Halloween 2011: Snow White, Twice.

I've had an exhausting and stressful week.  I turned to Diet Pepsi and my sewing machine for solace.  Okay, and ice cream too.  Shut-up.

Thursday night I finally attached the Snow White skirt to the bodice I finished weeks ago.  It did not turn out well.

HA! 
This is the only picture I took of Snow White v.1 for obvious reasons.  Scroll down to preview v.2 if this horrifies your sewing sensabilites. 

Clearly, this is hilarious and in no way is it wearable.  I'm going to be so sad when Abby gets old enough to have taste:  she loved this rendition and kept telling me how beautiful it turned out.  I had to bribe her out of it!  Her love for it was too sweet for words and made me happy to have a daughter.  I tried hard to not giggle as she twirled around blissfully in this awful, ill-conceived costume.  My husband did not even try.  He just laughed, loudly.

So what went wrong?  Many, many things.

- the bodice is way too wide.  While it fits well through the chest her shoulders aren't even close. This was the only part of the dress that I used the pattern for so I'm not sure why it turned out so huge.  The sleeves are half way down her arms!

- around the waist it looks like she's used the dress to shoplift 10 bags of marshmallows.  I did the gathering on the skirt with a cording technique instead of gathering stitches which turned out not to be that much easier and it just added bulk.  Sewing it to the bodice evenly proved impossible, hence the weird pleat on one side and the total lack of a subtle v-front.  It seems to be oddly twisted too.  WTF?  Terrible. 

- you can't tell by looking at it but despite the wide top it was super difficult for her to get in and out of it.  There were some contorted moves with her arms that had to go on, only to look like it was falling off of her when she was wearing it.

I waited for Abby to go to bed and then took the whole thing apart, stitch by stitch.  That took an hour.

And then I stared at the pieces.  And stared at them some more.  Then looked up Snow White dresses on Etsy to make sure I could order a decent homemade one from someone.  There were lots of pretty ones, (I especially loved this country-inspired cotton one, though Abby would be disappointed).  That said, I only found two with a velvet bodice and proper sleeves.  This one is $500 but is really nice.  Still, $500 for a child's costume and the skirt portion was cotton, not satin.  This second one is $329.99 and is stunning but I don't like the sequined ric-rac and the sleeves aren't inset, but red with blue ribbon strips tacked over, plus I intend to make the cape out of red velvet not satin.

I then went to the fabric store and re-purchased all the fabric in case I had to start from scratch. I didn't and now I have an extra 2 yards each of navy stretch velvet and shiny gold satin.  Can you return fabric?

Snow White, v.2 is much improved, though not perfect.

This dress cannot attend your party as it has a prior engagement with my ironing board.  Regrets.

-I cut the cord entirely from the skirt, separating the lining and tulle as well.  It was therapeutic in a way.  Luckily, I'd hemmed it a little long anyway so losing those inches was not a problem.

-Then I took a deep breath and my shears and sliced up the back seam on the bodice.  Scary!  I cut about a quarter inch out of center (lining included) and then folded in about a quarter inch on either side and hemmed the raw edges.  I then stitched a strip of black Velcro into it.  This not only made the bodice fit better it also made getting in and out of it about a million times easier.  It could still be a little tighter and if I'd re-cut the bodice I would have raised the neckline an inch.  It is a touch low for a 4 year old. The Velcro closure is a little bulky, but it will be covered by her cape eventually anyway.

Velcro to the rescue! 

-I ditched the lining and the tulle on the skirt portion.  Instead of doing a gathering stitch I decided to just pin pleats into the skirt portion.  It was a lot easier to control and keep even all the way around and I didn't have to worry about breaking a thread. The v-front could be more pronounced, but I'm okay with how it is now. 

-Now that the sleeves aren't at her elbows you can see how puffy and pretty they turned out. 

I also cut her hair this weekend.  My scissor skillz are immense!  Needless to say she loves it.  I may or may not try a crinoline under it.  We'll see.

Up next is Snow White's cape and the stand-up white collar.  Hopefully, that will go a lot smoother!  Couldn't possibly go worse.

Linkys!:

Halloween 2011: Homemade Snow White costume, in progress!

**update to this costume here**

Abby wants to be Snow White for Halloween this year.  In the past she's been a Sweet Pea, a Bee and last year she was Little Red Riding Hood.  She's 4, it's not a long list. 

This is a much bigger project then I anticipated.  I'm using pattern Simplicity 2817, purchased for a whole $1 during Joann's pattern sale last month.  The idea of paying $18 for a pattern now seems ridiculous. It was one of many I bought that day.  I was very pleased with myself.



Both these dresses are pictured with full crinolines which are not mentioned once in the directions or pattern.


I looked through the reviews on PatternReview.com and was convinced that I could complete this costume on my own.  Of course, I've already made a ton of changes so I'm not sure why I bothered looking it up.  Even without my changes, I'm getting the feeling I was wrong in my assessment that this would be easy for the following reasons:

1)  I've never used a commercial pattern before.  All the patterns I've used to date have been from books or the Internet or I've made them myself.  A commercial tissue pattern is a WHOLE other beast.  It's unwieldy and fragile, it has complicated encoded directions, I have to use transfer paper and a pattern wheel.  You have to line up notches and dots... dots I forgot to transfer. There are no step by step pictures, just confusing line drawings.  It's kind of a nightmare.


There are TWO of these evil things and two pages of double sided directions.

 2)  I've never made sleeves before.  You'll note in all my previous clothing projects I've managed to avoid sleeves.  Snow White, however, is not Snow White without her trademark (ridiculously complicated) puff sleeves.  The sleeves I decided to make using the directions from Craftiness is Not Optional instead of the applique directions in the pattern.  I'm not sure if this has made things easier or harder for me since I've never done applique work either, but I like the look of the insets so much better then teardrop shapes being sewn on top. That just seems... lame. The insets are far more "authentic" if such a thing can be said about an animated princess.  I also made the sleeves with the navy velvet instead of the standard light blue satin because I've always thought that was just weird looking.  Sorry, Disney.  Mine are especially puffy per Abby's request.


If you are making this yourself you'll want to make the arm bands longer then the pattern piece actually is, especially if you are doing insets instead of the applique, also I'd make the band a bit wider so that you can hem it.  Since the pattern doesn't call for you to finish the edge at all (!?!#!) I sewed on the cording rather then re-cut, re-fuse and re-sew.  I just skipped the elastic entirely.  On the bodice instead of inserting piping into the front seam I sewed the pretty cording down the front.  Just gives it a bit more detail.  Remember to apply it before you sew the lining to the velvet entirely.

3)  I'm not using cotton, but velvet and satin. And tulle. And cording.  All of which I've never used before.  The costume satin is awful quality too.  Fraying all over the place!  I feel like I have to self seam it before using it.   Plus, it and the velvet are both slippery for lack of a better word and don't stay pinned like I need.  I've had to pull out at least four seams and I'm not even half done with the costume!  The cording has begun fraying too and I have no idea how to fix that. 


The inside is Fray City.  I lined the bodice with bleached muslin that I added interfacing to for structure, but if I were to do it again I'd probably use a navy cotton or face the inside with velvet (assuming I could teach myself that technique).

 I'm not giving up yet, but I'm far from satisfied.  The bodice seems to be a little large even with the darts (another first), but I keep thinking she'll need to wear a turtleneck if it is too cold so I don't want to make it any smaller.  I'll be lining the skirt which it is not called for and putting gold colored tulle between the lining and the skirt (which is more a gold satin then a primary yellow) to give it fullness, otherwise it will just lie flat which is not what Abby will want, but I'm not sure how that will effect the gathering or how it will fit on to the bodice.  Guess we'll find out.

I have a lot more work to do to finish this. Not looking forward to the cape.  See!  This is why I start so early!

Other Crafts: "Make Your Own Damn Lunch" Back to School Printables & Garden Tour

Something free today!  My Etsy shop, Starbee Designs, is going on an autumn sabbatical for the upcoming wine grape Harvest.  I looked over my priorities and I just won't have the time for the next couple of months.  My current listings will expire soon and obviously any orders placed before then will be honored, but I'm not going to take on any custom work for the time being which is about 90% of all my orders. 

Cabernet Sauvignon.  Coming to a wine bottle near you... in two to three years. 

I was going to list a set of jar labels and a fun lunch checklist before school started and never got around to it (see! too busy!) so I thought I'd just share the labels here as a free printable.

2 inch label on an Elite Ball jar.  My sister wanted me to say "jamn" instead of "damn" which I thought was brilliant, but wanted to use these for more then just jam.  I like them filled out with pencil.

You can write in any flavor of jam, hummus, pickles, etc. and practice you penmanship. I was super bummed when I realized that my son's new school is nut-free.  No more PB&J on the days I can't figure out what to make him!  And we have sooo much jam from our garden..  My mother-in- law raided our garden and her own and made more then 300 jars of jam this summer (for my sister-in-law's wedding next year to give as favors), plus the dozens of jars we made for ourselves... and we still have berries!

Here for a PDF sized to fit  2.5 inch round labels (Avery 5294 or OL 350)
or
Here for a PDF sized to fit 1.67 inch round labels (Avery 5293 or OL 325)
or
Here for a PDF sized to fit 2 inch round labels (OL 5375 or print on a full sheet label or copy paper and glue to use with a 2" round punch)

Back to School Garden Tour!  Please note that I LOVE my garden, but am in no way responsible for it's glory or yummy output.  I have a single house plant named Harvey.  No tips or tricks from me.  We (obviously) can't eat all this.  We give a lot of it to friends and co-workers and take everything leftover to the Food Bank.  To keep myself from looking foolish I only took pictures of things I recognized;  there was an embarrassing amount I didn't.  Mostly trees. 

Never ending Raspberries.  Delightful!

The Green Bean Tunnel.  Abby plays here a lot and I can't blame her.  Great fresh and so many ways to pickle them.

Pumpkins!  Told you Halloween was coming up fast.  Expect carvings on the blog.

Artichokes.  I had no idea these were in our garden.  Not really lunchbox-able.

Apples- these are great baking, not so good for school lunch.  Not sweet.  Might be Gravensteins??  I don't know my apples.
*** I've been informed this is a rare quince tree, not an apple at all which would explain why you can't just eat them.***

Mulberry TREE, not bush, people.  Make as a chunky jam-chutney and use on meats, like duck.

Some sort of lettuce...  I think.  Embarrassing.
***My mom emailed me to say that this is in fact Swiss Chard and that she has served it to me multiple times in my life.***

Row of cherry tomatoes, I like to take these as snack to the preschool with mini whole wheat bagels and cream cheese.  The kids love it.

Strawberry wine barrels.  Jackrabbits will devour them if you plant them in the ground.

Cutting flowers for arrangements that I constantly forget to go cut and arrange.

A huge pile of garlic, dusted with redwood needles.  Who needs a root cellar when you have trees?   My husband roasts and pickles these.  They kind of freak me out like this.

Linkys!:

Sewing Project: Circle Neck Dress Disaster

Subtitle:  Who needs patterns anyway?  Me.

Preface:  Winston Churchill once said, "Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm."  So, let's just say I'm VERY enthusiastic about this project. 

It looks so simple and cute!  Although, seeing it with the distance of a camera I could work at Hot Dog on Stick in it.  Lemonade anyone? 

A circle neck is an almost universally flattering neckline.  I can't wear a scoop neck without looking like a hooker and a v-neck isn't always appropriate and can be difficult to find in dresses that aren't a wrap style (Diane Von Furstenberg's empire has never produced a dress that looked right on me despite claims that they look good on everyone). 
There are some pitfalls to the circle neck- it can look "maternity" very easily and I really do not wish to be mistaken for pregnant.  That would not do good things for my self-esteem.  And while it looks fresh and modern in some fabrics, in others it can just look dated and dowdy.  For instance, in Nancy-Reagan-red polyester gabardine. 

Pinning the back.  The shape of the collar is about the only thing I did well.

Notes about this collar:
-No, that center seam is NOT supposed to be visible.  But I sewed the front and back together the wrong way.  Mistake number two after fabric choice.

-Let's talk about the fabric choice; it is god-awful.  It frayed, a lot, and even with a hot iron I couldn't get it to lie flat at the (poorly) curved seams.  In turn this made the top stitching wonky.  If I'd edge stitched it I would have been in better shape, possibly, though it still wouldn't have been great. 

-My clear failure to cut on the grain properly just made me feel worse for that girl who got sent home on Project Runway last week for failing at the same thing and not being able to produce anything on the model other then a hot-glued feathered hat. 

-The front and back do not line up as perfectly as they should, though really with all the issues this dress has that is minor.

-Only good idea on display here is making the back collar a bit more square and the front rounder.  A totally circular circle collar would look costumey I think (frankly, a little Cleopatra-ey).

-I did use a pattern I drew on copy paper for the collar, however I thought for some reason I needed to have it in four sections (front/back in left/right) instead of just two (front/back whole curve).  I have no idea why I thought this.  It would have been much easier to have just two whole, self-lined pieces.  Also, I forgot a seam allowance when I made the pattern so the collar is not as wide as I'd envisioned. 

-Finished the collar before attaching the dress, which was lame.  I should have left the bottom of the collar open and inserted the dress portion into the seam.  This would have made the collar lie flatter and hid some of the imperfections in my cutting and I wouldn't have that weird seam of fabric across the back on the inside.

Pinning the pleat before I sew the front to the collar.

Arm holes actually turned out exceedingly well.

Finished you can see the pleat looks awesome and the collar looks frumpy.

Thick seams= ugly seams.

 Notes on the dress portion:
-Fabric choice is a very thin, light voile with yellow fuzzy polka dots.  It is totally see-through so I had to double up and make each side two layers.  But I didn't account for that in my cutting.    Nor did I account for seam allowances.  Again.  Surprise, surprise it ended up being too tight across my hips.  The double layers also made the side seams thick and noticeable.  Four layers of voile is still 4 layers.

-The arm holes are actually perfect and fit nicely, covering my bra and everything.  The little pleats I included to make it fit the collar better were actually pretty cute and added a bit of shape to the top.  I'd do that part again.  Maybe some gathering in the middle too.

-The rest of the dress has no shape.  For reasons unknown I cut the fabric straight instead of giving it any sort of line.  I wasn't thinking!  Plus it turned out really short and I didn't even bother hemming it.  I had my sister try it on yesterday since I don't have a dress form and since it's hard to see it well when on me and it was shockingly short (and too big for her).  I should have taken a photo.  Oh well!

Cost:  Mercifully, the cost was incidental.  The low quality gabardine was a remnant I purchased back in Feburary and the voile was $2.75/yard on clearnace.  This took me an afternoon/evening with many breaks to do other things.
Verdict:  Fail.  Insert enthusiasm here!  Why in the world am I trying to design a dress on my own??  Hopefully this is helping me learn or something.
I will probably try this again with many, MANY changes.  Just not today.  I need to recover. 

Halloween 2011: Cleopatra Costume Ideas & Inspiration

Where do the fashions of the 20s & 60s awesomely meet? Cleopatra!

Theda Bara and Elizabeth Taylor- bohemian and refined at the same time.   

My choice for a not-lame, not-slutty Halloween costume is the last of Ptolemaic rulers herself.  She'd be scary enough, she had both her siblings murdered after all.  I've decided to make the costume which is pretty bold of me since I haven't made anything adult sized yet. But what to make?

I purchased both these patterns, but they are pretty costumey. Which is fine, don't get me wrong, I just know how long sewing takes me and I'd like to maybe be able to wear it more then once. The floor length is not good for me no matter what and a chiton made of cheap charmeuse is kind of a one time deal. And not historically accurate, but I'm going to have to let that go since it's not like I'm going to be hand dyeing linen in order to have a proper Egyptian dress.

I have yet to figure out how to fold these back up to look like this. 

I opened one of the patterns and was overwhelmed. The sizing is totally jacked as it is a vintage, out of print pattern which I was prepared for- I read that a size 12 in a pattern is like a size 2/4 at the mall so I bought the "EE" set for 14,16,18,20, assuming I'd be making a combination of the patterns given my slight height and major boobage. The measurements look on target, but then look at these finished sizes for the actual garments! They are huuuuuge! Even for my generous bust line. 

A quick check on PatternReview.com confirms that these are WAY oversized and everyone who has made it has taken out several inches once they started to do fittings. So, I may have purchased the wrong set of patterns. Gumdrops!

I then started second guessing my decision to make the dress myself.  I could just buy one, I mean, a vaguely Grecian looking dress is pretty standard fair for women's formal wear and then I'd be able, for sure, to wear it again (all I own are jeans and cocktail dresses anyway, I don't have any in-between wear). I poked around on the Internet and found a bunch of things that might work with the right wig and makeup:

Might be my favorite.  Vivienne Westwood, $370.

My least favorite of those that were more literal.  Alexander McQueen, $1335.  It just feels like something my Aunt Carol would have hot glued and puff painted.  All due love and respect to Mr. McQueen's corpse.  Plus, the length would be terrible on me.

A tad formal, you'd have to imagine it with an embellished belt and a headdress for effect, I think.  LA PETITE S*****, $1600.  Far too difficult to knock off at my skill level and way too expensive for traipsing around with sticky fingered kids in the dark, but easy for me to wear again.

A more 1920s Cleopatra look, much prettier in detail.  Rue de Mail dress, $990.  Sexy!

I could never wear this.  It must be lovelier in person.  I'd hope.  Robert Rodriguez, $1160.

One I could buy and not feel bad not wearing again.  With a big collar necklace and a wig?  Instant Cleo.  And it's linen.  And it's cheap!  On Etsy, $56.00.  I do hate strapless bras though.

I still think I'm going to try and make one and buy only if I totally fail.  I bought the wig and these scarab earrings I already own.

Off topic rambling:  The earrings are fascinating as the setting is from the late 1890s/early 1900s, before the discovery of King Tut's tomb, so they belonged to a  fashion trend time traveller!  It would be like finding someone wearing Levi's in a photos from the 1860s-- sure they were around, but not popular yet.  The stone scarabs themselves are ancient so it's likely that they were custom made for a woman with a personal interest in Egyptology, just like the guy in the Levi's would probably have been a San Francisco gold miner. I once x-rayed a mummified cat that was actually a stork inside. There was a scarab in there too.

Back to sewing:  Maybe I should try this pattern?  The shorter length would be way better on me.  Instead of the tied shoulder I could tack it with thread and pin it with something gaudy.  Maybe embroider something on the other strap?  I'm open to any and all suggestions!

Cynthia Rowley designed. Might not be as cool when sewn by me.