Thoughts

Today was decently productive, worked on the head dress and on my self directed project. I think I'm just really ready for this term to be over and I just want all my projects to be done now, it's a wee bit frustrating. I've been wanting to do some more "for me" projects but at the end of my days I'm just so pooped from pushing myself through Uni projects that I don't have any energy or will to work on projects for me. I suppose I'll just have to wait a bit longer until I can get to them. Here are some pictures of things I'd like to do, or do different versions of...

Possibly make a necklace that is similar to all three pictures

Head Dress

Been working on my head dress more, really trying to be productive today. Thought it was a bit frustrating getting started. I went into Uni because I feel like I don't work in there very often and I should come in and use the resources that are available to me. I began planning out my design plan and it dimensions

after planning it out I went to go borrow a solder iron since we're not allowed to use our own things unless there PAT tested (which takes a couple weeks) only to find out that I couldn't use it in the costume studio, despite the fact that there aren't any fumes. So I'd have to go over to the metal work shop even though they have very limited space, but I couldn't do that because I wasn't dressed 'appropriately', so back home I went  to do my soldering 

It was SOOOO much fun I haven't ever had a chance to solder something besides a mother board before so it was a great experience. 

 After I put together my shape I attached it to my skull cap by bending back the bottom of the wires to create right angles. I then cut a slight in the fabric and slide the angled wire under the fabric, after which I sewed it on with some black thread. I was really excited about the result i think it's a great base for further work :)

 

Beading Notes

Forgot to post some pictures of examples and books and such from a brief beading meet up we had with Clair Porter so here they are.

Just a little side project

So I had this white long shirt that had a stain at the bottom of it. I decided to try and tea dye it to make it all as dark as the stain. however, what ever the stain was from it really took to the tea and the stain got darker than the shirt did. My next attempt to save my shirt was to make fabric flowers to cover the stain. I decided to add extras so it didn't look unintentional I also decided to change the buttons so that the buttons at the top could match the buttons that I wanted to use as the center of the flowers. 

 original with stains :(

 not quite sure what I'm going to do with the false buttons

and after all that I'm not really sure if I like the shirt and will probably either give it to a family member or give it to charity. Oh well, a good experiment none the less.

art deco head dress

Been working on my head dress as well, still waiting for some of the soldering material to show up (via snail mail) so that I can go further with it. But for now I've added wire to the rim, covered it with top fabric (a black velvet), and marked out were the primary beads/sequins will be.

Self Directed : New Direction

So I've been working on going in a different direction for my self directed. I've been looking at children's beauty pageants and today's ideals of beauty. I think that it's really interesting that all through out history we see children's costume as the miniature version of adults, and now in today's society it looks as though it's starting to revisit that ideal. It's also strange that today's ideas of beauty are focusing more and more on youth, we try to look younger, the models in most high end magazines have the body's of 12 year old boys, not to mention that they themselves (the models) are getting younger and younger

We have this obsession and love of the youthful look, and then only a fine line away we're all looking down upon pedophilia and talking about how disgusting it is (an opinion that I do agree with).










Yet in the pageant world there seems to be some sort of strange taboo, the children are getting tanned and made up to look like miniature adults but often put in little dresses that give the impression of them being dolls

                                                                   a natural picture of the same little girl (Eden Wood)

So that's what I'm researching for the most part and looking into and as the actual practical project I'm making a pageant dress.

Some of the flowers that I'm hand beading. I'm currently beading them on the same shear fabric that I've used over top of the bodice. I'll then cut the flowers out and hand sew them on to the bodice.

After cutting a bodice pattern on the stand I cleaned up the pattern pieces. I like to keep my patterns in muslin because they're easy to store and use and last far longer than paper patterns.

 Here's my first muslin of the dress base, I didn't make the pettie coat, it's actually an old tutu I had laying around. In the end I will be completely construction the entire skirt

back view

 Here are the fabrics I'm using with (above) and without (below) flash. the fabric in the middle is the main fabric that the bodice will be constructed out of, the fabric on the left will be layered over the top fabric to give it that extra sheen as well as keep it from being to 'party dress' and 'cheap' looking. Both fabrics will be in the skirt but the main skirt fabric will be that on the far right.

 Here is the bodice sewn together, without (above) and with (below) flash. Yes all those little stitches you see will be taken out, they are just there to keep the bodice fabric and the shear top fabric from moving about when I sew them together...pins can only do so much.

inside view of bodice

time so far in dress
45min
2.5 hrs
=3hrs 15min

time in beading so far
4hrs