Diary of a Costumer

I still haven't touched the Regency dress. I feel like all my will to sew on it has gone out the window. I should probably put it aside and do other things, but since it is tech week this week, I know I'm not going to get any sewing done anyway. I have a ton of lines in this show, so I've really been trying to stay focused on it. I did do an alteration commission last week on a formal dress, which literally took up all of my Mon-Thurs sewing time, even though it wasn't a big alteration. And on Friday, I styled a few wigs for the show, which is fun because they're nice quick projects that I can do in front of the TV. 

Here's a couple of the wigs I styled:



The other thing that has really been on my mind is that my dog, Lion was diagnosed with glaucoma in one eye about 1.5 weeks ago. I have been raising money through a GoFundMe, and had scheduled his surgery for May 14, so that it's after the show opened. But then this weekend, he developed hyphema as well, which is basically an emergency situation. So now this morning I had to drop him off at the vet for eye removal surgery. I'm going to miss that eye! And I've been sort of on edge and worried all day since I dropped him off. Hopefully I'll be able to pick him up in a couple hours. But anyway, for the last couple weeks, I've been more focused on him, so instead of sewing, I just snuggle with my puppy. 

You can see the hyphema in his right eye in this picture:



My goal is that Monday, once the show has opened and I have evenings free, I'll jump back into sewing. I'd love to finish the Regency dress and get it out of the way, but by then all my materials for the 1890s gala gown skirt should have arrived, so I might do the skirt, then mockup the corset, then go back to the Regency dress while I'm waiting on corset supplies. Though of course, part of me just wants to do the 1890s shirtwaist and skirt project really quickly, too, and get that out of the way instead. I guess I'll just have to wait and see how I feel on Monday. 

So, I may not have sewed much this weekend, but I did style my Rapunzel wig! It started with this wig, which I got on ebay. It was basically a blonde wig (of a nice quality and color) that was braided into one large braid. However, it lacked all the detail that Rapunzel has on her head. So I unbraided the wig, and wound up using nearly two packs of a jumbo #24 kanekalon braid, and about 1.5 packs of a silky #613 braid. (Of course, I bought a ton extra, so now I have three unused #24 blonde braids, if anyone is interested in purchasing them off me!) I wound up having to go to three different hair stores to find them. Thank goodness we were down in the Federal Way area anyway on Saturday! Neither braid color was an exact match, but by mixing them all together, I think it works okay.

The first thing I did was straighten the two kanekalon braids, since they have that weird frizzy kinkiness in them. I was really pleased to see that it easily straightened out with my flat iron on its lowest 300 degree heat setting.

I attempted to make a weft of the #613 to tuck up into a french braid on the right side of the wig. Most of it wound up falling out, though. Note to self (or others) - do not attempt to french braid an app 50" wig. You will probably get very tangled and very frustrated (like I did). Although it looks rather messy, I decided to keep the french braid in (I'm sure it would have been just as bad to attempt to undo it) and do a regular braid on the other side.

First, though, I had to do the bang swoop. I was hoping to get it to stand up a bit more than it did, but I think it gives the right overall effect. Unfortunately, I wasn't really thinking about the swoop when I ordered the wig, because this wig has a fixed center part, and only has a skin top underneath the part section. Luckily, I was able to pull some hair over from the other side and make it work. I hairsprayed the top and the underneath side, and then blow-dryed it on high heat, but low air until it dried, keeping my fingers underneath to keep the shape. I think I did that about 4 or 5 times until it got the shape I was liking. I pinned the bottom into place underneath the layers of hair I was going to be using for braiding.

For the braid on the other side, I took half of one of the #24s, separated it into three pieces, and braided it into the wig, attempting to blend the colors as I went. It made a nice big puffy braid which is quite pretty, and I pulled a couple pieces from the rest of the wig to help it curve around the back of the neck to the other side.

Then I basically tied those two braids into a loose knot, and used a claw clip to fix it in place. There are three claw clips total in the wig. I was hoping to be able to use bobby pins, but the hair is too thick and heavy, so it just pops the bobby pins right back out. Anyone have any suggestions? Otherwise I'm just going to hide the claw clips with flowers.

I did do another small french braid alongside the first french braid, but I only picked up three or four pieces into it before it met up with the other braids. The wig came with two tiny braids already done at the base of the neck, and I added two more, which I looped around the larger braids, and then incorporated into the big braid. Once the two larger braids met, I braided them together, weaving them back around to the other side of the head. I found, in braiding the larger braids, that it was very helpful to section off each piece of the braid with small plastic hair ties, to combat the wig's urge to tangle.

Once I got to the other side, I added in my other #24 braid and my #613 braid, holding them each by the end (instead of folded at the middle like they normally come). I ponytailed each one separately, and then rubberbanded them again to about half of the wig hair that was hanging down. I separated them all into three pieces, so that each piece was equal parts wig, #24, and #613 in an attempt to blend the colors. I also tried to make sure that the tiny braids were fairly evenly distributed. Then I started the big braid. It was very difficult to do because it was so long! I braided until I got to the end of the wig hair (which was quite a bit shorter, at this point) and then rubberbanded. One of the other alligator clips is also holding the top ends of these two incorporated pieces into place.

I didn't do pin curls when I tried it on yesterday, but I will definitely be doing them when I wear it for real. I'm going to try wearing it all day on the day of my Halloween party, so that I will hopefully be able to tell if I can manage the weight when we go to Disney World. At this point, I still need to add all the flowers, and I'm also going to try to rig some sort of snap set up to attach the top of the long braid to my shoulder so that it is not so heavy.

And if you made it through all that, here's a few pictures!

I wore my new orange gown on Saturday night for the ball in Port Townsend, and Gina of Beauty4Ashes took a bunch of pictures for me! The third picture is an attempt to recreate the fashion plate.


And an attempt at a hair selfie. :)

I made a packing list yesterday for PortTownsend, and realized there were still several small things I needed to make! And when I came home after dinner last night, I got into a "make all the things" mode, and worked until after 1am on a bunch of different projects.

First, I tried to figure out what I would do with my hair for the Seaside Bustle gown. I hated what I did with my hair at CosCol, but still didn't want to do my fallback curl pieces that I use for Ravenclaw. Yesterday afternoon, I went out and bought two regular braids and a wavy braid at the hair store, to use for the orange gown and the seaside bustle, so luckily, I had a lot to work with. What I've decided on is a really long braid circling the crown of my head, and making another circle as a loose bun, and then the wavy piece (which I also braided) is in a loop coming from the center of the loose bun. I think it works.

After that, I put together/altered four bracelets for the orange gown, because I realized when looking at the fashion plate yesterday that she's wearing a ton of bracelets. The ones I made are pretty terrible, but they'll do. I didn't have thick enough wire for the clasps, so hopefully the ones I made won't get too out of shape while I'm wearing them. I just need them to last one night! Here's a pic: The one on the right was a longer bracelet to begin with, so I remade it - the other three were chains I had in the stash, and I just altered the length and put the clasps on.


When those were done, I switched to 1830s hair. Before I started the bustle hair, I had made four loops to use out of one of the braids. I sort of used Kendra's buckle method, with some alterations. I couldn't find any wax paper, so I wrapped an aerosol hairspray can in aluminum foil, coated one side of an 11-12" piece of hair with the jewel-it glue, wrapped it around the bottle and bobby pinned the ends together, and then coated the other side of the hair. When the glue dried, I slid the foil off the bottle and carefully detached the hair from the foil. Then I put them under a piece of the cardboard hair package, and laid one of the bustle braids across it, so that they would squish into the teardrop shape I wanted. They stayed there for probably an hour (in which time, I glued the feathers on my archery dress hat). After that, I took the remainder of that package of hair, braided the part I hadn't cut chunks off of, and made it into a base for the loops. I've bobby pinned the loops to the braid and to each other, and now they look like this! I will be adding large ribbon loops to it today to make it look like the fashion plate.


But the night wasn't over yet. I also realized that I had no reticule to match the orange gown, so with the tiny scraps I had left, I cut out three pieces for a small reticule. I sewed up the silk outer, and a cotton liner, and then finally called it a night. I'm going to trim it and finish it up today.

I have achieved Hair of Great Enormity! Thanks to  American Duchess's wig tutorial, I managed to turn a $13 wig from China into a lovely hedgehog wig. So naturally here's some pictures.

I made the mistake of putting the hat on my head before taking pictures without it, so please excuse the minor hat-head.

The original wig listing

Pre-styling:                                                                      Post styling:




I know I need to do a good bit of smoothing to the outermost layer, and I want to neaten up the curls hanging down, but overall, it's mostly done.

I also started my first ever hat today - it's the Belle Epoch hat from the Butterick pattern. I had intended to finish it, but then the wig got here. So you should hopefully be seeing a post with that tomorrow.

Lastly, where do you all get your hat pins from? Do you make them from hat pin blanks (and if so, where do you find the blanks), or do you just buy them premade (in which case is there someplace that is a decent price)? And what length do you all prefer?