Cherry Blossom Shoes

So I really like cherry blossoms.  I also have multiple days a week I need to be in closed-toed shoes for proper lab protocol.  So I mixed the two.

I've had this idea for a while, but have never really had the opportunity to get around to doing it until now.  It also helped that I was recently at Target and saw these white canvas shoes by Mossimo for $17.

Blank Canvas

 The label in the shoes said that they were made entirely of man-made materials, but didn't go much into detail about exactly what materials they were.  I decided to use my Rit DyeMore dye instead of just the regular dye since the regular dye is better for natural materials.  If I do another pair, I might try using the regular dye and see how it turns out.

Removed the laces

I used about 3 tablespoons of dye in about a gallon of hot water.  After I wet the shoes in the sink, I submerged them top-down in the dye for about 5 minutes.  I was a little nervous that the boiling water would affect the rubber, but so far, so good.

Submerged in the dye

The color was darker when wet, but the change wasn't as drastic as it usually is when I work with the regular dye.  After I rinsed out the excess dye and let the shoes dry overnight, they dried down to a nice pale blue color.

Immediately after rinsing

In the meantime, I dyed the laces pink to match the pink fabric paint I would be using to paint the blossoms.  I used a tablespoon of Rit Petal Pink dye and a teaspoon of Rit Fuschia in a little under a half gallon of water.  I took a gamble using this since I had no idea which dye the laces would take, but it worked out in the end.

Tea kettles are so convenient for dye.  Also note the red towel on top of the red rug.  I'm well prepared for this one.

I attempted to ombre the shoelaces so they would be light in the center and darker on the ends, but it didn't really work out well.  I guess I didn't have enough dye to really make a difference in the saturation, but I'm not heartbroken over it.

Attempting to ombre

I rinsed the shoelaces out as well, and left them to dry overnight.

Everything fully dry

Now came the fun part.  I pulled up a picture of the cherry blossom bow tie I painted for Casey for reference, then basically did the same thing.  I made everything a little bigger since I had a bigger space to cover.  I used Tulip Soft Matte fabric paint in Chocolate, Crimson Red, and Petal Pink.

Branches and red blossoms down.  Also enjoy the Hansen's Sno Bliz cup cameo.

Sorry I forgot to rotate all my pictures before I uploaded them.

Once the fabric paint dried, I laced the pink laces back in.  All in all, I'm pretty happy with how these turned out, and I can't decide if I can't wait to wear them, or if I don't want to wear them because they look so nice and I don't want to get them dirty.  Until I figure it out, I'm sure I'll be crafting again.

Getting pictures of these was a struggle.  And of course this is the only good one.

Costuming a Show

The entire cast (myself 6th in from the right)

Hoo boy.

Myself as Bambi/Princess Kickapoo

For the past few weeks, I've been in a show.  Not only have I been in the show, but I choreographed half of it and have managed to throw together 16 costumes for our spring musical: Curtains.  The total inventory included 6 "Kansasland" dresses (pattern found here), 5 "Thataway" saloon girl dresses (here, C), 3 men's vests (here), 1 blue dress for "Tough Act to Follow" (here), 1 Madam Marian dress (here, A), and 1 Princess Kickapoo outfit.

"C'mon honey, we need to do Thataway, rightaway"

 I have to admit, I think the "Thataway" costumes (despite not being entirely finished) were my favorite.  I thoroughly enjoyed having an excuse to wear giant feathers

I'm sorry your costume doesn't fit right Niki, but in my defense, we're all "In the Same Boat."

If I have learned one thing from this experience, it's that when you find yourself with down time months ahead of the show, use it to do a lot of work.  After 3 consecutive all-nighters before opening night and still having dresses not hemmed, ruffles not getting sewn on skirts, and my own costumes not done until 3 hours before curtain, I wish I had spent a little more time earlier in the production doing bigger things instead of tiny building blocks.  It may not have been my best work, but at the end of the day, everyone had a costume, and none of them completely fell apart.

Chilling backstage

So one of my favorite things is foreshadowing in costumes.  As they say, hindsight is 20/20, and I didn't think to take pictures of most of the details before we put all the costumes away.  I put a green front panel on my prairie dress for when I was a very green Princess Kickapoo later, Niki got the same blue material front panel that matched her blue dress later, and Georgia had a red gingham front panel since she spent most of the show in her red dress.

Speaking of the red dress, I will admit, I did some genius work with it, even if it wasn't perfectly executed.  So a short summary of Curtains:  Jessica Cranshaw, who plays the leading lady Madam Marian in the less-than-great show of "Robbin' Hood" dies mysteriously onstage after the opening night finale, and is controversially replaced with the show's lyricist, Georgia Hendricks.  Since the two actresses playing Madam Marian had different dress sizes, in order to only make one dress, I didn't install a zipper, took the back in by three inches on either side, then sewed in ribbon loops to make a laced back.  This way, the different measurements of the actresses could be accommodated without having to make two separate dresses.  

Also, gingham printed fabric is very thin and does not handle the stress of movement well, so almost everyone had armpit holes in the prairie dresses by the end of the run, but those weren't visible to the audience, so I didn't worry about them so much, but it would've probably been a good idea to either add more fabric, or to reinforce a bunch of the seams with some iron-on interfacing.  I didn't line any of the costumes, since everyone would be wearing appropriate undergarments anyway.

I could go on for days about this project, what went right, what went wrong, what I would've done differently, etc., but at the end of the day I managed to, for the most part, costume a show.  And I'm probably never going to do it for free again.

Engraving Flasks

The struggle of figuring out what to get for someone who has everything has been around as long as gift giving holidays themselves.  I love giving handmade gifts, but let's face it, they're not always practical.  Luckily for me, a few months ago, my boyfriend casually mentioned that he didn't own any flasks, and he thankfully didn't go out and buy one for himself.  I figured a plain steel flask would be a little boring, and Casey's not super into all the cheesy booze quotes that can be found on most novelty flasks.  He's a bit more snobby classy when it comes to his whiskey, so I figured a personalized flask with his name on it would be the best course of action.  Besides, this way I could experiment with this cool stainless steel etching technique I saw on Pinterest, and he doesn't have to worry about anyone stealing his alcohol.


The first thing I did was order the flasks. I decided on this six pack from Amazon, since I figured I would need one to practice on, I would probably mess at least one up, I didn't know how many I wanted to make in the first place, and I have my own 21st birthday coming up (29 days, but who's counting?). I also picked up a funnel, but that's another story.

My initial setup

If I learned anything from high school physics, it's that Christmas lights are a great source of cheap rubber coated wire in a pinch.

The next thing I did was assemble the mechanism.  I used this tutorial as a guideline, and kind of adjusted things as I went along.  I eyeballed the salt and vinegar solution and stirred it with a cotton swab for the test flask.  The most important thing I learned from that is that the solution became more potent the longer it sat.  The first etching didn't go so well, but after the sodium and chloride were allowed to fully dissociate overnight, the next few sets went a lot faster.

I read that the current was too small to do any damage to humans, but I wrapped my fingers in electrical tape just in case.  It ended up being unnecessary.

The first couple marks I made were just to play around and test out the etching mechanism.  Then, I practiced using stickers to make a stencil.  I saw this guy on YouTube who said that nail polish was actually the perfect paint to use, since it won't let the current pass through and, in my case, was readily available. Looking back, I probably should have used white because not all of it was dissolved when I put the acetone on it, but a subtle hint of red isn't very detracting.

Anyway, I first tried putting the stickers on, painting the nail polish on top, then immediately removing the stickers.  Most of the nail art tutorials on Instagram do this, so I figured it must give a cleaner line than waiting for it to dry.  I was wrong.  It smudged a lot, and made a huge mess.  What worked much better was to allow the polish to dry overnight before I tried to take the stickers off, and it gave a much cleaner relief.

The first flask I did for Casey turned out a little more rough than I had liked.  I took the capital C and D stickers, stuck them to the flask, used electrical tape to tape out a square around them, then just went to town burning the metal away.  I stippled the cotton more than I rubbed it for this one, so it ended up looking vaguely like hammered metal, but I think it looks cool and rustic.

Everything's so shiny that it's hard to get a decent picture of the finished flasks themselves.

For the next one, I arranged his name in stickers, painted over them, waited a day for the paint to dry, then removed the stickers.  It was harder to see the difference between the original steel and the etched steel since there was a smaller surface area and it was hard to compare with the bright red polish between the two, so I went ham.  I did a lot more tracing motions this time around, and ended up with a pretty cool looking etch.

Some things I learned:  Definitely do this in a well ventilated area.  I started in my bathroom with the fan on, but my dorm bathroom is tiny as can be, so I moved over to the stove I don't use because my burners don't work, and used that hood as a sort of a fume hood.  The reaction does produce toxic chlorine gas, but not enough to do serious damage unless you hover over it and purposefully inhale as much as you can.  Also, it smells kind of bad.  The cotton will start to discolor as a result of the reaction, but it doesn't have an effect as far as I can tell.  The only result of using the discolored cotton is that the salt solution will start to turn that burnt brown color on the steel, but it is easily wiped up with a paper towel.  Definitely let the vinegar solution sit overnight.  I used the same solution for the three days I was working on this, and it seemed to get stronger with each day.

Before the etching

After the etching

Honestly, I think the hardest part of doing this is making sure the stickers are aligned properly before you try to paint over them.  This is a technique that definitely works better for shorter quotes, as longer ones will probably tend to get tedious.  I will say that I am looking forward to the one I'm going to make as a 21st birthday present to myself.

Note: I was so excited to give these to him that I forgot to take a picture of the finished ones together, so as soon as I get one from the man himself, I'll post it here.

Making a Tutu

Here at Florida Tech, every fall, the president hosts a huge event called the President's Picnic.  There's free food and drinks for students, entertainment from his band and other music groups from campus, and lots of fun and games sponsored by different clubs.  My primary organization, the College Players, is always asked to dress up in costume, walk around, and generally entertain children.  When I heard that this year's theme was going to be "Vintage Carnival," I was super excited and had visions of tightrope walkers in my head, and I knew I wanted to make a tutu.  I had just bought this book, and figured with a couple of months, I could definitely make a pretty decent tutu.  Well, months turned into weeks, which turned into days, which turned into hours.  I promised myself I wouldn't procrastinate this badly again, but doing a musical and having to pick up a lot of extra parts takes a lot of time and energy.  Before I knew it, it was roughly 24 hours before I had to report to the theater to get ready for the picnic.  Luckily, I at least had the foresight to stock up on tulle and fabric when Joann's had a huge sale the week before, so I had all my fabric and findings that I needed.  I figured at this point I would have to revert to a romantic tutu, so I decided to just go with that.

Soundtrack provided by Pandora.  This section sponsored by The Producers! I believe it was "The King of Broadway".

I had never worked with muslin before, so I figured why not give it a go here.  I didn't have the time to figure out how to make a proper basque, so I tried to make a belt thing instead.  I cut a piece on the fold about 4 inches tall and the length of my waist circumference, plus about 4 inches.

I wasn't trying too hard for it to be super perfect. I wanted it to sit really high on my waist, and I figured that the bodice would cover most of the top part anyway.  Now comes the part where I kind of messed up.

Monty Python's Spamalot

So my original plan was to cut a bunch of tulle the same length as the "basque," then with the extra 4 inches, it should overlap and there wouldn't be a gap.  Well, I forgot that a single rectangular piece of fabric creates a tube, not a bell, when coiled, so after I attached and sewed the first 4 pieces of tulle, I realized my error and started over.  I ultimately used 16 yards of different colored tulle, with the colors staggered between layers.

I ended up using about a 4:2:1 ratio of pale pink, pink, and coral.

My supervisor was watching me the whole time, judging me.

"Stop fussing with that tulle and give me more food!"

 It took 3 pieces of tulle to complete each layer, and I staggered each layer about one inch apart from each other. I wound up pleating the tops of each piece of tulle and pinning it to the muslin.  I didn't want the different lengths of tulle to show, so I planned for the outermost layer to be the longest, so that layer was sewn on first, with mostly pale pink tulle.  It wasn't until the second and third layers that I began to add in more color.

After one layer to make sure the pleats would fall the way I want them to.

One full layer, comprised of two smaller layers stacked on top of each other.

A few more layers later, I had somehow crammed 16 yards of tulle onto the tutu.  Somewhere between the first and second full layer, I realized that all the tulle sections within the smaller layer ended at about the same place, and might result in a gap if I were to do a turn, so I started staggering the layers so the tulle would be evenly distributed.

Detail on the pleating

It would have been wise to cut out a matching piece of satin from the muslin before I started sewing tulle onto it, but I didn't have that kind of foresight.  I cut a piece to match, figured that no one would see the "inside" of the skirt, and made sure that at least the outside looked nice when I sewed it on.  I kind of just finagled with it until it looked presentable.

I did at least finish the edge of the outside section.

I needed help to sew on the hooks and eyes, mainly to mark where they go, so I sewed on the eyes, and waited until I got to setup where someone could help me place the hooks.  It ended up being too loose and I had to safety pin it anyway, but that's beside the point.

I lucked out that the default tulle length was the length I wanted the skirt to be.

Next, I moved on to the bodice.  I figured that since I had worn so many in my career as a dancer that it couldn't be too hard.  I quickly drafted out the basic shape on muslin, made cuts where the book described, used those patterns to cut out the actual muslin pieces I used with seam allowances, then used those as a pattern to cut out the satin.  

Drafting the pattern.

By this point, it was very late, and I wanted to get dinner with my boyfriend and go to sleep, so I just basted the muslin to the satin, then sewed those pieces together.  

So much pink

I ended up restitching a little bit around the bust and the waist to make it fit a little bit better, but ultimately, it didn't fit well.  As much as I love my fish, he's very bad at helping me pin to make alterations.

Mostly finished

I wanted a longer bodice to cover up most of the "basque."  It also had a little more of a vintage feel than the shorter ones I was used to wearing.  I also realized right before I started making the bodice that I had forgotten to run out and get pale pink bloomers to wear underneath, so I knew I would have to wear my lavender leotard underneath, which I had to cover.  I decided that since sewing on the elastic shoulder straps, along with the hooks and eyes, would only take about an hour, I decided to save all of that for the morning.  Ultimately, it ended up not fitting that well, which doesn't surprise me.  I was walking around with a ridiculous amount of safety pins in it, trying not to look like a sack of potatoes.

Excuse the poor lighting.

I found a brooch I made for Vintage Hitchcock in the costume loft, so since I didn't have the chance to do any embellishing on the actual bodice, I slapped that sucker on there and called it a day.  Now that I have more time, I hopefully will have the chance to open the bodice back up and do some alterations.  I'd like to add interfacing, boning, and beaded embellishments at some point, as well as altering the fit itself.  It definitely needs a lot more work, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

Ice Dye - Updated

Some wet, some dried

So I was browsing Pinterest, as always, and was looking for new dye techniques.  I came across a few posts with some really pretty fabrics that were made using a technique called ice dying.  I decided that it would be a really suitable pattern for making bow ties, so I took a trip to my local craft store, ran into one of my aunts and one of my cousins there, got some necessary supplies, and got to work.  I ended up following this tutorial.

Just pretend like I rotated it.

This is my first time working with soda ash, so once I see how this turns out, I might consider investing in more from here on out.  I just wanted to use the normal storage tubs I always use, so I found this rubber basket thing that I decided to cut the bottom out of and I figured I would use that as a rack on top of the tub.

A long 20 minutes later...

After the fabric soaked in the soda ash, I dumped out the water and used the same tub.  I ultimately decided on scarlet, purple, and royal blue dye.  The tutorial said to use plastic spoons, but I couldn't find any since Mom rearranged the pantry, so I just used these little bathroom cups.

Clockwise from top: royal blue, scarlet, purple.

A quick trip to the kitchen for ice later, I was ready to start the fun part.

The setup

In retrospect, I probably didn't need to cut the basket apart, but it makes potential adaptation to a larger container easier.

About 5 minutes in

It's hard to believe, but somewhere under that ice that looks like charcoal is a piece of fabric about to have a lot of color thrust upon it.

I thought the melting ice looked really cool. 

Well, I have no idea how this is going to turn out.  I guess we'll find out in about 24 hours.

UPDATE

This is a second batch.

I ended up rinsing the first piece of fabric after about 16 hours because I panicked when I looked at it and saw a solid black lump.  I was worried that I used way too much dye and that it would be so dark that all the colors would blend together into some form of dark mass.  Once I washed it and let it air dry, I was pleasantly surprised.

The bottom left one is fully dry.

In the picture, the light purple one in the bottom left corner is the first piece I did.  The other three are still wet from being washed, so I'm looking forward to see how they look once they're dry.  I did let those sit for about 24 hours though, so the color had a little more time to saturate the fabric.  They may turn out a little lighter than what I would like, since I used about half the amount of dye in these than I did for the first one.  I look at them, and they remind me a lot of watercolor paintings.  I really like how this turned out, and will definitely be using this technique again in the future.