Holy Masquerade, Batman!

BLOGTOBERFEST, Day 27

(That’s an actual Robin quote, btw)  So, the big reveal… no one got both correct, but it would have been an impressive guess if you had–

We were the Joker and Catwoman (based on the 1966 television portrayals by Cesar Romero and Julie Newmar).  The originals:

and the Brunnettes, as Joker and Catwoman:

And yes, I made the costumes.  How?  It started with a trip to Goodwill where we bought:

And then a stop into the supermarket two doors down from Goodwill to buy some Rit Fabric Dye (the green dye was intended for Joker’s shirt, but we ended up not using it):

I started by washing everything, the Linen capri & blouse set and the green shirt were washed in a bath of Color Remover (which didn’t really do a thing); then I soaked the linen set in the purple dye for several hours (washing machine method).  After it dried, the color was very uneven, but I got to work anyway.

I removed the short sleeves from the linen blouse, cut long sleeves from the capri pants legs, and attached the new sleeves to the jacket.  Then I cut the bottom of the blouse off, made a pointed hem on each side in the front, and added tails to the jacket (which you cannot see in the pics, sadly)–so it looked just like The Joker’s tuxedo jacket. From the scraps of fabric I had removed from the blouse and the leftovers from the pant legs, I made a collar and lapel and attached them to finish the jacket.

THEN… sweetie went back to the supermarket to buy another box of purple dye, and we did the dye bath again, this time on the stovetop–worked great, we got a good solid cover of vibrant purple!  The only problem was, I hadn’t reinforced my seams and the linen blend raveled like crazy and I had to re-sew. every. single. seam.  Ugh.  Disaster averted–one purple Joker dinner jacket complete.  We decided the shirt wouldn’t take the dye anyway, because of the sateen finish, so we left it as is.  Same with the pants, they fit perfectly. Win! I did his makeup, which made the costume, I think:

On to Catwoman.  I cut the bottom of the dress off, removed the belt loops, and attached the “leather” belt at hip level to create the Mod-look 1960s “catsuit”.  The sleeves required slight adjustments to make it fit more closely — maybe a half hour sewing time, tops.  Add to that a pair of black leggings and boots from my closet, and I bought a long red wig at Target for $8.00, and the cat ears and mask from our theatrical shop (painted the mask with black glitter paint and it was good to go), added elbow length black satin gloves, and a necklace from my jewelry box, and voila!

To finish off the Joker costume, we purchased green hair paint and re-painted his “Thing 2″ wig from last Halloween, and bought bright purple gloves.  I cut the hem from the black dress I cut up for my Catwoman top, and tied it on him for his necktie.

Officespace

BLOGTOBERFEST, Day 26

It’s Friday!  If you’ve read my blog a while, you know I have a full time job–that is NOT a creative job.  I sit in an office of a University at a computer, working with databases and spreadsheets and email all day.  For the most part, I like my job.  I’ve been in this same position and department for six years, and in July, I moved offices–only next door, I moved from room 212C to room 212D, but a move nonetheless.  The move not only called for a major cleaning (of everything, files, paper, etc.), it called for redecorating!  My theory is, any space you spend a significant amount of your time in should be a pleasing environment.

My old office was painted (by my sweetie and I) a soft, sage green color… very soothing.  I decided I wanted something a little brighter, so I chose a pretty aqua blue for two walls, and left the other two white.  This poster (from my first trip to London) hung in my old office, too:

I practically worship William Morris–I was so grateful to get to see this exhibition!  And the V&A…?  Oh, my.

Last year, I purchased a poster from the Sisters Oregon Quilt Show (via the internet, I haven’t had the pleasure of attending!) and I decided with the new office to decorate, it was time to get this print framed!  I could find the right shade of purple metal frame for it, so I bought sectional black metal frames from Michaels and spray-painted them purple:

It’s so hard to get the lighting right, to see the color in these photos, but the purple matte-finish spray paint just makes this print; l it coordinates beautifully with the purple fabrics in the mountains…

On the opposite wall, I wanted to replace my old worn out whiteboard with a fresh bulletin board.  We had this laying around in a previously unused office space, and it was headed for the dumpster (um, you can see why):

You all know I like a good up-cycle project, right?!  So I removed all the tiny pins, tossed the old dried-out, water-stained map, brought in some spray adhesive and Tula Pink “Neptune” fabric from my stash…

Carefully trimmed the fabric to size, after adhering it to the board with the acid-free spray adhesive… and used a flat screwdriver to tuck the edges snugly in under the frame of the bulletin board:

The end result is fabulous… a cheerful, pretty surface to tack all my notes, papers, photos, etc. to keep myself organized and get the paper off my desk:

Saved a bulletin board from the landfill, saved money by not buying a new whiteboard, and used some of my stash– win. win. win.  And, I get to see some fabric goodness every single day at work!

BTW, for anyone who got my reference in the title of this post… you should know I do have a red Swingline stapler in my office, too:

We have been house shopping for about a month now.  Not only am I anxious to leave our current place and all the #&!* associated with it behind, but I cannot wait to start doing home decorating projects again!  We are looking at older homes (c. 1900-1925)–remember that William Morris obsession I mentioned?  Looking forward to finding just the right one…

Do you have a work space that allows for decorating?  Have you “made it yours”, yet?

DIY Woes

BLOGTOBERFEST, Day 9

Today is my lovely Momma’s 75th birthday!  This Spring, she sold her house in my hometown (about 120 miles from where I live)  and moved into a retirement town home community in a suburb of Des Moines (yay!).  Having her living locally, close to her three youngest children, and five of grandchildren, is wonderful.  She babysits when needed for my brother and sister (happily and willingly!), attends soccer and football games and practices, joins them for a quick trip out for ice cream; even joined me on Friday for her first AQS experience!  When she needed new eyeglasses, I just took a long lunch to go help her pick out a new pair.  Yesterday, she drove over and took my little sister out for lunch for HER birthday.  Mom has been very happy she made the move, despite missing her old friends, and we’re happy to say she’s made new friends fast.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOMMA!!!

(Click on the photo to go to the designer’s site–love her Cake Walk pattern!)  My sweetie and I fixed up a new sewing table for Mom’s Elna sewing machine as a birthday present.  She sews with an Elna 6003, but she’s never had a drop-in table for it.  It must have been six years ago that she and I bought a nice unfinished wood shelf/tabletop at Menards with the plan that I would help her turn her old treadle sewing machine base into a custom made drop-in table for the Elna.  Well, best laid plans…

After her move in June, my sweetie and I took some measurements, drew up a plan, realized that the treadle sewing machine base wasn’t wide enough to accomodate her sewing machine, but thought we might have a table base in the garage that would work… so we hauled the wood tabletop home with us.

I dusted off my old jigsaw, and cut the hole out for her machine and the plexiglas extension base she had, borrowed my little brother’s router, and my sweetie routed out a nice shallow lip for the plexi to rest on.  The table base that we had fit perfectly.  It came from a little drop-leaf kitchen table that I found at an estate sale and had started to strip the paint off but gave up after we found another small table that needed no work and fit our space perfectly–and it was only $25 (with chairs).  Sweetie wanted to throw the little half-stripped table away, but I wouldn’t let him.  ”It’s a perfectly good table, and someone will be able to use it.  It doesn’t need to be in the landfill”.  Yep, I’m that girl.

So, the table base was attached to the bottom of the new custom-cut table top, and a rectangular base for the sewing machine to sit on was suspended from the bottom of the tabletop:

We used an enamel spray paint for the base and legs, and bought a quart of the worst.oil.based.enamel.paint.ever.made. to paint the top a nice smooth, glossy finish.  I’m telling you, this project would have been complete in July if not for this horrible paint.  It went on like glue (and stated very plainly on the label that IT WAS NOT TO BE THINNED).  Not only that, it didn’t really dry, either.  My sweetie is far more patient that I; if I had been the one working on painting this, I would have stripped the first layer off after waiting a week for it to dry completely, and immediately thinned the paint and recoated it a few times–project complete.  But– he was determined not to be defeated by this can of paint (although he threatened about three weeks ago to go throw the entire table away and start over).  I’m pretty sure you know what my answer to that was.

Last week, when he was out of town for work, and we had some warm weather days, I went out to the garage to re-coat it.  He had painted a coat on Saturday morning, and this was Tuesday evening and it was still tacky.  I picked up a scraper and started scraping the edges down, so he could re-sand it, and maybe buy new paint and get the crazy thing done before her birthday.  When he saw what I did, he scraped it the rest of the way, sanded like crazy, thinned the paint and painted a new base coat.  The next day, he painted a second coat on it.  Third day, he did a little touch up, and this weekend we were able to declare this never-ending-project completely done.  Lesson learned: next time, just go buy different brand of paint.  Here is the table sans sewing machine and plexi (I’ll post a pretty pic complete with her set-up after we make the delivery tonight!):

Given the hours we invested in this project, we would have been much further ahead if we had just gone here and purchased a new table for her (but, don’t tell my sweetie I said that).

**UPDATE:  Table has been delivered, it’s a perfect fit and Mom can get back to sewing!  Here is a shot showing the groove we cut out for the plexiglas extension bed, and the whole set-to with her Elna Quilters Dream 6003 machine in place:

Now, if I could just get that table runner made for her that I promised her over two months ago…

Sew Sweet

BLOGTOBERFEST, Day 8

Today is the first of a string of SEVEN October birthdays in our family, all but one of them is THIS WEEK!

So, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY SWEET BABY SIS!!!!!

Isn’t this an adorable applique Cupcake?  It doesn’t hurt that they used that Moda Basic Grey “Blush” print for the napkin/tablecloth (I adore that line of fabric)!  The pattern is available from Craftsy for a mere $3.00.

This is my beautiful sis with her boys at my wedding in 2011 (she was about 5 1/2 months along with baby #3 at the time, the lovely little Zoe Grace).  She’s a great Mommy, and she’s a pretty fabulous sister, daughter, aunt and wife as well.  Hope your day is half as wonderful as you are!

Back to Craftsy.  I bought one of Craftsy’s sewing classes when they had them discounted last month.  I haven’t started class yet, but looking forward to making my Sassy Librarian Blouse (and I might have to order some Flea Market Fancy grey bouquet for the project!), I’m making the pleated version on the left:

I’ll be sure to post a review of my online class as soon as I have completed it… (and with any luck, a finished product to share!).  *Side note: I’m pretty sure my Mom made me a blouse just like that aqua floral blouse in solid white to wear with my uniform in Junior High School, c. 1984.  Everything old is new again.

I’m curious, have you ever taken an online sewing/craft/quilting class?

Did you have a good experience?

Tutorial: Ironing BIG Board

At our house, my sweetie irons. I do. not. iron. clothes. (unless I absolutely have to–say, when he is out of town). But, pressing fabric and seams is a part of quilting and sewing, and I have no problem with pressing. It’s ironing that I loathe. Who’s with me here?!?

Anyway, I’ve never particularly liked pressing fabric on a traditional ironing board; that tapered/pointed end is counter-productive. So I made myself a Big Board:

First, I bought a piece of MDF, and cut it to 17″ x 48″.

Then, I covered it with Bo-Nash Ironslide 2000 (if you don’t have this on your pressing station, do yourself a favor and get it!  You can thank me later).  This comes 19″ wide, hence why my board is cut to 17″.  The IronSlide 2000 was attached to the MDF with it’s self stick backing (you could reinforce it with double stick tape, if desired).

Finally, I wrapped it with a piece of 54″ wide “PURE” canvas, by Sweetwater for Moda.  This is then stapled into the MDF from the backside.  I posted in detail here how I do this “wrap and staple step” to get a nice clean edge and tight corners.

The BIG Board sits atop the traditional ironing board, and greatly increases your surface area for pressing.

Here’s the finished product, modeled by my sweetie pressing a fat quarter, ’cause sometimes he does that for me, too.  ;-)

Little Monsters

On Friday the 13th, my business partner and I co-hosted a baby shower for our friend Dawn. The theme was Little Monsters, based on this quilt, by Kellie at Don’t Look Now:
Dawn is decorating her son’s nursery with a quilt made from this pattern; and making window valances, a bed skirt and accessories to match.

We went all out with the theme, and we even made our first “diaper cake”… bought a pack of 36 newborn Pampers, rolled them, tied them with a small strip of fabric:Stood them on end, wrapped them tightly with a band of fabric around a plastic container (it definitely took FOUR hands to do this!), and made a second smaller layer atop the first:We bought the few “monster” themed baby items we could find, and decorated the cake with them:a bib, a monster onesie, a teething ring (I think it’s an octopus, but he looks kind of monster-like!), linky rings, and Cookie Monster and Murray Sesame Street plushies as cake toppers.

I found a “happy birthday” monster tablecloth that I cut the monsters out of, used Mod Podge to glue them to cardstock and added colored rings of paper around them to make them look like Kellie’s Little Monters. These served as table and wall decor, as well as decorated the food table. (I was glad I had the chance to recycle them for my nephew’s birthday party again the following weekend!)

My favorite decoration might have been the monster cupcakes I made and decorated the night before:I had a lot of fun creating all those different faces and looks!

Trina, my business partner, made this sweet banner that Dawn will hopefully be able to use in the nursery:
It’s appliqued, and uses some of the same fabrics in the quilt. It hung above the gift table, along with the baby’s Little Monster quilt:We had fun putting this together, and I think everyone had a good time at the party!

When you host parties, do you plan around a theme, food, decor and the works? Or do you just put out the food and drink and go with the flow?