Boots & Bloomers!

I am not sure how I managed it – I am leaving for vacation today, and it seems I will still be able to provide posts while I am gone, for the most part.  Craziness!  Maybe it was because the hubby was in Hawaii that I have so many things to post about?  Regardless, here you go!

Last Friday evening, Kelly came over after work to sew costumes.  We are both attending DragonCon and so now that she has her machine back from the shop, we could sew together for the event.

Well, she sewed a lot.  I strangely had not a whole lot to sew.  After making the second glove for Project Breyna, I wound up working on my Steampunk costume’s boots.  Which was just a lot of hand sewing.  I also did some cutting.

Here are my boots, prior to any sort of adornment.  They are knee high, but I discovered that they will sit slightly lower than the cuff of my pants, so I bought a pair of black tights to wear underneath to attempt to hide it.  I hate tights / pantyhose, so that will be pleasant.

And here are the various things that I bought to decorate my boots with.  Some gears, which Elizabeth (who was sadly ill this weekend and could not sew with us) found at the store for me, various silver-ish chains, and a bunch of keys.  I separated everything into two piles, one for each boot.  What is shown below are the trimmings for a single boot.

I did not realize it, but the black key has a pin back on it, so it is a little stabby.  I wound up not using it.  Ask Kelly how long it took me to do this silly boot project.  I swore I was going to stop many times, but I kept going.  I even contemplated asymmetry in the costume, and considered the idea of not putting any decorations on the other boot.  At this point, I need more jewelry clasps prior to doing the other boot, but my plan is to make it the mirror image of this one.

I hand sewed the jewelry rings onto different places of the boot.  Then I attached a ring and a clasp to the chain or decoration, and clipped it onto the boot rings.  The gears are sewn directly on the boot in some cases, and in others they hang from the chains.  One problem I foresee is that when I walk, the chains jingle quite a bit and the keys tend to get stuck in the chains a bit.  I might have to add more connectors to prevent some of this movement, not sure yet.  BTW, I should totally wear this with my rock and roll dog pajama pants, don’t you think?  From the front…

The  bloomers Kelly worked on had lots of lace and lots of trimmings.  Here is one of the neat trim bits she did down the front of the pant leg.

The bloomers are meant to be shorts length or so, to wear underneath a dress and petticoat.  I don’t remember the anime that the character who wears this is from, but I am excited to see the outfit when done.  She added multiple layers of lace, and I was pretty amazed at how fast and neatly she was doing her work.  Me and my slow single boot project were jealous.

In face, Kelly had nearly completed her bloomers by the end of the evening, which was fairly late (or early, depending on your take on it).  Sadly, she realized in the end that the bloomers were going to be fairly large on her, so she has some work to do in order to make them fit.  I was still impressed, and I think we came up with a decent plan for her to modify them.  Here she is holding up the bloomers.  I think she is also watching Harry Potter on the tv behind me rather than looking at the camera … we had a marathon while we sewed.

All in all, it was quite a productive night.  When I was done with boots, I spent my time cutting out 3 different patterns, and fabric for one of them.  I wound up making that garment over the weekend to, so that will be coming up next.  The other two patterns are for dresses.  I am excited to say that some pretty knit fabrics that I ordered in the mail arrived today, and I intend to use one of those for a dress.  The other dress fabric I pre-washed over the weekend, and just have to spend the time cutting.  Not looking forward to THAT marathon …

Cheers!