Costumed Fantasy!

I recently watched two movies that, even if they were terrible, could be watched solely for the costumes. As it turns out neither were terrible, but I did like one more than the other for both costume and story.

From Costumes By Ally

From Costumes By Ally

Both amazing costumes! Colleen Atwood, who did Alice in Wonderland and many other Burton films, is one of my favorite designers. However, Beatrix Aruna Pasztor could give her a run for her money.

Alice in Wonderland:
The costumes were fantastic! Atwood's work always is. She has a very distinct style that I find quite appealing. Her period work is more inspired by the select time period spliced with her own eye for creativity and design. The designs are also complex (youtube costume link).

However, the design of the Mad Hatter I thought was a bit too much. There is a great flashback scene, where you see a bit younger Hatter while working for the White Queen. Both his hair and makeup in this scene better fit the character. I found the bright orange and the extreme pale face far too similar to that of a clown to make me comfortable... (I don't like clowns...)

The Secret of Moonacre:
My favorite of the two! This is a movie I would have been obsessed with between the ages of 8 and 12. Such a sweet story with fabulous costumes. This is definitely a costume movie based around a time period, set in a fantasy world.

The Maria's (The lead's) dresses have fantastic cage bustles in the back, but not underneath as you would think. The bustles are actually built into the dress! Each dress has beautiful embroidery, so intricate and detailed. I also found the men's styling to be intriguing, with Robin's (Evil De Noir's son) period, yet contemporary punk look. Not to mention the great scene when you get to see undergarments like the bum pad! All great costume movies have an undergarments scene!

Life, the Universe and Everything

So, the CONveregence masquerade did not go how I'd envisioned it. :( Our group didn't win anything and I worked well over two months solid on these costumes for this single purpose. However, the costumes photographed beautifully (photo below by Scott Traczyk off of Flickr)! Our skit was dead on ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnNfVZKmpmg )! We did a fantastic job, the best year yet (aside from the awards part...)!


Next year, the plan is the masquerade scene from the Labyrinth. However, someone mentioned the idea of belly dancing disney princess' and I LOVE this idea. Anyone interested in that? Maybe next year might be too soon, being that we did regular disney princess' in 2009 for the masq. But I have more ideas for the latter skit.

For those of you wanting me to make you costumes, let me know asap, cause I may get pretty busy in the next year!

Anyways, now that CONvergence is finished for the year, I should probably get to work on my WEDDING DRESS! I finished the pattern this evening, took apart the mock up and laid it out to get an idea of how much fabric I need for the skirt, lining and flat lining of the dress. Two yards more than I thought for each! Now I need a total of 14 yards! Let's hope I can find some decent and reasonably priced ivory silk at SR Harris!

I am in love with my dress and I am really excited (and nervous..) to start working on it.

Now for some awesome news! I have been offered a stitcher job at the Opera for the season! I am sooooo happy! I get to start work there in August, right after I finish my current build for the Chanhassen!

I'm a little sad that I may not be working on Jesus Christ Superstar at the Chan in the winter, but a steady job will be so nice! And I'll probably get to go back the Chan next summer when the Opera is in their off season (For HAIRSPRAY! So cool!)

I love my job :)

Wedding Dresses!

(Justin Alexander Dress- 2010)
Let me say, for the first time in this blog, I am obsessed with wedding dresses! Aside from prom, which tends to be tacky, a wedding gown is the only dress an average woman gets to where in this era that is completely extravagant. It can be a ballgown or a chic, slender silhouette. It's a combined fashion and costume. It can be as simple or as detailed as a bride desires.

I've made one wedding gown for a client so far, simple, but it turned out quite beautiful. I just used a commercial pattern to save on the cost of time. After that experience, I would love to do it again, but explore into designing them myself and perfecting detail work.

Now, I am working on my own wedding gown (mock-up image below). I am creating the whole pattern from scratch and have most of it completed. I just have to finish a few detail decisions. Like, whether or not to use tulle or chiffon in my skirt. Tulle is actually in right now, according to Brides.com. The top is completely lace, a lace which took some time to hunt down. Half the cost of a wedding gown is just the fabric...

I do, however, have one problem with the wedding gown... well, with one type of wedding gown. The satin, strapless, A-line gown- I call, the "Every-Dress". It's a very popular and very affordable silhouette, but I've seen much better dresses. Like I said, this is the one time we get to dress up in a gown, something we wouldn't wear every day. It should be unique, and I don't mean one-of-a-kind, but something unique to the day. There should be something special about the dress and it doesn't have to be expensive to do it.

Masquerade work!

Sailor Jupiter is finished, on time and sent out. I'll post final pictures some other time. Right now, I am updating on my current many projects, starting with COVergence Costumes.

I am hard to work on the costumes from Hocus Pocus, starting with Winnifred Sanderson's jacket. The jacket is not only velvet, but hand painted. I ended up using stretch velvet bcause of the color and sheen. Also, the stretch velvet is synthetic and doesn't have a poor reaction to being ironed or washed.

I made my own stencils based on the original jacket. Unfortunately, getting decent images was very difficult, so most of the symbols just looked like balls of yellow, but I think the stencils I made worked really well. I used regular fabric paint, FolkArt brand. I was a bit worried because fabric paint tends to work better on natural fibers, but the paint soaked through, dried and I already heat pressed it.

Here is the front:
Here is the back:
Here are the sleeves:
Still a lot of work to do, but it's a start!

Guthrie and goings on

So, a quick update before I head out again.

I finally got a stitcher job at the Guthrie :D It's going well, but it means less time for sewing my own projects, thus no updates...

However, after this job I have some time to actually get my own work done. i.e. AD costume, prom dress alterations, 3 witch costumes, Dr. Orpheus and, of course, my wedding gown :) Oh, and painting the house! Yay painting!

Also, I have yet to see Alice in Wonderland, anybody got anything to say about it? Colleen Atwood is my favorite costume designer, but I think, Alice's aside, she missed the mark on this film. Particularly with the Mad Hatter. Hate it. Though, it could just be my fear of clowns and his overly "Bozo" hair making me question the taste level of the design.

I guess I'll have to actually see the movie and decide how I like the costumes. ^^

For Moondoggy!

So, I went a little pattern crazy yesterday and got to work on Con's masquerade costumes. I made a nice mockup of Winifred's coat :) Now I have that pattern completed (which is the most difficult one) and need to find an affordable dark green velvet (even SR Harris is expensive :p).

Hope you like, M-Dog!

Sailor Jupiter- Post 2

Puffy sleeves, waistbands and bows, oh my!

The next few patterns I just kind of went for. I measured out the armscye and the bottom waistband and just kind of went from there. The bow I drew freehand and evened it out using both a straight ruler and a curved ruler.

I stuffed the waistband and the sleeves with regular polyester fiber fill.

I attached the two pieces of the bow together with a band around the center, so it looks like a regular tied bow. Inside the top part of the bow, I also added a few layers of tulle for stability. It just makes the bow a little more stiff, so the fabric doesn't sag. I love my bow!! It's so cute!

Up next was the Fuku collar off the back. I actually just used the commercial pattern as is for this one. I bought white satin ribbon for the stripes, though looking back I probably should have gotten something on the bias because of the curve around the front. It looks fine, but it could have curved better.

The zipper was the hardest part. Putting a zipper in stretchy lyrca fabric is very difficult when the fabric wants to pucker. But I think I got it worked out. Just a slow process and removing a few stitches here and there.

Next to go are the skirt and the gloves. I am using the basic skirt pattern from the commercial pattern and adding a lot of length to it (silly tall girls) and for the gloves I am also using a commercial pattern with a few additions.

Sailor Jupiter- Post 1

I am currently working on an adorable Sailor Jupiter costume for my friend's little sister. Anime Detour is approaching quickly, so the pressure to complete the costume is on! I've gotten pretty far and I'd like to show my progress...

This is Sailor Jupiter :)

Here is my fabric (the green as actually much brighter than the camera lets on)

Here is my pattern, which has been completely altered to fit the right seams and shapes

Observe

Because there is a seam on Jupiter's costume, I split the pattern under the bust. The pattern has been readjusted to fit my friend and length added to the waist. Plus, I curved the front and back down a bit to reach a small point. I then removed the bust dart because I am using a 4-way stretch lycra to build the top, a dart is unneeded.




Tada!
Next Step: Puffy Sleeves, Fuku and Waist Piping