Arrows

This Thursday I spent the whole day focusing on the arrows.

Remember, I'd spray painted five dowel rods a few weeks ago, as well as a bunch of plastic feathers, so it was time to put them all together. I used the dremmel to cut notches in the backs of the arrows (results varied), sanded them down to make the ends a bit rounded, then spray painted them brown again.


After the arrows were dry, I took gold cording and hot-glued one end to the arrow, then wound the rest around, then hot-glued the other end. I had to do this on three spots of each arrow.


I then had to put the finishing touch on the feathers. First, I needed to shape the tops, since the feathers on Susan's arrows aren't rounded. Then, they needed to have a thin band of gold along the tips. I used just gold acrylic paint for that. After that was dry, I hot-glued the feathers onto the arrows, which wasn't as hard as I thought. Although, at one point I had to peel the feather off because it was a little too crooked, so that was annoying.

Finally, I had to put on the last bit of gold cord, the part that wraps around the bottoms of the feathers.


Ta da! I think they look fantastic! The camera doesn't do them justice because of the flash. I still have to do a few touch-ups where I chipped off some of the paint, and I have to cut off a few drops of hot glue with an Exacto knife, but these are mostly finished. I am going to shape one arrow head so that I have one to pose with.

Now I just have to figure out what to do for the bow. I brought home my bow from Michigan, but it's just too long. I am starting to think that I might try to use PVC. I found clay that is supposed to look like wood when it dries (not sure how this will turn out) so I can shape it around the PVC to make it thicker where necessary. The problem with using regular clay is that 99% of it is oven-bake clay, and obviously, not only will the bow not fit in an oven, I don't think we want to be putting PVC in there!

Oh, and here's the picture that I was going off of - this is from one of the Narnia behind-the-scenes books. I think I got about as close as I could get without using real feathers.

Spray Paint Craze!

The other day I had to spray paint three different things for the Susan costume. First, I had to spray paint the grommets that I just got in the mail. They only had gold grommets, and Susan's are more of a dull color. I used Valspar Odds 'n' Ends Fast Dry Enamel in Pewter. You can see the grommets at the top are upside down and are gold. The ones closer to the bottom of the picture are the pewter ones. I really wanted something a bit more coppery, but I could only find BRIGHT COPPER!!!! and didn't want that. So I figured pewter was the next best thing.


Then, I decided to buy some dowel rods to make the arrows. Those got painted with Krylon Indoor/Outdoor Gloss in Equestrian. I didn't realize that the little white thing in the spray nozzle distributed the paint more evenly. I thought it was a stopper and removed it, and ended up with essentially a steady stream of paint. Well, I figured it out after I finished one coat (the rods covered up pretty quickly.) For the second coat, I put the sprayer back on the nozzle, but the damage was done. There were little raised bumps all over the arrows from the dripping paint. I ended up sanding them with some really fine sandpaper. (By the way, be CAREFUL if you're going to sand a dowel rod - I almost set my hand on fire! I'm lucky I don't have burns on my fingers.) I'll try spraying them again tomorrow just to give them a second coat. The next step will be to add some gold bands, a cap on the end of the arrow, and I think I'll fashion one arrow tip out of clay. That will be for photo ops only. The other arrows will be permanently fixed inside the quiver.

Finally, I bought a bunch of 4" arrow fletching replacements at Dick's Sporting Goods. These are going to eventually be glued to the arrows. Half of the 36 feathers that I bought were green, and half were white. I spray painted them red using Krylon Short Cuts Red Pepper. Have you any idea how HARD it is to spray paint these things? First of all, they weigh just about nothing. Second, they are meant to fly through the air, so of course they FLEW all over the place when I started spraying! I decided to do most of the feathers, even though I only need about fifteen, just because I knew some of them would get really messed up. They would flip over and get the wet paint on other feathers that were already wet, and when I'd flip them back over the paint would get the impression of my finger (I wore latex gloves, BTW.) At least, if I don't have enough decent ones, I can always scrap the paint off and try again.

All in all, I am quite pleased with how all my painting turned out. I'm also excited that I was able to work on little piddly parts of the costume while working up the courage to finish the corset. That will be my big challenge tomorrow - hemming and grommeting the corset! I figure it's better to make it a tad too small than a tad too big; after all, I can always loosen the laces if it's too small, but I can only tighten them so much if it's too big!

Shopping!

Went to the store to get trim for my Clockwork Droid vest. Came home with tons of stuff for my Queen Susan costume! Got the dowels for my arrows, paint for the grommets (I got gold ones and I need silver), and ornaments for the corset. SOOOO excited! I didn't know WHAT I was going to use for those circular corsets, but apparently, jewelry-making is a HUGE thing since the last time I went to Michaels or JoAnn Fabrics, and they each have two long aisles of crazy, funky jewelry stuff. All I have to do is figure out how to attach them, but that shouldn't be too hard. I'm thinking maybe I cut out a hole in the leather and put the ornaments beneath them and glue them on. Who knows?

Tonight I am going to spray paint the grommets pewter and then work on my Clockwork Droid vest. Really wish I had the trim, though. Stupid JoAnn fabrics for not ordering more after I used it up last time!

Chainmaile!

STILL having huge issues with the collar. Every time I think I've figured it out, it doesn't work. Back to the drawing board.

In the meantime, I'm about to start tacking the splits. AND .... I've begun the chainmaile! It's taking less time than I thought. And, today, Matt decided that he needed something to do while watching TV and asked if he could close some of the rings.


See, I start out with a bunch of machine-cut rings that are slightly open from the cutting process. Then I close the rings, so they look like this:

You may be wondering what the mime is doing there. Well, all that black junk is powder from the rings. When I have all the chains done, I'm going to wipe them all off with a damp cloth to remove as much of that powder as possible. But, so that our fingers don't get stained, we're wearing latex gloves.



Then I open 25 rings, like this:










Then I make chains that are 50 rings long (but not made of 50 rings, each chain is actually 75 rings.) I start out with attaching two rings to one ring, then putting on two more rings. Then I attach two of those rings to another open ring, then add two more. And voila - a chain!

Because these chains are so light, they really remind me of the chains of beer can tabs that my grandfather used to having lying around the farm in Michigan. There might still be some around somewhere, too. I'll have to look next time I'm up there.

Of course, the tough part is going to be putting them all together to make the shirt, but this is flying by much faster than the maile we made for Matt. Hmm, that might have to be my next post!

Frustrations

Well, I spent two days this week not accomplishing very much. I wanted to put the collar on the dress, but I couldn't figure out the directions. And let me just reiterate - I've been sewing a LONG time; I KNOW how to read sewing directions! It would say to attach the pieces at the shoulder and neck seams - but it didn't say on the pattern which seams they were. It was very difficult trying to muddle through it all. I wasted almost all of my olive green material, too. I finally figured it out, but after I had sewn the olive and the black together (see photo.) Also, I realized that I need to make the lower portion red, and only the collar itself green and black.

I also realized that I'll need to make the top of the collar higher, since hers comes up so high. I did have one accomplishment in the collar department, though. I found that this foam that I purchased for the baby books I made last Christmas is perfect for giving the collar shape. I could probably stuff it with something, but I think the foam will work better. The collar shown is one of my original collars that didn't work out.


I did manage to get the zipper in on only the second try - and the reason it even took two tries was because even though I tapered from a size 16 waist to a size 14 top, I still made the torso way too big. I think the zipper looks darn good!

Another thing that I finished was the sleeves. I think they're just about at the right length, but I can turn them up again if they're not. I did a fancy zigzag stitch to avoid the ugly straight stitch and also to avoid tacking, since this won't actually be seen.

And then, today, I made the splits. I was having a problem because I was doing a zigzag stitch - again, to avoid the same problems with the sleeves, since the material unravels so easily, but I don't want to have tons of folds. But, when I started sewing at the top and made my way down to the bottom of the fabric, it puckered, even though I didn't have pins in it. But, when I started sewing at the bottom of the dress and went up to the top of the split, it laid perfectly with zero pucker! I don't feel like ripping it out, and I'm not quite satisfied with the top of the splits and the natural fall of the fabric anyway, so I will turn them and tack them down. But that's maybe something for tomorrow.

More frustrations - spent 15 minutes tonight in the sewing room figuring out the stitch width/length for the zigzag stitches, and when I went back into the family room to get the dress, I picked it up and pee dripped onto my feet. Yes, the dogs both decided to mark this lovely dress as theirs. I have the dress soaking in cold water with Woolite. As I dropped it into the machine, I thought, "I really should have tested this out on a scrap first." But, I didn't want the pee to set in. I'll go pull it out and rinse it in a minute. I was so mad. I can't believe it - they've been so good for weeks, and they sneak down there and mark it while I'm upstairs. Bad dogs!

At least I haven't hemmed it yet, and most of what got peed on will be cut off. But still - it was SOAKED!

Another exciting thing - I got my rings in the mail! Five whole pounds, but I already think I might need more. I'm going to start putting together the chainmaile this week while we watch TV. I'm very excited about that!

So, once I put the collar on, all I'll have left is hemming and the dress with be finished! I was hoping to have it done this week, but it will probably take a few more days.

Okay, I'm off to make sure I haven't ruined my $100 velvet dress.

Velvet Galore!

I received my final four yards of red velvet from fabric.com yesterday, so today I set about finishing laying out the pattern for the overdress. Because of the way that the pattern is laid out, even though I didn't have enough material left for the final piece due to length, I now have enough velvet to clothe an army of midgets. I've got it all cut out, and now I'm putting it together, but the big question is ... where are all the splits on Susan's dress? Because I'm sewing the seams that will be split with a large stitch right now. Later I'll figure out how high the splits are, then rip the seams and fold and sew the edges.

You can see the splits in the above photo.

I think it's probably split either just on the side front seams, or the side front and the side back seams. I doubt it's every seam, otherwise the dress would hang differently off of Anna Popplewell. But, I'm not sure. I think for now I'll go with the side front and side back seam theory so that I can test it out later without too much ripping.

So, now the main bits of the dress are assembled. The next step is to attach the yoke and the sleeves, and then to create the splits in the dress.




You can see, however, that there is a bit of puckering in the bodice due to the velvet being a bitch to work with. Normally, I'd rip that out and resew it, but the entire bodice is going to be covered with chainmaile and leather corset, so I didn't bother. It's actually not as bad as it looks in this picture, it's just the way that I pinned the back to keep the dress tight against the dummy. The only puckering is just on the seam right on the bustline. But still, it's killing me. Heck, I spent a half hour trying to line up the center back correctly. I can't stand having these small imperfections, but the truth is, no one is going to know. Well, except for you guys.

Also, I'd like to point out that I didn't white balance my camera before taking these pictures. The velvet is NOT that orange, I promise!

Back from Vacation!

So, I'm back from vacation! I was planning on purchasing a chain maile shirt from The Ring Lord website, but I'm a moron and apparently cannot read prices. The shirt is $275, plus at least $50 for shipping (it's coming from Canada!) And then I'd have to add to it anyway, so that would be another who knows how many rings.

I figured, that's just the God of Costuming telling me that I shouldn't cheat, so I purchased 5 pounds of Aluminum rings, 14ga 7/16". Believe me, it took a while to figure out exactly what the gauge is, what the 7/16" size is. I wanted to get the bronze, but it would have been way more expensive. As it is, the rings only cost $70 with shipping, which is much more tailored to my budget. Listen to me talk - as if I ever have a budget when it comes to costuming. I'd rather starve than cut back on my costuming "budget!" The rings should be here in a week or so, and I can start putting together the maile.

I was thinking that maybe I could get away with somehow attaching it to the corset (and thus avoiding having a ton of rings hidden by the corset) but I'm not sure how realistic that is. Not sure how I'd attach it in the first place. And then I couldn't make adjustments to either piece.

I think I'll just stick with making the full shirt. I can always take that apart, after all.