Interfacing - my new friend

Spent quite a bit of yesterday clearing the sewing machine and piles of assorted half finished costumes out of the dining room.

Not, you understand, because we eat in there, but to make room for the Chessex maps and the dice.  Our dining room is for games.  We managed a short gaming session on Sunday and it was clear that miles of fake velvet, two bags of hessian, several piles of possibly useful scraps and a disorganised sewing box did not mix well with the usual paraphenalia of dice, minis and maps.  Losing the vital packet of sustaining hobnobs under the debris was a bad moment.

Chocolate Hobnobs.  Vital gamer food.

I moved my kit.

Now that I have the dream machine and am no longer afraid to use it, I have been working my way through Sewing for Dummies.  Having dismissed the beginner project devoted to a "cute frilled apron", I moved straight on to the much more tiresome area of sleeves.  These require some actual skill, which I do not have.  Learning fast mind you.  Have to.

Panicked phone call from my co-conspirator on the Malfi costumes means that I recklessly volunteered to do the basic work on three doublets, a padded underskirt and an assortment of hats.  A visit to Caroline yesterday morning saw me returning in hunter-gatherer triumph with a car full of interfacing, patterns, more fabric scraps, 10 metres of black lining, two vast pieces of vaguely brocade and a slight feeling of panic.  Caroline was her usual soothing self.

"You'll be fine.  You're an intelligent woman." 

Agreed, I am, but is mere intelligence enough to get me through making this?  Three times?

Doublet pattern (assembled)

So, yesterday evening, I did the unthinkable.  I got out the ironing board and set it up in my new hidey hole.  I have stated before that I do not do ironing.  Ever.  Drip dry is my mantra.  This however, was ironing for my new friend and subject of this post.  Interfacing.

Fusible interfacing is wonderful.  It does not fray.  It can be cut at the same time as the fabric.  It is then attached to said fabric to reinforce it.  This helps the fabric to stay fairly firm and stops some fraying.  In order to accomplish this, it must be ironed on.

Interfacing.  Fusible.

And it was, dear reader, it was.  I now have the components of two doublets in interfaced bits awaiting assembly.  I've used an iron willingly for the first time in over a decade.  I'm about to go and stare more fabric into submission.

Whether the finished results are worth anything remains to be seen, but I've got interfacing to help me now. 

The costuming world is about to become my mollusc of choice. 

In my head, anyway.

It's written in American ...

Somewhat belatedly, Amazon have delivered my copy of "Sewing for Dummies."

My imediate reaction was "what the hell is a Notions counter?"  Images of some kind of inspirational tick box were swiftly dismissed as the next sentence mentioned "sergers" and light dawned.  The book is written in American.

I can adjust to that.  I spent a lot of my childhood in the US.  I'm versatile.  I understand that "pants" in American is "trousers" in the UK.  I no longer suffer boxer-shorts imagery when I read about the construction of pants and the selection of fabric needed for such.

I'm also retrospectively very glad indeed I didn't read this book before embarking on Antigone costume hell.  If I'd read through chapters 1-6 as recommended, I would never have impulse-bought a sewing machine at all, still less constructed 17 more or less useable sets of random pajamas.

Not that the book is bad.  Far from it.  It is very good.  Relentlessly cheery and full of useful information, it has inspired me to make a duvet cover and matching pillow cases.  It will give me the toolkit I need to make normal things.  It will educate me in the proper use of a sewing machine and offers handy tips on fabric choice, needles, corner turning and other basic mechanics.

What it won't do is tell me how to make costumes.  For that, I am turning to this:

Janet Arnold looks like a kind of goddess to me.  Her books combine beautiful illustrations with simple patterns and from these I will work to make wonders out of old curtains.  I will start simple and work up.  In theory at least.  The temptation to make a set of boot overlaps is nearly overwhelming.

The Notions counter?  It means Haberdashery.

Sadly excited

One of Hartlepool's prime attractions

Off to Hartlepool today!

Not words that would normally make me ridiculously excited, but I've never claimed to be anything other than an obsessional geek.  Forgive the exclamation mark.  I regard these as the sign of a diseased mind, but some statements need the emphasis.

The port town has two things strongly in its favour.  The first is a wonderful maritime museum.  It's true that I probably won't get to visit it, but the Trincomalee is such a beautiful ship.  For someone who gets seasick in a deep bath, I have a passionate love of the sea and all that sails.  As long as I don't have to get on board and, you know, actually sail.

The second - be still my beating heart - is a college which does courses in costume design.  They do millinery.  They do corsetry.  They do pattern cutting.  Friend and I are going to attempt to inveigle ourselves onto some of these courses.  As my co-conspirator put it, "we don't need the actual degree after all.  We're both much too old and we know how to spell already."

I imagine myself armed with rigilene and making these:

Another Hartlepool attraction

Cake may also feature if we can find any.

Dreaming on

Having been horribly failed in my attempts to get myself qualified to teach adults and therefore to earn a slightly more respectable wage, I have turned my attention to other avenues.

Followers will be aware that costume has been on my mind and in my hands a lot recently.  Also, as it conveniently turns out, with the grandmother of one of my students.  She and I have been meeting regularly to talk fabric and doublets and it's all be huge fun.  Last week, over coffee and cake (she is my kind of lady), a cunning plan evolved.  We should descend on Hartlepool and take part in some of their degree courses on costuming. 

At the moment, it looks promising for a pattern designing course starting on Monday.  Already, in my mind's eye, I can see myself constructing things like the picture above.  Wild fantasy I know, as I've only just acquired a sewing machine.  But you gotta have a dream.

They do millinery and corsetry as well.  Who knows where this could lead?

Baulky bobbin

If you're not interested in my on-going sewing machine saga, look away now.

Turns out that the bobbin hadn't wound evenly and this was causing the crisis.  Quite proud of working that out.  Even prouder that I didn't simply jump on the machine.

Madman masks getting their first dye bath and am now sorting through various adjustments to Antigone costumes.

Oops ...

You can guess where this is going already.

The dream baby, the sewing machine that has been blissfully well behaved for a week, is failing me.

It sorted out sack masks and bloody remnants and trousers with perfect equanimity.  Confronted with stiching a bit of ribbon to the inside of a top, it suddenly freaked out and produced massive loops of thread across the bottom rendering it rapidly inoperable.

I've taken it apart and am just sitting quietly for a moment before I start screaming.

My precious ...

It's arrived.  My own personal sewing machine.  I can safely and happily destroy this one as it is under guarantee.

My relief knows no bounds.  It has an instruction manual, does overlocking and more importantly than anything else, I CAN THREAD IT and REPLACE THE BOBBIN without having a breakdown.

Sanity looms.

Sewing machines again

Sorry to bombard everyone with this ongoing saga, but I'm finding my own ineptitude both funny and frustrating.

I put out a plea for the loan of a sewing machine last night and got two immediate offers.  Wonderfully.  So I went and picked up the volunteer this afternoon.  Threaded it and bobbined it up with no trouble at all.  Felt smug.  Too soon.

The machine works just fine - except that it seems to have tension problems.  Half an hour, a ruined top and a small screwdriver later, I too had tension problems.

I'm buying my own machine.  I really can't deal with breaking another one that doesn't belong to me.

It's due to arrive on Friday.  Lay your bets now for how long the all new idiot proof machine lasts in my hands.  It was recommended by the WI, so it ought to be safe enough, but at this point I don't trust myself.

There will be an inevitable delay on the costume front.  Sorry, Antigone cast.

For goodness sake, give me a blasted break technology ...

Rant warning ahead.

I've got on fairly good terms with the borrowed sewing machine lately - to the extent that of the 32 clothing items I need to finish by Wednesday I've done all but the last eight and half.

The motor is giving up.

I am giving up.

I cannot find an easy way to replace the motor.

Have to admit, right now I want to do nothing more than throw jam jars at the nearest wall and scream a lot.  This was my mum's solution to the insoluble and it sounds incredibly tempting.

Rant over.  Blood pressure still up, but rant over.

Shenanigans

I have spent most of this week engulfed in curtain liner.  The result is many pairs of vaguely functional trousers.  The tops come next, but late last night, bludgeoned by an unexpected fever and reeling from my fifteenth pair of cotton trousers, I went online and looked at the recruitment forum.

Imagine if you will, my astonishment at seeing some hopeful players hunting for a DM to guide them through a short 4e adventure.  On the Paizo boards, that's a bit like finding hen's teeth.  As the publishers of Pathfinder, the bulk of the PbP games use that system. 

You can see where this is leading, of course.  I volunteered.  A couple of old lags chimed in.  Suddenly there is a six strong party wanting thrills and noble deeds.  They'll get them.  One of the players had an outstandingly cack-handed first experience so I feel honour bound to try and put that right.

The tops are on the way too.  Dye buckets may get a look in tomorrow if I can keep the sewing machine from crashing.  That part will be fun, but I'm not counting my chickens just yet.  I had to take the whole thing apart earlier today to extract some rogue lint.  Adventurers are easy meat in comparison.

Trousers. Not as simple as they look.

Despite my best efforts, the Antigone trousers are making slow progress.  The legs are simple.  The top end?  Ugh.  You have to leave enough space for anatomy.  Not hard in fact as if you do what I did (in my innocence) you end up with something that will comfortably accommodate two cast members at least.  This plainly would not do.  The poor kids would have been wallowing in unseemly yards of  fabric.  Plus, I don't have enough material for such indulgence.

I ended up cutting out a random chunk and re-stitching and now have a pair of vaguely functional trousers.  They are neither elegant nor anything a person would choose to wear, but that is the nature of costumes.  Since then I have disembowelled a pair of ancient pajama bottoms and things are going better.

Oddly enough, I have no problems with really quite difficult things - like outre robes and dresses for the damned, but plain simple trousers have been eating my life for three days.

Mikelmerck Bestiary, your turn is coming.  I have earned you.

Testing, testing

Band of noble, but morally inferior wood-elves

I am not much of a one for wargaming, mainly because I have the tactical sense of a doughnut, but I do enjoy watching others pushing little lead soldiers around.  That and I paint the occasional mini and it's always nice to see them in use.

This afternoon saw a playtest on our table and very entertaining it was too.  Good and Bad (with a definite capital "B") faced up to each other across some randomly assigned terrain. 

Using trees for camoflague, the good team consisted of the wood-elves pictured above, a small dwarf unit, Donaar K'Baab the dragonborn hero, Friar Ducaine the robust healer and some random halflings teleported in from an alternate dimension. 

On the other team, assorted dark elves, some leftover scaven, a few rats, a selection of blood cultists masquerading as ghouls, Karolina the vampiric bard, Davy Powys the mighty dark elf hero, a giant toad and Madskillz the troll.  They appeared from behind a small hill and around a (possibly) strategic tower.

As it happened, most these units were ranged, so battle joined fairly fast.  Unlike some other minis games I've witnessed it was not only speedy, but pretty lethal. 

The dwarf unit dropped almost at once due to good rolls from the ghoulish cultists, but revenge was taken almost immediately when they were wiped out in turn by the wood elves. 

At the centre of the battlefield, the heroes good and bad accummulated to challenged each other to duels.  Donaar and Karolina both fell and the wood elves were so demoralised that they turned and fled.  Madskillz never even made it into combat, felled by the anachronistic halflings.  "Big, smelly chap at 4 o clock.  Take him down."

Considering the whole combat was bodged together on the fly, it was amazingly well balanced.  The whole thing took about an hour and a half including setting up.  I'm seriously tempted to give it a go.

What was I doing?  Making a costume is the answer to that one.  We have a big table.  The sewing machine behaved impeccably.  Clearly all it needs to keep it happy is a battle raging two feet away.

Triumph!

I have finally bent the sewing machine to my will.  It's taken the best part of a reel of cotton and more bad language than I thought I knew, but mission accomplished.  It is threaded.

Now all I have to do is sew something with it.