Seersucker Social 2012

It was a weekend of biking and extravaganza!  Saturday was the Dandies and Quaintrelles Seersucker Social.  You may remember the Tweed Ride Cidell and I did in the Fall.  The Spring version is a garden party.  I was out of town for it last year so this was my first time.

Unfortunately, I had a terrible cold and made the HUGE mistake of trying to take medicine for it Friday night and ended up literally not sleeping at all.  No decongestants ever again for me.  Ever.  So I wasn't feeling great but was determined to join the party.

I didn't get any photos of actual biking (we did the long ride--a little over 8 miles), but I think this photo proves that biking was involved!  There were hundreds and hundreds of bikes parked all over.











After meeting up at Ft. Reno Park and wending our way through Upper Northwest Washington, DC, we ended up at the Hillwood Estate, the home of Post cereal heir Marjorie Merriweather Post.  It was my first time to visit the estate and it is just gorgeous.  Unfortunately, I didn't explore too much because I was pretty much dead on a picnic blanket the whole time, but there are a few photos in my flickr set.






Picnicking was the main event, with food trucks if you hadn't brought your own and St. Germain cocktails available for purchase.

There were also activities, if that fit your fancy.  There was a band with swing dancing, the wandering violinist to the right, croquet, hula hooping, and golf putting, in addition to just wandering the grounds.













One of the great things about the Tweed Ride and Seersucker Social is the opportunity to wear a hat!

In case you didn't have a chance to get one, they had a hat-making table with all kinds of fun papers to form into a suitable head-covering.
















I had much fun designing my look, and even got to bust out some of my vintage gloves.















 I also finally got around to making bike bloomers.  I've been meaning to do it for ages, as they will be much cooler than wearing bike shorts under my dresses all the time, as I do now.  You can read more about them here.


























































And here is the complete look!  Reviews to follow on the various components.  Thanks Cidell for joining me!  This wasn't all our biking for the weekend--On Sunday we rode 25 miles in Baltimore's Tour Dem Parks, Hon event.  But that is a story for another day...

All photos are here.  The flickr pool of all photos from the Social is here.

Retro Air Hostess Pillbox Hat Tutorial

When planning this costume, I knew a pillbox hat would be an essential element. While making the uniform and realizing that there is a fine line between Air Hostess and Diner Waitress, I knew the hat had to make up the difference so I wanted to do a fabulous job. I wanted to make the hat out of the blue fabric, because the green poly was just so awful (as previously discussed). I had enough scraps to cut the band; I had to piece the crown, but I just barely got everything cut out!

For the dimensions of the hat I turned to (what else?) Down With Love. Based on the movie costume, I planned for it to be four inches tall. However, once I got it in process I realized that was a bit too tall so I cut it down to 3.5 inches, and I think the height is good. Someone taller than me with a bigger head (I have a child-sized head at 21.5 inches) might do well with four inches.

You may recall that I went through a millinery mania last year but, as with so many of my manias, I lost enthusiasm after buying my relatively inexpensive but still pricey hat block and supplies without actually producing anything (other than my sewn hot pink newsboy cap from a pattern, which made use of exactly none of those supplies). However, now that the weather has turned cool again my interest is renewed and for this hat I went back into my hat-making resources to see what I could learn. I learned quite a bit!


MATERIALS

Outer fabric
Lining fabric
interfacing
Frame material (I used plastic needlepoint canvas, available in large sheets for cheap at fabric and craft stores)
duct tape or yarn
needle and thread (i used my sewing machine on this project, but it is totally possible to do it all by hand and it is not endlessly laborious or time-consuming)

STEP 1: DRAFT YOUR PATTERN

This step was fairly easy for me as I just turned my pillbox hat block upside down and traced around the crown, and then made measurements of the brim side for the brim pieces. I think the brim pieces should have had curved top and bottom edges, because the grain is a little weird at the side seams, but flat pieces worked just fine for my purpose.

If you don't have a hat block to trace, you can just make a circle for the crown (mine is a bit oval), though it will involve a bit of math. To get the dimensions of the circle, measure around your head. This will be your circumference. To draw your circle, figure out your radius (remember the formula is 2лr (that's 2 x pi x radius, where pi=3.14).

So, for my child-sized 21.5 inch head:
2лr=21.5
лr=10.75
r=3.42, or approximately 3 1/2 inches (or if you want to get more precise, 3 7/16, or you can use cm)

You can either rig up a compass-type arrangement to draw your circle, or you can double the radius to get the diameter, in this case 6.84 inches, around 6 7/8 inches, draw a + in which the two arms are 6.84 inches and cross in the center, and draw your circle around that.

You'll need to add a seam allowance around the circle.

Then draft up your side band (a rectangle 4 inches tall and the width of your head + 1/4 or 1/2 inch ease + seam allowances at top, bottom, and side seam).

STEP 2: CUT OUT YOUR COMPONENTS

To cut out my frame, I put the pattern underneath the canvas and traced around the pattern (omitting the seam allowances on the tip altogether, and the omitting the upper and lower seam allowances of the band) in highlighter, then cut it out. To assemble the frame, I used duct tape. This was fine for the side "seams" and the top, but I also ran duct tape around the bottom edge to ensure the canvas wouldn't be sharp. I really, really regretted this when I was sewing the hat to the frame so don't follow my lead there.

I interfaced both my outer and my lining fabric to make sure everything would be sturdy and crisp looking. I used medium weight fusible interfacing.


STEP 3: ASSEMBLE THE FRAME

Then it's time to make a frame. I actually started by making a buckram frame, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the buckram that Joann sells is not--gasp--hat-making grade. There was no way the frame would have provided any kind of structure when my fashion fabric had about 10 times more body. So I set that aside and went for my costuming/make it work favorite material--plastic needlepoint canvas. Tape the top and the crown together on the inside and the outside with duct tape. Easy.

STEP 4: SEW OUTER FABRIC

The next step is to assemble the outer fabric. It helps to have (1) stretchy fabric and (2) largish seam allowances because you're going to assemble it on top of the frame. This means that the outer fabric will be slightly larger than the frame and slightly larger still than the lining. I didn't account for this in my pattern (I cut all components--outer, frame, and lining--the same size), I just dealt with it at the construction stage.

Once my frame was constructed, I hand stitched the outer fabric in place around it. I went back and reinforced the stitching by machine, but the hand-sewing would have been enough to keep it in one piece.

STEP 5: ATTACH OUTER FABRIC TO FRAME
This is not necessarily an essential step, but I felt the hat would look better if I stretched the fabric over the frame and sewed it to the frame. Normally, I would just sew the outer fabric and lining together and sandwich the frame in between, but I wanted this to have a tight fit. I used a curved needle and took advantage of the properties of needlepoint canvas (i.e., that it's intended to be sewn upon and has little square openings for the purpose). Sewing through the duct tape was horrible. I should have just stopped and ripped off the duct tape but I did not because I am dumb. But once the fabric was sewn in place the hat was already looking pretty great.

STEP 6: ASSEMBLE LINING



Next step is to make the lining. I assembled it on my hat block because I have one, but if you don't you can just sew it with slightly larger seam allowances than drafted (this is assuming you have used perfect seam allowances on the frame and slightly smaller seam allowances on the outer fabric). Because the outer edge will be hand-stitched to the outer fabric, there is no need to leave any seam openings for turning.



STEP 7: HAND-STITCH LINING TO OUTER FABRIC OVER FRAME

Once your lining is assembled, place it into the hat, turn under the lower edge and pin in place, and hand-stitch to the outer fabric. It really doesn't take that long and gives a nice finish on the inside. I sewed little loops of ribbon on the inside that barely stuck down below the edge of the hat to put bobby pins through to make sure it wouldn't fall off.

STEP 8: EMBELLISH

The hat needed a little something once it was finished. In Down With Love the decoration is a hat pin, but since (1) it is ludicrous to pretend that I have enough hair to make use of a hat pin, and (2) I do not have a hat pin, I went with a cockade. I cut a circle out of my sheer print (using a bowl with a diameter of around 6 inches, I think), serged the edges, gathered it up in a yoyo, and pinned it in place with wings.

And voila! LOVE the hat. It totally made the costume.

All photos of this project are here, and you can read more about the concept and the uniform if you're interested.

Retro Air Hostess Uniform: Simplicity 2927

When planning this costume for last year I had been unable to decide between and Simplicity 2927 and Simplicity 3559, a 1960s reissue, but I ultimately decided that S2927 offered more opportunity for using two colors and went with that one.

I had only one day to sew the dress because of my travel schedule, but it's an easy pattern to make. I picked up the blue fabric, a sort of faux-linen with a lot of stretch, from G Street Fabrics' $2.97/yd table; there was only a little over a yard and a quarter, but since I was making a short dress I figured it would work. The green is a poly crepe from Joann's Casa Collection, $4.80/yd with coupon.

I kind of hate to rip on Joann, because it is handy to have a brick and mortar store I can pop into for notions and I don't want them to go out of business, but can we take a moment to talk about how awful this Casa Collection poly crepe is? If my "special occasion" dress was made out of this sh!t I would cry. I mean, it goes without saying that the hand is horrible; just touching it makes you cringe. It is thin and flimsy *and* it ravels. The crepe-y texture is mystifyingly gross (like, what higher class fiber could this possibly be imitating?). And it's not even cheap! I really hope all the sewists out there who don't have physical access to anyplace other than Joann have discovered that you can order better fabrics at a lower cost online.

Anyway, I had planned to make the side princess panels out of the contrast green, but the thought of having this fabric up against my skin other than at the neck was unbearable so I cut the side panels out of blue; I had to cut them off grain to fit everything onto my limited fabric but it doesn't appear to be pulling the dress out of shape. I really wish the pockets had been drafted onto the side princess panel, it would have been much more sophisticated than just a patch pocket. But I did not have time to redraft so I stuck with the patch pocket motif. I really liked the way EvLouise's version on Pattern Review turned out with the contrast collar and pockets, so I went with that. Of course, after I went back to look at the reference photos I saw that color-blocking was a popular thing!

To bring in the green more I finished the armscye and keyhole opening edges with bias tape made of the green. I am not sure there is really any point to polyester bias tape as it doesn't steam into shape, obviously, but it actually worked better than I expected. I used my bias tape maker and got faint iron impressions onto the bias strips, which allowed me to line things up. As usual, the Simplicity armscye was too tight on me as drafted, so I trimmed off about an inch at the bottom, scooping out more at the lower front than the back, tapering to nothing at the shoulder (other than, in this case, trimming off the seam allowances for the bias tape finish).

The keyhole opening is to be accomplished, according to the pattern, by cutting a small rectangular facing, placing it right side to right side, stitching around the small keyhole opening as drafted, clipping, and flipping. Yuck. That is asking for the worst kind of flapping floppy facings. I wanted a more exaggerated opening so I cut a teardrop shape keyhole and finished with the bias tape.

I took a huge swayback tuck out of the back pattern piece, as per usual. Even with the tuck I had to majorly contour the center back seam to get a decent fit. This ended up shortening the back hemline significantly--I cut about two inches off center front to hem and zero off center back--but luckily this is meant to be worn short!

I had deliberately chosen a green regular zipper (rather than my normal choice of invisible), and was considering making it an exposed zip but decided that would be going too far. Then I thought of doing a lapped zipper, but (1) this is a technique I have only done once before, and (2) I feared with the highly contoured back seam the lap would gape open. So I just did a regular zipper installation. I used to be so good at regular zippers, but I have been on invisibles so long that I have totally lost my touch!

As the dress took shape, I began to get concerned. It turns out there is a fine line between "Retro Air Hostess" and "Diner Waitress." Diner Waitress just does not offer the glam I'm looking for. I knew the hat and scarf would make a difference, but I wanted to jazz up the uniform to make it look a little more "martini" and a little less "milkshake."

I wanted the pockets to be functional so I wouldn't have to carry a purse (did not have time or inclination to make or find an old school flight bag), so I added buttonholes and used gold buttons to close them. The collar is not intended to have functional buttons, so I just sewed three buttons there for decoration. I felt that this added the necessary punch to the uniform.

I loved this pattern for the uniform, but I don't really see it as regular clothes for me. It's very similar to Simplicity 6276, a 1974 pattern I made last year and I haven't ended up loving that dress (I think it will get purged in the next Goodwill run). This has a narrower profile, while S6274 is more A line (which I am down on right now), but the band collar is just not my scene.

All photos are here and the Pattern Review is here.

Halloween 2009: Retro Air Hostess

Cidell and I had the idea to do Retro Air Hostesses last year, but I ended up being in Germany for work and had to miss Halloween. I had already purchased the fabulous poly chiffon print for the scarf last year and didn't have any other burning ideas, and in fact, didn't necessarily plan to dress up at all, as discussed previously, until my brother and sister-in-law decided to come visit for Halloween. So the Retro Air Hostess was back on and here it is:



I'll discuss the costume in a three part series. This is the introduction, then I'll cover the uniform and then the hat.

First, there was research. OK, that's not really true. I did some research last year but this year I didn't have time before I started my uniform. After I'd finished the dress, I poked around a little.



I was much influenced by the highly underrated movie "Down with Love." (Seriously, if you have Netflix, just go ahead and order this movie. You can thank me later.) Jeri Ryan plays a stewardess character and the hair, hat, uniform, and overall manner are just fabulous. I couldn't find any decent places in the movie to do a screencap, though imdb has a better shot here (partly obscured by a suitcase). The late 60s vibe was what I was going for (though my uniform is more like early 70s, I admit), so I had to re-watch the movie of course to get it down.













There is a great series of images on flight attendant uniforms here (the link is to part 1; the post contains links to parts 2-4). The collection here is mostly the same but has a few additional images. The most comprehensive collection is here; the uniforms are on mannequins, which is fabulous for detail but not so great for getting the right "feel" for the time period. The Irazu Air and PSA uniforms were the most like what I was going for.







After seeing these uniforms I kind of wished I had done a contrast color in the princess panel, but oh well. I think I captured a bit of the spirit in mine. At any rate, I feel very kicky and ready to travel the world.


All the photos are here! Alas, I didn't have my trusty photographer so they're boring indoor shots, but I did have fun doing them.

Mermaid Parade (and a quick visit to the garment district)

Mermaid Parade was lots of fun again this year! I got a lot of compliments on my fin configuration though everybody kept calling them boots. I hadn't thought of building the fins onto boots, which would have totally worked but been HOT. It was a warm day with plenty of sunshine and no rain, which is really the best you can hope for. It was cold and drizzly the first year I did it (and then poured after the parade was over), so every year that there's sunshine is a good year in my book. You can see all my photos here.

Of course while I was in NYC I had to stop by the garment district. I took the Eastern Travel Chinatown Bus ($36.50 roundtrip when booked online in advance; the extra $1.50 is totally worth it to have reservations) up to NYC on Friday. I wasn't meeting my friend until 6:30 so I had to schlep my suitcase around with me. This was good because it restrained my fabric buying exuberance. I checked out Chic, Spandex House, Paron, and the store that took over the old Paron location. I only bought at the first two stores. For the first time ever I found nothing at Paron! I would have liked to have found more than one woven cotton print, but I didn't want to haul my suitcase into any more stores so I headed off to Bloomie Nails (which I found through yelp) for a mani-pedi.

Mermaid Fins and Notes on Costuming

I am heading out the door shortly to take the Chinatown bus to NYC for the Coney Island Mermaid Parade! So this will be short, but I wanted to talk a little bit about making costumes.

I love being somebody I'm not for a day. Instead of being responsible, dependendable, and perhaps a wee bit uptight I can be awesome and cool. I wouldn't want to be that person every day, but it's fun to trot her out a couple of times a year. So I have a whole closet full of costumes (I should take a picture of that someday) and a bit of slapdash experience making things work.

This is my third year to do mermaid parade.

Year 1:


I was a mermaid for Halloween and somebody suggested I go in the Mermaid Parade. I'd never even heard of it but was definitely intrigued. It was so much fun! I made the mermaid skirt as a tube with slits up the side. Made the fins out of an irridescent sheer that is still available at my local Joann and ran wire down the entire side seam and out into the fins (it didn't work to have wire only in the fins, they wanted to fold frontward or backward). It wasn't the most comfortable, but I think (humbly, of course) that this is the best mermaid tail style a home costumer can hope for.

Year 2:


While it had been fun to do the parade, I didn't really want to do it again by myself. So I recruited some friends. Since I was making all the costumes (they embellished their own), I kept it simple with the "traditional" style mermaid tail for the home costumer--a skirt with a frill.

This year I wanted to do something completely different and wear boy shorts and have individual fins for each leg. I have found hardware store supplies invaluable for costuming. 14 gauge coated copper wire from the electrical department allows you to shape pieces; the sharp ends need to be covered with duct tape. Cable ties make excellent plastic boning. I now own spiral steel boning, but I didn't want to waste any of it on a costume! Cable ties are vastly superior to the plastic boning you can buy in the fabric store because they're cheaper, the ends are less sharp, and they stay straight--they don't want to curl up like the plastic kind. They are a little less stiff than plastic boning, so I usually double bone seams by sewing both sides of the seam allowance into a channel and inserting a cable tie into each.

For the fins:
1. Cut out four fan shaped pieces out of the fashion fabric and lining.
2. Cut out regular loft batting in the same shape and trim the batting an inch all around so it wouldn't bulk up the seam allowances.
3. Quilt the fashion to the lining with the batting in between, to make four individual fans.
4. Sew the outer frill to two sets of the fashion fabric (make sure they're mirror images).
5. Sew the long diagonal seams; now you've got two fins instead of four fans.
6. Insert the invisible zip at the top of the inside seam.
7. Sew the rest of the inside seam.
8. Hand sew the seam allowance of the inner side seam (the seam with the zipper) to the lining without catching the outside to make a casing. Insert cable tie boning along both sides of the inner seam. This is to make it stand up while I'm walking so (hopefully) I won't be tugging at it. (I should have machine sewed the seam allowance to the lining before sewing the side seam. This would have saved me a lot of hand sewing.)
9. Hand sew a casing along the top, not catching in the fashion fabric, and insert elastic.
10. Cut a piece of wire the length of the hem and secure the ends together with duct tape.
11. Hand sew the wire into the hem
12. Gather the lower frill and sew by machine onto the outside of the fabric. (This would have been easier to do had I not already sewn the wire into the hem!)

Here are some construction details:




And here are the fins!


Don't worry, I'll be taking lots of pics. Please do a reverse rain dance for us.