Some fun sewing machines, working and not:
Steampunk!
The Crafty Chica does her thing
This is the same model as my main machine...in LEGOS. How awesome is that?
Is it wrong that I want to use these instructions on a sewing machine?
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Perfection Is the Enemy Of Good
Okay, I confess. When I last posted, I promised a Big Juicy Post. then I got busy. So busy, in fact, that I managed to forget which of several juicy possibilities I'd promised you. And then the whole project jammed up against "But I promised a really great post, I can't settle for something moderately interesting"...and, well, here we are months later, with no posts at all.
I'm going to try to change my mindset, and just post a couple times a week, with what ver I think you'll like. Possibly, some of these posts will end up being fabulous, but it's okay if they're just moderately useful, cool, or amusing.
I'm going to try to change my mindset, and just post a couple times a week, with what ver I think you'll like. Possibly, some of these posts will end up being fabulous, but it's okay if they're just moderately useful, cool, or amusing.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Nobody's Perfect
It's been too long!
Those nasty taxes have been taking up too much time. I promise I'll have a juicy new post soon, but in the meantime I wanted to update my last post, about English gable hoods:
Turns out, everything I said about them was pretty much wrong.
When I made my first gable hood last year, I based it on a well known source. I thought at the time that the odd engineering, with the flared front, seemed awfully complex, but any costumer knows that people in the past did weird things for weird reasons. So I went ahead and made it that way.
Then I started work on creating my own version for the Tudor pattern. You saw my previous conclsusion. But when it was time to actually make the final graded version of the pattern,I just could not come up with a method that would create a consistant pattern that wouldn't drive my customers to drink.
I kept thinking this couldn't be right, so I decided to take another look at the original source material, and the notes from my researcher, the wonderful Kimiko Small.
The first thing I noticed was Kimiko's statement: Something I do want to point out for both redraws is that the narrow band/frontlet ‘E’ is attached to the under structure close to the face, and hides the edges of the padded band RS. I have seen several recreated English hoods where the narrow band/frontlet ‘E’ encloses the face inside a box, which it does not do.
Now, I swear I have read every word of her research report several times. So why didn't I remember it when it actually came time to make a hood?
Part of the problem was a drawing I was following. It does show the frontlet sitting on the outer edge of the hood on one side, but on the other side of the face, it's done an Escher-like twist and is on the inside of the face! So it's no wonder I was confused.
I wondered if attaching the frontlet to the inside edge, rather than the outer, was part of the problem I was having. I cut a new one and made yet another manila folder mockup. It was better, but the difference in width between the back of the hood and the frontlet still caused the front opening to flare, making it twist.
So I cut another frontlet, the inner edge of which exactly matched the back piece. Voila! No twisting, no torque, and the whole thing sat properly on my head and hugged the sides of my face the way it should. The hood understructure is simply a set of flat panels, and could have been made of thin wood, possible shaped into a curve with steam.
So, I take it back. It is like wearing a box on your head, but a very carefully tailored, well fitted box covered with silk and velvet.
Those nasty taxes have been taking up too much time. I promise I'll have a juicy new post soon, but in the meantime I wanted to update my last post, about English gable hoods:
Turns out, everything I said about them was pretty much wrong.
When I made my first gable hood last year, I based it on a well known source. I thought at the time that the odd engineering, with the flared front, seemed awfully complex, but any costumer knows that people in the past did weird things for weird reasons. So I went ahead and made it that way.
Then I started work on creating my own version for the Tudor pattern. You saw my previous conclsusion. But when it was time to actually make the final graded version of the pattern,I just could not come up with a method that would create a consistant pattern that wouldn't drive my customers to drink.
I kept thinking this couldn't be right, so I decided to take another look at the original source material, and the notes from my researcher, the wonderful Kimiko Small.
The first thing I noticed was Kimiko's statement: Something I do want to point out for both redraws is that the narrow band/frontlet ‘E’ is attached to the under structure close to the face, and hides the edges of the padded band RS. I have seen several recreated English hoods where the narrow band/frontlet ‘E’ encloses the face inside a box, which it does not do.
Now, I swear I have read every word of her research report several times. So why didn't I remember it when it actually came time to make a hood?
Part of the problem was a drawing I was following. It does show the frontlet sitting on the outer edge of the hood on one side, but on the other side of the face, it's done an Escher-like twist and is on the inside of the face! So it's no wonder I was confused.
I wondered if attaching the frontlet to the inside edge, rather than the outer, was part of the problem I was having. I cut a new one and made yet another manila folder mockup. It was better, but the difference in width between the back of the hood and the frontlet still caused the front opening to flare, making it twist.
So I cut another frontlet, the inner edge of which exactly matched the back piece. Voila! No twisting, no torque, and the whole thing sat properly on my head and hugged the sides of my face the way it should. The hood understructure is simply a set of flat panels, and could have been made of thin wood, possible shaped into a curve with steam.
So, I take it back. It is like wearing a box on your head, but a very carefully tailored, well fitted box covered with silk and velvet.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Mad as a Hatter!
If you remember your Lewis Carrol, you know that March hares are as mad as hatters. So here's a hat post, in honor of the last day of March.
I've been working on the pattern for the English gable hood. That's the goofy one that looks like this:
The Gable hood is a surprisingly complex bit of engineering. If you make a simple "roof" shape, the thing looks like a cardboard box sitting on your head. The trick is to cut the frontlet, the border part around the face, with a wider angle than the back piece, so that it flares in the front. But if you cut the frontlet too wide, the whole thing wants to twist and looks terrible. The only way to get this right is to experiment a lot.
One of the things I like best about working with CAD software is that it's so easy to scale drawings. Rather than make full sized mockups, I scale the pattern pieces down to 1/3 size and print them out on card stock. Then I tape them together to test the patterns. This works best for things that are going to be stiff when finished, such as hats.
This has come in handy with all the iterations of the Gable hood I've made. Every little change of angle affects something else, resulting in many trial versions. Here are some of them:
After futzing with them all day, and littering a 20 foot blast radius around my desk with schnibbles of card stock, I think I'm satisfied with this one:
And that's just the undercap. There's still a box piece that fits on the back, the lappets, and two different veil styles. And of course, they need to be embroidered and jeweled.
If that's too much trouble, you could always go with the Margo's Patterns Deluxe Super Presto Easy Version:
What can I say, things get a little punchy around here when we're working hard. I'm not alone in this. Here's our General Manager, Doug, in what he says is a Tudor Baseball Cap:
Happy Springtime!
I've been working on the pattern for the English gable hood. That's the goofy one that looks like this:
The Gable hood is a surprisingly complex bit of engineering. If you make a simple "roof" shape, the thing looks like a cardboard box sitting on your head. The trick is to cut the frontlet, the border part around the face, with a wider angle than the back piece, so that it flares in the front. But if you cut the frontlet too wide, the whole thing wants to twist and looks terrible. The only way to get this right is to experiment a lot.
One of the things I like best about working with CAD software is that it's so easy to scale drawings. Rather than make full sized mockups, I scale the pattern pieces down to 1/3 size and print them out on card stock. Then I tape them together to test the patterns. This works best for things that are going to be stiff when finished, such as hats.
This has come in handy with all the iterations of the Gable hood I've made. Every little change of angle affects something else, resulting in many trial versions. Here are some of them:
After futzing with them all day, and littering a 20 foot blast radius around my desk with schnibbles of card stock, I think I'm satisfied with this one:
And that's just the undercap. There's still a box piece that fits on the back, the lappets, and two different veil styles. And of course, they need to be embroidered and jeweled.
If that's too much trouble, you could always go with the Margo's Patterns Deluxe Super Presto Easy Version:
What can I say, things get a little punchy around here when we're working hard. I'm not alone in this. Here's our General Manager, Doug, in what he says is a Tudor Baseball Cap:
Happy Springtime!
Friday, March 27, 2009
To make of sewing something attractive and cool with men of today and convince him of that he can sew without loosing him virility!
Maybe I should just post this one to Ingrish.com.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Court Costume Re-make
I'm selling an costume on Ebay. http://cgi.ebay.com/Stunning-Elizabethan-Renaissance-Gown-Plus-Size_W0QQitemZ230331182262QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item230331182262&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1730|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A1|293%3A1|294%3A50
It's actually a remake of this mess:
Here it is now.
What a difference. I took the skirt and bodice apart, re-trimmed them, and put them back together. Then it sat around for a few years because I still hated the way it looked on me. I added beads and jewels to the forepart and underskirt, made a new French hood, and wore it for about two hours at a CostumeCon. I finally faced facts that the gold colors just don't work for me. I was planning to make new sleeves and forepart in some other color, when I broke my Ipod, so I decided to spruce it up and put it on Ebay.
I thought that was going to be an afternoon's work. Ha! It ended up being easier to pretty much remake the bodice than it would have been to get rid of the fraying edging. Thank Goodness I still had scraps of the fabric. I added tabs to the waistline, which made a huge difference in the looks. The tabs were cut out of my last remaining scrap, and the largest piece I had left after they were cut was about 1"x2".
We'll see how this does. I have a few more outfits I'll probably never wear again, so maybe I'll get them up for sale, too. Tell your friends!
It's actually a remake of this mess:
Here it is now.
What a difference. I took the skirt and bodice apart, re-trimmed them, and put them back together. Then it sat around for a few years because I still hated the way it looked on me. I added beads and jewels to the forepart and underskirt, made a new French hood, and wore it for about two hours at a CostumeCon. I finally faced facts that the gold colors just don't work for me. I was planning to make new sleeves and forepart in some other color, when I broke my Ipod, so I decided to spruce it up and put it on Ebay.
I thought that was going to be an afternoon's work. Ha! It ended up being easier to pretty much remake the bodice than it would have been to get rid of the fraying edging. Thank Goodness I still had scraps of the fabric. I added tabs to the waistline, which made a huge difference in the looks. The tabs were cut out of my last remaining scrap, and the largest piece I had left after they were cut was about 1"x2".
We'll see how this does. I have a few more outfits I'll probably never wear again, so maybe I'll get them up for sale, too. Tell your friends!
Blackwork(ish) Fabric!
JoAnn fabrics has a fabric in stock right now that is a pretty good simulation of blackwork embroidery. It's a lightweight cotton, like a batiste, and the embroidery is in lengthwise rows, alternating one that's about 1" across and one that's 1/2".
This fabric could be cut into strips to make collars and cuffs, or you could make an entire smock or shirt out of it. You could also be very Elizabethan correct and stop the embroidery at waist level, using a plain fabric for the lower half.
If you want it, get to JoAnn as soon as possible, because this stuff is flying out of the stores. If your store doesn't have it, they may be able to get it from another store. Here's the SKU number: 128-6889
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