Tag Archives: Fancy Dress

Supreme Commander Servalan

29/06/2013 8:25 am \ 63 Comments \
Put him on the fastest scout ship available and send him here. No flight plan is to be filed.
 That’s against Bureau standing orders, Commissioner.
 Who do you think wrote those orders, Borr? I did. So do as I say, and do it now.
(source)

So, what on earth, or should I say … off earth, is going on here?
Well, we are going to a Sci-fi party, and it’s been a while since I made something ridiculously glamorous so I decided to embrace my inner superbitch, and go as Supreme Commander Servalan.  This requires some mega-fabulous frocking up and I get to behave like an obnoxious vamp all evening.
DOUBLE WIN!  I can hardly wait!  😀

source

“I find unsophisticated clothes quite amusing.  Like unsophisticated people.  Obvious, but amusing.” (Servalan)

It’s been a while since I clapped eyes on Servalan doing her evil thang on the small screen… I checked out this video and also this one for a trip down memory lane, and to re-acquaint myself with her style.  She has the most amazing and dramatic wardrobe.  I chose this dress above from out of the plentiful fabulosity.  It’s winter here.  It’s cold.  I want to be covered up!
I bought some cheap and rather temperamental silver-foiled, slightly stretchy stuff from Spotlight and two packets of crystal beads in different sizes and got drafting.  I drafted the pattern myself and have provided more extensive details below, if anyone is interested in all that technical mumbo jumbo  ðŸ™‚ but basically I used the idea behind the gathered hole design from Pattern Magic.

Speaking of Pattern Magic, I received an email from Anna-Brit, who is curating The Pattern Magic Index.  This site is aiming to bring together makers and enthusiasts of the series with images of people’s creations and link-backs.  If you have used any of the books in the Pattern Magic series to make things and would like to be included on the site, then send her an email at thepatternmagicindex(at)gmail(dot)com.

Details:
Silver sandals from Zu, from donkey’s years ago

Drafting and construction details:
I started out with my custom fit Tshirt pattern and  spliced it with my plain little skirt pattern, and lengthened; to get a front and back.  Then cut out a portion from the side front to be the flat beaded section at the waist.  The remaining portion is cut and splayed out as per the gathered hole instructions in Pattern Magic 1.

The back is quite plain and featureless, basically a fitted Tshirt dress. Like Servalan’s dress, the skirt has a long slit in one side, for walking ease.  Unlike Servalan’s, which has a centre back zip, mine has enough stretch for it to be a pull-over the head affair. 
The sleeves are based on my plain Tshirt sleeve, with the side seams tapered out in a gentle arc to a wide wrist, in a bell shape.  
The neckband is a plain rectangle, cut to fit the neckline measurement, and sewn on using this method.  It is interlined with a piece of old cotton towelling, cut from a (clean) old towel.  Sounds deeply unglamorous, right?! but I didn’t have any batting on hand which, yes, would have been ideal, and didn’t want to spend money on invisible things like that in a costume and the towelling was the perfect thickness and stiffness for the job.  It is securely stitched to the neckband facing around all its edges on the inside.
The beaded section is done on two layers of the fabric for stability, and then with a layer of plain woven white cotton sewn underneath, to contain all the threads and for extra strength.
Being so shiny it’s hard to tell, but the fabric is actually almost sheer! so I made a little attached slip/liner dress as well, using the same pattern pieces, shortened and the front without the gathered feature, obviously.  This is attached to  the shell of the dress at the armscyes and the neckline, and conceals those gathering edges and that white bead-backing fabric inside.

I didn’t hem the sleeves or the hemline.  The fabric is blessedly not frayable, and anyway, it’s a costume!!  I will be lucky if I get to wear it more than a handful of times, really.

I have a little anecdote about this fabric too… we have a History.  About twelve years ago I put up my hand to make half of about fifty costumes for little girls, including Cassie, performing an Abba number in a dance recital, and this was the exact same fabric I was given to work with along with the breezy advice to “just run them up on the overlocker”.  I didn’t have an overlocker back then, so borrowed my sister-in-law’s brand new overlocker.
Man!
That experience nearly put me off overlockers for life!  There is just something about this fabric … I destroyed almost one whole costume’s worth of fabric, just trying to get the settings for this fabric right on the overlocker.  Nothing seemed to work.  Either the seam was too loose and looked wobbly, bobbly and like a messy nest of loose and tangled threads; or too tight and threads were snapping left, right and centre.  I re-threaded that machine countless times.  Luckily it was not my own machine, if it had been mine I might even have heaved it into the bin in a rage….  When I finally hit on a setting that gave me a nice neat looking seam with no bobbly bits anywhere; the seam would just pull quite wide apart when any pressure was put on it.  I was tearing my hair out.  Finally, I hit upon a plan of attack; I overlocked using the setting that “looked” real nice but pulled apart under pressure, which was for “looks” only, then went back over every seam with my regular sewing machine using a straight stitch, which was actually holding the seam together. 
Finally, success!  
Just before the dance recital, I surreptitiously checked out the costumes made by the other lady … and they all had the pulling-wide-apart seams!  I was new and didn’t want to rock any boats so just kept quiet and hoped for the best.  Luckily no little girls’ costumes fell apart on stage!
Obviously, I sewed this dress using the described double-sewing method  ðŸ˜‰

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Navy bloo-p

21/04/2013 9:10 am \ 37 Comments \

Hello  ðŸ™‚
So, it turns out that navy blue is just as difficult to photograph as black… oh well!
I have made a skirt.   This used to be a pair of extra-huge, navy blue, corduroy jeans, that I bought from the op shop yonks and yonks ago for a fancy dress party.  They’ve been sitting in my refashioning pile, awaiting a new life.  The fabric is perfectly good but they haven’t been worn ever since the aforementioned fancy dress party, because they did not fit anyone in my family.

My new skirt is based upon a firm favourite skirt pattern, Vogue 1247.  I unpicked and re-used the sturdy silver jeans zip from the old jeans in the centre back, as well I took off and re-sized the waistband with its attached belt loops, and managed to retain the silver jeans button and its corresponding buttonhole, both in situ from the original jeans.
The pockets are lined with blue-and-white stripe fabric, leftover from Sam’s Christmas shirt.

Due to the fabric limitations, I had to cut the skirt to have a centre front seam, as well as the standard centre back seam.

Now you might be thinking; if the jeans were so big to start with, how could you possibly have “fabric limitations” in making a rather small skirt out of them?  Well, when it comes to re-fashioning a new garment from an old, even if your old garment has plenty of fabric it still can be quite a trick to get even a smaller new garment out of it.  This can be due to several factors, such as awkwardly placed seams, or if your fabric has a nap.  In the case of this old jeans to new skirt refashion, there were both of these factors to contend with.  Even though I was starting with satisfactorily extra-big trousers, they were cut in an old-fashioned, late 80’s, early 90’s style, with wide hips tapering down into narrower ankles.  This is the exact opposite of what I wanted in my little skirt; which is narrowest at the waist and gets wider going down to the lower hem; plus there was the nap of the corduroy which you always want to be running down the garment, never ever up the garment.  Plus there were big slanted hip pockets in the jeans, getting in the way of cutting anything out from the top of the jeans.  Plus, a lot of the old bar-stitching was done with an incredibly strong thread, almost like fair dinkum fishing wire or something, making unpicking a sheer joy.  That was heavy sarcasm just there, by the way.  So in the end, it took quite some careful measuring and giving and taking a few centimetres here and a few centimetres there from different pieces, to get out the pieces I wanted.  This is a lengthy justification for why my skirt has a centre front seam, as well as a centre back seam.  So not ideal, I know, but it was the only way the skirt could be!

Details:
Skirt; Vogue 1247 modified, refashioned from a pair of old navy blue jeans/trousers… my review of this pattern here
Top; the hoodie from Pattern Magic 3, blue knit, details here
Thongs; Havaianas

D’ya want to hear/see something funny?  This will give everyone a laugh…. I actually made this skirt back in January of this year, specifically for my high school reunion! and wore it, and photographed it on that day for the blog, but I never put the photo up here…  I decided I just looked silly.  Now I’ve decided that it’s not toooo bad, so here it is!  I made the skirt because I got this whacky idea in my head to kinda reproduce my old school uniform for the reunion.  I found my old school tie, which is tiny! and wore it.  The other pieces are from my regular handmade wardrobe, but it was such a hot night that I left that blazer in the car…
Yes, it was silly… but it was fun!
So, this outfit below is a pretty close representation of what I used to wear to school, every day  ðŸ˜€

Details:
Skirt; Vogue 1247, as above
Top; the bamboo shoot top from Pattern Magic, white linen, details here
Tie; my old school tie
Blazer; Simplicity 4698, navy blue silk, seen first here, and also worn in 6 different ways here
Sandals; Vincenza, from Soletta shoes

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Slender Man

31/10/2012 2:30 pm \ 38 Comments \

Have you ever played Slender?
Hands down.  Scariest.  Game.  Ever!
Our family has been playing this free-downloadable a bit…  and if you can first-time play this in a darkened room without emitting even one girly scream….? well actually I do not believe anyone can!
When I was a kiddie growing up Halloween was completely unknown in Australia.  When I had my own children we’d heard of it by then but it was not observed at all.  Nowadays it is creeping in! stalking up on us like Slender Man upon its prey….  ðŸ˜‰

And Tim wanted to be the Slender Man.
Of course one is interested in what one’s children are interested in, right? and the funny thing is that my adult children and their friends have Halloween parties and love to dress up, any excuse for a party….!  So yeah.  
I even went out today and bought some mini Mars bars too, in case we got some trick-or-treaters…. hoo boy, I am mellowing out; hehe!

I made a Slender Man mask.  It is as close a copy as I could get to a morph mask.  I made it using a white poly/lycra from Fabulous Fabrics; very light and thin and stretchy stooff.  The front has a “chin” and I put in a short zip at the back to help put it on over his head.  The zip I had leftover from when I was making these little jeans purses.

The verdict: True story…
I looked up and he was suddenly there, in the room, and I admit to a small double take.  
I’m like, “ooh that’s spooky, Tim.”
Silence.
“Tim?”
More silence.  Brief moment of freaked out hesitation… 
“Tim!?”
Finally he says, “yeah, so whaddya think?”
I’m like, ” Whoar, don’t scare me like that!!”

Later edit: don’t worry, Tim did not go door-knocking… this outfit was worn to a private party only  ðŸ™‚
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Who am I? (and a giveaway)

29/07/2012 3:23 am \ 46 Comments \

We went to a 70’s party last night; and can you guess which character from the 70’s I am?!?  At the time that she flitted into the public eye, this distinctive style of dressing that she favoured sparked a minor new love affair with oversized menswear for girls in fashion circles.
And just to make this fun, I offering a giveaway to a correct guess, open to everybody, and to be drawn out at random on Tuesday 31st July…  You don’t have to be entered into the draw if you don’t want, just say “no entry” in your comment, but please feel free to have a go at guessing who my character is; just for fun if you like!  ðŸ™‚
The pattern I am giving away has the same flavour, yes?…   Vogue 8756, sizes 8-16 and still in factory folds.  This is a pattern generously given to me by Myrna, and unfortunately I can see I am not going to get around to it so I am spreading the love by offering it up to a good new home  ðŸ™‚

Details of my costume:
Shirt; Burda 8497, white cotton, details here
Trousers; Burda 7944, gunmetal blue linen, details here, and these trousers styled in 6 different ways here
Waistcoat; borrowed from Tim’s wardrobe
Tie; borrowed from Craig’s wardrobe
Hat; op shop
Shoes; Sandler, from an op shop

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Old things…

17/11/2011 8:13 am \ 18 Comments \

… this will be the very last of my “old things” posts.  I promise.
I’ve done a mammoth sort-through of the photos and I think this is it!  (heaves a sigh of relief…)

Firstly, since this is the only garment in this post still in our possession (apart from the Grim Reaper come burqa outfit, that is); a cardigan I knitted for Craig.  It is knitted in the fair isle method.  Above is a picture Craig took of me wearing his cardigan on a holiday last year (isn’t he sweet, giving his cold inadequately-dressed wife his nicely pre-warmed cardigan to wear, hmmm?  What a gentleman!)
And some close-ups of the cardigan I took today…
showing the right front, and at right the wrong side of the fair isle knitting… (as is correct, the yarn is carried over at the back with no weaving in, only if the distance is four stitches or less…)

Now, some costumes…
Sam as “Link”.  I thought he was so cute in this.  He loved this little outfit and often wore it just for everyday wear.  (if you would like to see what this cute little jigger looks like now, go here…)

Sam, as… guess who?  Hehe, the famous Harry Potter, natch, compete with broomstick and Hedwig the owl.  
On that note, a black cloak is such a useful thing to have in the dress-up box.  It can be the basis for so many costumes.

Here is the same robe again, worn by Cassie as Hermione, complete with Garfield Crookshanks the cat… I threw together the skirt and tie as well, but they do not bear close inspection…!)

(I’ve shown this picture before… but here it is again just to illustrate the versatility of the plain black robe as a costume), Tim and two of his mates as Grim Reapers.  I made all three of their costumes.

Tim’s same costume again, this time worn by me to an Arabian Nights party.  I didn’t want to hire an outfit and I didn’t want to make some bejewelled thing I would never wear again, and as every single female I have seen in the Arabian region is dressed something like this, so I was like, yeah this’ll do.  I naively assumed other girls would have the same idea…  As it turned out I was literally the only female dressed (I thought) anywhere near authentically!  Also the only one not heavily sequinned and baring plenty of belly-flesh…  I confess the costume was abandoned when we decided to start dancing!  Don’t worry I had a skirt and top on underneath…

So, away from costumes now, and a ball-gown of my own design that I made for balls in years gone by (Sorry for the headless shot but my face and my hair look awful in this picture…!)  It is silk organza, overlaying silk and silk jersey layers, three layers in all.  It had a beaded and embroidered neckpiece, both beaded and embroidered by me, that is…

A dress I made for Cassie for her graduation dance at the end of primary school.  It was a simple turquoise cotton halter neck dress, the fabric had metallic gold lines randomly strewn across.  I also made her jewellery, of turquoise glass fish beads and strands of gold wire.

Some rather lovely (if I say so myself) wide-legged white pants that she wore almost constantly for a summer, and a little white broderie anglaise blouse.  Both my own design.

Going way back, and this shirt is from a Vogue designer pattern that I believe my mother still has my copy…  I know I also made and am wearing here the small-waisted and very flared skirt from the same pattern too…

I made both the skirt and top and also my necklace here.  The top was an experiment, I flipped the shoulders out in a twist to get this cowl-like effect.  It used to get a lot of compliments, believe it or not! (my friends are very kind)  We are sitting on one of our sofas in its first slipcover, made by me too…  (now looks like this)

Some more dresses.  I really regret now I never got any good pictures of these two.  The white and red one was rather nice; it was a dress, but looked like a matching skirt and camisole when I was wearing it, as it had layers in several graduated lengths.  My own design.  The patchwork dress, also my own design, took lots of planning; I bought the fabrics separately and cut and pieced them together, then made the dress.  It has smaller squares at the top, graduating to larger squares around the midriff, and then down to the largest squares at the hemline.  It is all on the bias, with a handkerchief hem, and I loved it!

A drop waisted, handkerchief hemmed dress of white dotted swiss voile, pictured against a famous backdrop.  I still have this Vogue pattern too, actually…

And that should be all folks!
From now on, I will only be showing newly made stuff here….

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Harvey Two-Face

30/10/2011 12:58 pm \ 18 Comments \

So, we don’t do Halloween here in Australia.  
But in the last few years; each year it seems my children are attending parties that have a Halloween theme.  Different from how it is in other countries; just invited kids together on the one premises, and no door-knocking and begging the neighbours for food, thank goodness.   This kind of Halloween is acceptable to me.
But still requiring a costume.
So true to form Tim informs me on Friday (the day before the party) that he wants to go as Harvey Two-Face, the character from Batman who has one half of his body all acid-burnt and crazy and evil, whilst the other half is a neat, respectable looking business man.  Can I make a half-and-half suit and shirt set fitting the brief in, like, 24 hours??  
Hehehe; funny.  Oh.  You’re serious?  Oh, well, no! sorry.  Superpowers, I have not….  But I could possibly divide up two old suits and shirts and splice them together….?  So it was off to the op-shop.  Naturally, Friday was a public holiday in Perth… oh, did you know, we’ve had a VIP in town??  Yeees, so almost everything was shut, but a bit of phoning around informed us that the op-shops in the CBD were open that day.  So in we went.  Entering Good Sammy’s I immediately scanned the clientele; hoping against hope to catch sight of Her Majesty… maybe checking out the hat and bag sections? … but  (sigh) she must have already been in and cleaned up before us because there wasn’t much of a selection.  
Disappointed!
But we did manage to score some rather paltry bits and pieces.

Bit of butchering and slashing and fudging together later…

It was all a bit mashed together; of course nothing slotted together easily and needless to say there are no HongKong finishes!, and I couldn’t help thinking if only I had had a bit more time and if Spotlight had been open I felt could have had some fun and done something really wild and funky with the “evil” side, but we did the best we could with limited time and resources.  And I was pretty chuffed that he got the Best Costume award!!
Later edit; yup, he did put horrible blotchy red and pink make-up on the evil half of his face later on…  so dya reckon he is sufficiently supervillain-ous?

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