Making costumes at work

Yep a small sample of what I do at work. Sew like crazy on industrial machines.  These are parts of costumes for the play In the Time of Trolls.

the sand cape of one of the winds and the flower cape of another wind and the start of winter cape for another wind... there are four wind capes in this show.  When they are completely done all four will lite up.

The hat in the back ground that is yellow we made and embroidered on the embroidery machine at work not in that order. Above are two of the four wind capes being made this show all for will light up I am making 3 to 3 1/2 of them then the designer will light then up like the one below.

Yes that is me sewing in this photo...thanks to the designer of the show Carolyn.  I am working on the ribbon skirt for the troll princess in that photo. You can see the designers pin board in front of me as I was working on it.  The skirt itself you can see below and close up the detail of in other photo below that the skirt is  about 90 percent done I should finish it today.  The university came by yesterday to make a promotional video for this play.  Yep of all days to wear a  hat oh well...  May end up in that video either sewing or ironing or something that I have to do as I make this costume as they were just filming everything we were all doing and I was just trying to get the project done so I could go on to the next cape.

Ren fairs and my family

Watching the joust from the royal box

My family loves Ren-fairs and all that type of stuff.  We belong to a local guild of fairies where we go to different ren-fairs and entertain the small children. This is a service we do not get paid to do it.  It is a charity type thing we do.  My daughters and I all go together.  This last one my middle daughter was is so she was not there.  

just a couple that I like their costumes

We go in the costumes I made from A Mid Summer Nights Dream a few years back we just take turns as to who wears which costume.  I also love watching the lion dancers, fire eaters and the jousting this fair had all of the above.This is the lion dancers I video taped them.  I enjoy watching these types of things.  I have watched Lion dancers since I was a little girl going to China Alley in the neighboring town where I grew up.



Watching Fire eaters is also fun.  My middle daughter has a friend from Microneisa that does fire dancing and is a fire-eater as well.  So I was interested in what this one used since each person seems to use something different.

 This is the liquid he uses to spit fire.

Lastly we watched the jousts.  This was an interesting Joust.  One of the competitors was a woman that does not happen to often.

Meet William Shakespeare and the merry people from A Mid summer Nights Dream.  Mustard seed Cobweb and Puck

Me and two of my girls

Since my daughter was home ill we all went with out food for the day so we could bring her home a gift from the fair meet sting.  Me and all my daughters agreed to this.  Things are tight so if we want something extra something has to give so no food to eat but daughter feels loved and  not left out.

Amazing origami and string art

Most who fallow my blog know my children love origami and kirigami.  Today my family and I spent the afternoon at BYU taking in a puppet show ( A  Mid summer nights dream) and going to the MOA ( museum of art) and just looking around.

These are free exhibits (the string and origami ones) so if you happen to be in the Provo area of Utah you should go.

There is a real amazing show on Origami there.
Warning this is super photo heavy ( over 50 photos)

Origami Helmet

My oldest daughter has been working on this project on and off for a while.  At times it drove me nuts with little bits of paper all over the place.  But she was being creative.  She designed the helmet herself.  Yes it does fit her head. The design is that of a Phoenix  interesting that she sort of made it an ice Phoenix (which does not exist except in her head)instead of a fire one.

Over Thanksgiving break she finished it.  The reason she decided to finish it was so that she could enter it into an art show the same on the fairy house was entered into.  At the time I am writing this post i have been notified that she got best of show for this but I am not able to tell her.  So this is set to post several days after I have written it so that she can be notified in front of her entire school.  The people that judge the show noticed our last name on several entries and stated it must be a very talented family.  The part i love about this is that my children this year two out of three are not in art classes but doing their own things and these are the items they came up with.

This is a video tutorial that shows the way she folded these little bits of paper to make this item.  This technique if you Google it usually called a 3d fold in origami.

My children have made me easter eggs in the past using this technique with lots of different colored pieces of paper.  sometimes they use the computer mishaps when printing if you do that just make sure the ink part is on the inside when folded if you want a clean look.

July RPLAL finished with video

 

Here are the two flower centers I promised.  Had a crazy week and the time to take the video when no children were around never seemed to happen.  I don't like to make videos when there is the possibility of people, TV or radio talking in the background.  But sometimes it just can not be helped.  Luckily the whole house was asleep when I made this video.  So no phone or door bell in the back ground.

 

When I finally did have the silent moment to sit down found out I had accidentally left my camera on and the battery was dead.  You know life is like this at times.    So charging them praying children not to wake up lucked out.  I had left it till the last two fillings before the project was done so I had one shot on this.  Otherwise I would have to start an entirely new project and do the tutorial on that one, which would have  taken a lot more time of course to get it to the filling needle lace stage. The video also shows how to make the twisted brides/bridges, bars ( to many names for the same stitch).  The stitches I do on the even one can also be done on the odd spoke I just showed it on even.   The other is harder to do on an even spoke as you would have to either go over two or under two at the end of every round to try and keep the weave pattern which would make a funny little jog in it and not be pretty to me.

You will notice I have this both as a collar and a doily look in the photos I have yet to decided which way I like it better.  You are welcome to give your in put on that I would appreciate some feedback.  I think I am leaning toward collar.

 

more filling stitches for July RPLAL

I worked on this some over the weekend not as much as I would have liked as I was not feeling good most of the weekend.Below in the read more area are the links to these stitches and others posted below and a video too.

I also worked the background filling stitches.  A lot of times I will use wrapped brides for the filling in the back ground but I wanted this more open and lacier there so I just did twisted ones. I also worked on odd and even spirals. I set a small piece free from the pattern so you could see the background I hope a little better.

Filling= double net stitch
an example of single net stitch (filling four) is here the only difference is that in this one  you go through each loop twice instead of just once.

background twisted brides

and odd/even spirals/English wheels/ sorento  on twisted brides.  I will be posting this part ( a video) on Friday or sooner if I get a chance (this is part of the back ground) but I need to complete that video for it and have not had a  chance yet so please if you are doing this wait for the video and I will add a link here to it on Friday if all goes as planned.

For the very center of the flower I used  this stitch it is a mixture of twisted brides and blanket stitch after making 2 1/2 brides make 4 blanket stitches then finish the twisted bride.  Diagram is working top down I was working flower bottom up. Thus the reason for our blanket stitches being opposite.

but you could also use this one if you like it better I used this one before on the holly berries.  If you want to see a little more detailed look at filling number 3 in this post.

 For the parts surrounding the center of the flower I used
Filler #7 Wheat seed stitch

After you finish all the filling stitches, cut lace free  and remove basting threads.  Then either sew in a piece of fabric in the center section or use as a round collar for a pull over sweater for teen to small adult or yoke on a child's dress.

Another option is to fill the center section with double net stitch and make it solid centered.

Costume design

I saw this movie "Snowwhite and the Huntsaman" this last weekend.  I loved the costumes. I would love to do costuming like this so cool.  Hey I even know how to make maille and where to buy the supplies maybe someday.  For now I will still do odd costuming jobs around here.

vikkel braid two color

I want to learn to do this just putting this here for my refference

Two-color vikkel braid from Julie Sprague on Vimeo.
Another way of doing this

Video: Fabric Yo-yo tutorial

One of my  friends wants to teach her children some beginning sewing so she asked me to make a tutorial for her.  So that she and her children can learn this and are able to review it several times.  These are  fabric yo-yos also known a Suffolk's puffs and Buttons in USA during the 1930'sand 1940's.





Other useful info on my blog: If you just want to see some examples here are all the posts on my blog about yo-yos  alot of them.   In these examples you will find how to lay them out what some ideas are for things I have used them in.  Also there are tools out there if you want fancier ones.  Some talk about other people that do yo-yos, examples of vintage yo-yos, there is a lot of info on here.  Have fun searching through it all.  Also good luck teaching the girls you will need to let me know how it goes.

Video: Removal of basting threads from RPL

This is sort of self explanatory but just encase someone has a question on this.

Video: Removal of RPL from Pattern

Removal of RPL from pattern.  Sorry my phone rings half way through in the video and my door bell rings at the very end too.   No one else called during the day or rang the bell it just had to happen in the 11 mins. I was making this video. I apologize for that but the rest of the tutorial is fine.

Part 3: Video center filling stitch

This stitch is similar to an English whirl but not exactly the same.

Part 2: Video Leaf filling stitch RPL

This filling is good for oval shapes.

Part 1: Video Fagoting for crescent shapes RPL : 1500 post

This is a fagoting stitch that works well for crescent shapes.  Meaning shapes that are larger on one side than the other.

On a total side note this is my 1500 post on my blog wow just noticed that.  I also want to say thank you to all those that commented on my last post it means a lot to me.  For some looking at the stats below and reading all the nice comments on the last post tell me there are nice people who come and visit often most  just don't have much to say. thank you

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Unraveling cord & sewing to another cord / video tutorial

Here is  ruffly a 6 min video I put together to help the two Romanian point lace groups that I admin on Ravelry and Flickr.  I am hoping this will help other people here too that read my blog.  Since there is not much information in English about this type of lace.  I hope to be able to make a pretty good data base here for  people to reference instead of doing what I had to do it.

video on Oya

Found a video on Oya, not in English but very good.  Some day I will find some one local who can speak English and show me this as I know I miss some things like the type of thread and things of that sort in the video.  Her speed is amazing there is a woman who has made a ton of Oya in her life.

Fiber arts for good health...

I have been telling this to people for years this is why I tell people I carry projects everywhere helps me to have a clear mind and be able to focus on what is happening around me and keep me sane ;o). Knitting For Your Health - CBS News Video www.cbsnews.comCBS News video: Knitting For Your Health - An easy way to relieve stress may be at your fingertips. As Priya David reports, studies have found knitting to be relaxing and restorative.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4917058n

Ben Franklin's ... music

Ben Franklin played the armonica this person is dressed as him and also playing a armonica it is pretty cool sounding.  Oh he, Benjamin Franklin, also invented it. It is glass bowls mounted side ways the clear ones are like white keys on a key board and the gold ones are like black keys thus your are able to play cords more like an overall instrument than water glasses.  It is attached to a fly wheel that spins by use of a treadle just like an old sewing machine.  Pretty cool to me anyway. Look what kids doing their homework teaches the parents.

Lets Dance

crocodile stitch

This is a similar in concept, meaning three-dimensional of look, to the snow queen. It's not the same, but it's pretty cool anyway. It is in Portuguese, but I thought it was neat enough for you to see. If you know how to crochet the visuals should be enough for you to understand how to do this.
I might have these in the wrong order; each one is roughly 10 mins., some are much shorter. She talks a lot; wish I understood her better because I am sure with that much talking I must be missing something. There are 10 videos. I have figured out she is explaining how to make the dress starting at the bottom hem up. I am not interested in making this dress, just the techniques employed.


There are some patterns on Ravelry that incorporate this technique if you like it. I have two of them, just have not looked at them yet. I wanted to try and understand what the stitches did before I read the patterns so in case they don't make sense to me.

part 1 explaining first row

part 2 explaining second row

part 3 explaining 1st round of decreases

part 4: cutting and attaching thread to side to make front section of dress while making the back section open

part 5: filling decreases on back and showing back opening

part 6 continuing decreases

part 7 (haven't a clue what she was showing here) I think she is saying to go straight up sides till you get to under arm.


part 8 after having traveled straight up the side with out decreasing. Also showing how to secure stitches to go under arm

part 9 decreasing around the bust edges, sloping in

part 10 just showing lacing of the dress and the cord to make the lacing



update July 31, 2011
Found some more tutorials on this in English though



Update Aug 3 2011
found a pattern on ravelry for free with a tutorial if you wan to try it follow link below