It tastes like ruffles.

I am SO CLOSE to being done with the skirt I can nearly taste it. And by close I mean perhaps 3 or 4 hours out. >_<

Having cut out all three layers of circle skirt with the intention of gathering them in, I then hemmed the shit out of all of that. It ran me out of good black thread. Get at least 3 spools of black and 2 of brown for this thing...perhaps it's a bit late to be saying that now, but oh well.*

*First! I figured out I wanted to raise the hemline of the long layer in the front to about 14", and then cut another 2" off the back. Make marks with chalk at the longest and shortest points of the skirt on the circle you've cut out, and then figure out the deviation (mine went from lik 14" to 22" so had about 8" of deviation) and mark half-way points, and then halfway between the halfway points...until you get an oval kinda thing. It's like using a compass but not for a circle.

I used a rolled hemming foot and it was fabulous. Don't try it without one...only pain lies that way. Also, it is hard to get a fine curved edge--that's why they tell you to practice on straight lines first. This is true. For curved edges I futzed up a lot--ask me at Sakuracon if you want to see where. It doesn't make much difference if you're not staring at it from three inches away, but I strive for perfection. This is because I am nuts, but perhaps you are too.
The black fabric had stretch in it--just a little, but enough that with the weight and length of the fabric it pulls and I'm not sure if anything can be done about it. It makes the hemmed edge a bit wavy but...so what? It's for ruffles and doesn't matter anyway.
Go slow, be careful, and slide the edge over tiny bits constantly...this way you slowly make up for the changing width of the curving hemline.
Good luck, have patience. Unpicking it's a pain in the butt, so care is better.

Having hemmed everything, the next task was to gather them up into the right size to be sewn to the skirt.

I sewed the ends of the layers together, which in retrospect was probably not a good idea. The chiffon layer turned out to be almost a foot longer for some weird reason, so I had to cut it apart anyway. Also, working in the halves makes less fabric to drag around.

First off, figure out what lengths you want the skirt layers to be. DO NOT go crazy and sew the chiffon layer to the top skirt layer (yet) and then discover the lengths are wrong and spend an hour and a half unpicking the two apart.
DO NOT do that. It sucks.

DO sew the chiffon layer to the top black satin layer when you have the lengths right. This will keep the two from shifting around when you gather them in the next step. Yay for stability!

DO set the sewing machine on a big zigzag stitch. DO buy some embroidery thread (thicker, whatever color) and pin it to the fabric in a spot directly behind where the zigzag stitch will be. Pull the embroidery thread through and under the foot...(it's a C foot on my Viking) The idea is that the zigzag crosses over the embroidery thread and then at the end you pull on the pinned thread and VOILA! Shit is gathered. AND you can futz with the gathering to make it as much or little as you like. Fabulous.

So I've done that to the bottom layer. Tonight I'll go RE-sew the top two layers together and gather them again, and THEN sew some stuff to the skirt!!

So close.
~Raiphin

Let's talk about belts.

I'm watching the glue dry on the belt as I type this. It's about as interesting as you'd expect, but I'm excited nonetheless. The belt leather, silver trim, and fake studs look amazing, and the proportions and scale are turning out fabulous.

Now that I'm done bragging, let me tell you how I did it. ^ - ~

So, the first thing to after you've got the right belt blank material (mine came from ebay and is about 2" wide) is make sure it's long enough. I got 2 yards, which I knew was more than I needed but that's a good place to start. I then cut the belt blank in half and using small clamps and masking tape worked out the right angle for the belt in the front and back. I then sliced a small bit off the belt on both sides in the part I decided would be the back. I then glued a bit of pleather to the joining point of the two pieces. When that dried, I discovered it wasn't sturdy enough to keep the edges from moving, so I glued a small bit of metal I had from a belt I'd dismembered to make it sturdier. That's how you get this:


After that I glued the metal studs to the top of the belt at intervals of about 1.75", which seemed to be what worked for me. Make sure to avoid putting studs under where the belts cross over in the front, or in a place that's on the line or whatnot because it'll look dumb.
Then I did a lot of staring in the mirror and looking at pictures to figure out how long the belt should be after the cross in the front. Most pictures show only 1 stud past the cross, but I decided on 2 because I thought it looked better. Then I carefully experimented with cutting the leather into the kind of point I would need on the extra belt leather I had. Good choice! It's HARD to cut straight and warps and is generally a pain. What eventually worked was drawing the line in its entirety and slicing along it with an exacto knife WITH a straight-edge (protractor, in my case) so you can't accidentally wibble the line. Then after going over the line about 3 times I used me sharpest jewelry scissors to finish the job. Looks kinda like this:

I did it on my cutting mat which made it pretty easy to get the angles right--1block is half an inch, so I marked the middle of the belt at the end and then 2 blocks down on either side and drew the connecting line between them.

After that was done, I took the silver belting I showed in an earlier post and sliced it down the middle. It was already folded over on the back in a way that made it super simple to cut in half. Then I had to glue the silver to the back of the belt so that it stuck perhaps 3 milimeters past the edge? Something that looked right. Then I cut little triangles out of the silver belting so that it could bend around the edges of the belt. And that looks like this:

from the back anyway.

that's a wider shot of the back. Me smarter than me and remember to take the masking tape you used to mark where the belts should cross BEFORE you glue other shit to it. I'm just saying.


it looks like this when you're done. And by 'this' I mean 'awesome.' And that's E-6000 I've been using, that's some good glue. Stuff STAYS glued, and what more can you ask for?


one tricky thing is making sure the edges of the belt adhere at the tips and whatnot. These tiny clamps are adorable and perfect for this. Note that I shoved some craft foam in there so that the tiny clamps don't leave tiny clamp marks in the process. I could probably have gotten by without that since the belt leather is tough enough, but who wants to be wrong?

The final step I haven't taken pictures of yet. Sue me. I cut some velcro on a slant and put a strip on either side of where the belt crossed over, and then followed directions and WAITED 24 HOURS before touching it. Seems to be holding for now.

Next up, skirt work. I hemmed the hell out of everything already, so now it's a matter of gathering and sewing. Hopefully that'll get done tomorrow.

Hopefully.
~Raiphin

The benefits of having no butt.

I got the belt sized correctly this morning. It's masking-taped together because you never EVER want to cut something you don't have a back-up of until you're sure WTF you're doing.

I managed to slide it off still taped into position, but it was a tough thing. As I lost weight I re-discovered my lack of ass, but it's something of a boon here because I just need a LITTLE give to the belt, rather than having to install a zipper and attach it to like 4 different materials and not have it gap/sag/wibble/etc.

My thought right now is to glue the belt entirely together in the back, after cutting it on the appropriate diagonal. I have vinyl I can cut and glue to the belt pieces for extra support as well. The front will be trickier. Haruhi's belt crosses over with the right side overlapping the left. Underneath that overlap I'm going to--instead of gluing the bits to each other--glue a small piece of not-very-elastic elastic to each part of the belt. Ideally, this will give the belt a bit of lee-way when I want it (I intend to remove it before entering bathroom stalls and when in a car, for instance) but not cause the belt to flip open or bend in weird ways when I don't need it to. We'll see how that goes.

~Raiphin

Snip, snip.

Wow, did a lot the past few weeks. Bought almost all my materials for Haruhi, for one. As of this morning I've cut out ALL the circles I need for the skirt layers, and the skirt base itself. Check it out:



That's the organza layer, in dark brown. Came from JoAnn's normal 'casa' fabric section, AND is washable! I won't be able to really wash the skirt by the end (due to the belt and all) but I can steam it or soak it and that'll be convenient.



That's the satiny ruffle part of the. It's a black 'caviar' satin from JoAnns with a wee bit of stretch to it. Hopefully I won't hate that later. It's got a lovely weight to it though, which is good because it's like 12$ a yard. I got it on sale both times(had to finish off nearly 2 bolts) but it still ran me almost 100$. BLEH. Organza cost me 30. Stupid circle skirts. I've got a lot of satin left over, if I get ambitious I may use it to line the top to make it all soft and nice.
Maybe.


SPEAKING of the top, check that out--OK, so maybe it's fuzzy (stupid iphone) but that cross between a nightie and a curtain is actually the white part of Haruhi's top. I've already stitched in the buttonholes where the black ribbon will go through and then gathered it at the top. I'm going to have to gather it at the bottom too, and cut it off, and then sew it to the bra (which it's pinned to right now.)

I've also got more materials for the belt and sleeve bits.
That red fabric's going to be for the red belt thing on her left hand. I'm going to wrap it over itself or something to get something sturdy enough to use, and then probably stick a bit of elastic in it or at the back so I can get it on and off my hand.



I tried to find metal pyramid studs at JoAnn's but failed.Instead I found these things--which are iron on, I guess, but it's a costume so I don't care. I'm going to glue them to the belt (also pictured) and that should work nicely.

then I get things more put together, I'll put more pics up.
~Raiphin