes me feel better about the world in a very visceral way. So, of course, being surrounded by reams of people who also thought that celebrating Victorian futurism would be not only a great way to spend a weekend, but also a nice use of a few months' worth of free time, is life-affirming.



And the rest is probably the same reason why I keep this blog. It's fun to make things, but doing it in a vacuum isn't particularly rewarding. I want to have my work be seen by other people. Preferably people who get what I'm doing without me having to first give them a half-hour contextualized explanation from H.G. Wells to Wild Wild West.



Or maybe it's just because the kids look so cute in those hats.

What odd thing do you inexplicably enjoy?

Steampunk American Girl Doll

Oh, I'm sorry - did you think that our anachronistic costumed adventures only extended to the faux-medieval? Not so. Our nerdery knows no bounds! Feast your eyes on this small incarnation of another subculture we recently got into: steampunk, doll edition. Every single thing entirely from scratch. I described sewing the skirt in this post. The shirt I hand-sewed, making up the pattern as I went along and basing its dimensions on the shirt that the doll originally came with.



Ok, so, accessories from the top down. Her top hat is made from a few pieces of leather from an odds-and-ends scrap bag (they sell these kinds of off-cuts in bulk at places like Michaels, if you're interested). I used copper wire to "sew" the side band together, and then glued the brim and crown on with E-6000. The band is a piece of raffia-like string, and the cockade is made of some feathers, craft gears, and wire.



The goggles were a trip to make. I used one of the same kinds of gears that's on the hat, but bent its teeth inward, around a transparent piece of plastic (a circle cut out of a plastic binder divider). Then, with some very liberal use of E-6000, I attached side pieces that are shaped kind of like horse blinders, and a wire nose piece. The straps are a ribbon threaded through wire loops attached to the leather sides.



Her boots were ridiculous fun to make. The soles are made from polymer clay. For the uppers, I again used leather from the scrap bag, which is why some of the larger pattern pieces had to be assembled from smaller leather scraps. You can just see the orange stitches from one example of me doing this on the right. I used orange waxed thread to emphasize the pieced-together-ness of the boots because it seemed like something a hardened steampunk adventurer would have to do mid-caper. We mostly followed these gloriously detailed doll boot instructions, minus the saran wrap.



Finally, the double belt is made from shoe buckles, and some leather from a thrifted handbag.



So, so fun to put together! I'll show you our own steampunk getups next.

What's the last doll outfit you assembled?

I Made a Corset, Yo

Our love of Ye Olde Ren Faire continues unabated, and we once again sallied forth to pretend to be old-timey folk. My idea of adding an item or two to the costume stores every year is a pretty solid one, and the family reused much of what we had made last year. New for me? A cotton batik print corset, thank you very much, with zip-tie boning and satin lining. I mostly eyeballed the design after looking at a few patterns and slap-dashedly measuring myself. Honestly, because it's laced up, it's a pretty forgiving piece of clothing. Is it super duper medieval? Um, yeah, no. But it's colorful and fun!



We need to get cracking on some stuff for Mr. 42-Roads, no? He very graciously helped make a bunch of stuff for the kids with nary a hint about the fact that he's costume-less. I mean, it's true that he is quite dashing in his shirt, but I'm thinking next year is the year we step up his game.



The kids decided to be royalty, so I had the somewhat unpleasant experience of working with fake fur. It's kind of yucks, I have to say, and it sheds everywhere! But how else are you going to get those kingly ermine robes going? I found a very lightweight burgundy fabric with the perfect slight sheen, hot-glued the white fur onto it, and used a permanent marker to draw some black spots for verisimilitude. Their crowns are made from wire and beads.



Did you go to the Renaissance Faire this year? Did you pepper your speech with a bunch of thee's and thou's? My anachronistic medieval self only ever sounds like a pirate, for whatever reason.

American Girl Doll: Tiered Ruffle Skirt

Well, I am in full-on obsessive steampunk mode now, folks. What does that mean? Apparently it means that Lara's AG doll is also getting an outfit, though I'm not sure she will actually come with us to the festivities.

At the same time, making things for a doll is a great way to work out full scale ideas in a model time frame. For instance, inspired by this kind of thing, I'd like to make Lara a flouncy tiered skirt for her costume. I've definitely never made one before, so I thought an 18 inch experiment would be better than a full-scale disaster.

But no disaster occurred! Look:



The fabric was a set of thrifted curtains. I'm not sure what the fabric is - some kind of rayon, I'm guessing. It's very soft and smooth, with a very slight sheen and some decorative swirly wrinkling. I basically walked around the home goods section of the fantabulous Value Village feeling around until I discovered something that wouldn't be itchy and irritating to wear. I ended up with about 4 yards of this in a 54" width for $6, which I know beats fabric stores prices any day.



Here is a schematic and the measurement math I used for the tiers and the ruffles. I may adjust the ratios slightly as I go to full size skirt, but this turned out great, if I do say so myself.

Steampunk: How to Make a Collapsible Victorian Skirt Bustle Cage

Don't freak out - just because it's called a cage doesn't mean it's some of kind of torture implement. Actually, a bustle cage is something that Sir Mix-a-Lot would probably appreciate, since its purpose was to create a kind of giant artificial derriere to emphasize the tiny waists that were all the rage for women during the Victorian Era.

You know how very complicated flower arrangements require a hunk of floral foam to support and shape them? Well, the idea here is the same - a contraption that sits under a skirt or dress to shape it into an exaggerated round hump just below the waist. Here are some ladies illustrating what I'm talking about:


(Image via Truly Victorian)

All of which is to say that we have started working on our steampunk getups for The Steampunk World's Fair!

My first project was a bustle cage to eventually drape a giant skirt over. And you too can make one!

Step 1: Find a hula hoop that you don't mind destroying. Exhibit A: several hoops from the dollar store:



Guess which one got the nod? That's right, the blue bent one that was irrecoverably non-circular.


Step 2: Cut the hula hoop into arcs of increasing size. If your hoop is like mine, hollow and made out of plastic, a hacksaw will easily do the trick.



The smallest piece I have is about 7 inches long, with each successive one being about 2 inches longer than the last. After cutting them, I bent each one every 2 inches or so (you can see the fold marks on the pieces), to help with the shaping process later.



Step 3:Sew a strip of fabric to the middle of each hoop piece. I just cut two long strips (each about 1.5 feet long) off of an old tshirt and sewed them very tightly around the first hoop arc by sandwiching the plastic between two pieces of fabric and sewing them into a channel around the plastic piece:



You can see from the picture how stretched the jersey is around the plastic. As much as possible, sew so that there is no slack in your fabric. You don't want the plastic piece to be able to wiggle around.


Step 4: Continue sewing your fabric strips tightly around each plastic piece. Leave about 2 inches of space between each:



Make sure to attach the pieces in increasing size order, and to face them in the same direction.


Step 5: Shape the plastic into semi-circles with wire. Run a length of wire through the smallest of the plastic tubes. Make sure the wire is strong enough to bend the plastic - anything below a 14-12 gauge should be fine:



Also, this is a good time to use this first wire to push a strip of fabric (long enough to tie around your waist) through this smallest tube. You can do this by bending the wire end into a small loop and then tying the fabric strip to a it before pushing it through. Eventually, you'll use this fabric piece to wear the bustle cage.


Step 6: Complete the semi-circle. Pull the wire through the hoop piece, bending the plastic into a U-shape. Use the wire to hold this shape by making a hook-and-loop closure:



Do this for each of the hoop pieces, and you'll end up with a contraption that looks like this when you dangle it in the air:




Step 7: Now, do the same sandwiched fabric thing running down the sides of the bent plastic pieces. This will both cover any jagged plastic edges, preventing them from rubbing your eventual skirt fabric, and will also give the right shape to the hoop cage:



If you want to, you can tape the hook-and-loop wire closures you made so that all potentially scrap-y places are covered. And that's it! you're done!

Here is a shot of the finished cage from the inside




Here is what it will look like tied to your natural waist with the fabric strip you slipped through the top tube:



Tie it on and then try to sit down - it's no problem because this contraption is collapsible!

And finally, here is what it will do to any skirt you put over it:



Don't you feel like you could go discipline some new housemaids and then have tiny tea sandwiches in the parlour while pouring over visiting cards?

Live from the Renaissance, It's Us

Ok, tell me honestly - have you been to your local Renaissance Faire yet? And if you have, did you go in costume?

We've gone to ours the last two years. Last year? Weak, last-minute costumes that made us feel like straight-up jerks. I mean, there are people there who look like they hand-wove the linen for their traditionally made sarks, and we bothered to show up with a couple of sideways bandannas and claimed to be pirates? Seriously uncool. So this year? No more uncoolness. We planned, we sewed, we painted, and we... looked amazing.



We crafted this dress together. The dark blue bottom layer was made from a very long, very billowy maxi skirt. The over-layer was first a dress that I cut very low on the chest, and then cut up the middle and laced up. To do nice lacing in the dress (and also in both knights' shirts), I used grommets. Her lovely diadem is some very basic wire work. She is no ordinary damsel, but a deadly and skilled huntress, with a bow crafted from the finest tree branch and quiver of arrows sewn from leather pieces and suspended by a belt. I actually strung this bow with enough tension that the arrows could fire a solid 25 feet or so!



This fierce knight wears a billowy shirt and a tabard featuring his Blue Pegasus sigil (with a stamp pattern that he made himself). His arms and armor are the envy of the shire: a wooden shield with leather handle, and a sword and helmet made from the finest cardboard and leather and spray-painted to look metallic. Here's a closeup:



We used this amazing breakdown of the process for both, and they came out truly excellent. Pro tip: to give the sword longevity, we put wooden dowels in the center, glued sword-shaped cardboard around them in a sandwich, and then used masking tape to bend the sandwiching cardboard together to create sword edges. It's been several months now, and the thing is still going strong despite having been in many a battle.



I was a Lady of the Woods, which meant a dress with very long sleeves and a headdress made from willow branches and beads.



The dress is actually extremely easy to make, and ridiculously comfortable to wear, since it's made out of jersey. I used this idea as the basis of the design, but added a wide corset-like belt.



Mr. Forty-Two Roads had the least developed look this year, but he did look very dashing in this lovely be-ribboned shirt with a lace-up opening. We attempted a shoulder pauldron in the same style as the helmet, but it came out as a learning experience for next time.



Now is a good time to start planning your Ren Faire look for next year, friends - lest ye be threwn in the hoosegow for your pribbling guise. But we? We are busy thinking up outfits for a Steampunk convention this spring.

Hello from Halloween!

How did we four hardcore make-your-own-costume devotees celebrate Halloween this past year? Why by dressing up as this incredibly thematically connected foursome: Abe Lincoln, Leonardo Da Vinci, a ninja, and a mummy. What do you mean, you don't get how they all go together?! Ok, fine, yeah, me neither. One of these years, I will finally force my family to live out my fantasy of coordinating costumes - but this was not that year.



This take on Leo is basically this costume, but recombobulated for size. Nothing says "we are actually a community theater prop department" like already having a 15th century cap and cape ready to go when your 6 year-old suddenly announces that this year it's a Renaissance master or bust.

The ninja is all new. The main piece of awesomeness in this costume are the nunchucks, which are made from a pretty sturdy dowel, some leather wraps for the grip, and a piece of chain. Those things are seriously for real, and could probably take out an enemy. Luckily, our ninja is mostly peace-loving and not particularly keen on doing much besides posing. I made the wrap-style top in the simplest way possible, by sewing together this:



President Lincoln is easy - it's just a beard made of a few cardboard cutouts on a stick, and a cardboard top hat. The mummy was made by a crazy person who sewed a bunch of bandage strips to a sweatshirt for hours on end, and helped by black paper bugs of all shapes and sizes.



Why Abe Lincoln, you ask? Well, originally, Mr. and Mrs. Forty-Two Roads were going to go as Abraham and Babe-raham Lincoln, but someone chickened out of the whole thing and decided to go as the undead instead. I guess we could have piggybacked onto the genre-mashing books and decided to be "Abraham Lincoln: Mummy Hunter."

On our cruising for sweet treats, we learned that ninjas are agile enough not to need their hands:



and that Leonardo was best friends with a Minecraft Creeper:



By the way, have you ever wondered what Honest Abe would look like with a handlebar mustache? Wonder no more: