Luna's Baublebilities

Success - more or less - on the dress and a major Craft Fail on the purse.

As I suspected, the dress pattern flew together pretty smoothly once I got the pieces cut. A serger would have made it twice as quick but, alas, I have no serger. The trickiest part was hemming up the dress - the skirt part actually loops all the way under the dress to be attached to the lining of the overdress panel. This makes the bottom of the dress very heavy and full. It could possibly be made more full by adding some tulle to fill out the bottom, but the pattern says nothing about that sort of addition.

Because I had to shift the pattern by 90 degrees, I was able to cut the shoulder and neck along the beautiful selvedge edge so that there is a lovely decorative gold and purple band along the sleeves. The sleeve hems need some work and the overdress is screaming for some beautiful beaded & sequined embroidery but none of those things are going to happen before tomorrow.





The purse concept is sound but I encountered some problems.

1.) I was not careful in cutting out the lining shoulder/side piece so it ended up being a few inches too short, which meant that I had to cut down the length of my back and front panels, to, making the purse about 2 inches too shallow, which makes the purse feel a bit too wide. I really wanted to be able to carry a binder and lesson manuals in it for church but those would probably stick out the top now and my planner swims around in there hopelessly. It will be a loose junk nightmare, in spite of the purse organizer I made. No photos - really - you don't want to see them. Go buy one from JPATPURSES instead. She makes great organizers - maybe I should just send her some fabric and some cash and have her make me a purse!

2.) The construction in general is not firm enough. I was running low on interfacing and didn't want to cough up more cash while buying the enormous amount of fabric Molly's dress took. I thought that the velveteen would be sturdy enough without interfacing. It is very sturdy, it just isn't stiff. I think a heavy weight iron on interfacing on the front and bottom panels would have done the trick nicely. The sides are pretty firm because of all the layers of pockets I've got there. A piece of cardboard stuck in the bottom might help.

We'll see because that's the purse I'm stuck with until I get home and can make another attempt someday. I hate to have wasted all that beautiful duponi - maybe I'll even try to extend the bottom a bit.



. . . . .

And she had better like it!

We will be taking Maxx to the temple of Wednesday, staying in Rochester overnight and then dropping MB off at a Youth Conference on our way home. She wants a special dress to wear to Maxx's sealing plus there is a fancy dance at the Youth Conference. We've been contemplating this Folkwear pattern for a long time but I haven't felt prepared to shell out the cash for all the fabric it takes.

This seems like a likely occassion. The overdress section will be made of that beautiful pale blue silk duponi I spoke of earlier and I let MB choose a gorgeous purple and gold sari fabric at Joanne fabric on Thursday. Unfortunately, I am a knuckle head and didn't realize that the fabric's pattern is directional until I got it home. Now I have to shift the patern by 90 degrees and add a seam to make it look right for this pattern. I lack about half a yard of fabric for this trick and have to drive all the way back to Malone before I can start cutting and sewing. I hope I can find the same fabric again - or a likely compliment.

I hope I get time to make a new purse, too. My old one is thrashed and filthy and I've been lying awake thinking about those gorgeous paisley velveteens in the middle of the night.

Molly and I often stop by this shop to oooh and aaah over the multitude of spectacular creations available at damselinthisdress.

Not only do I wish that I could afford some of these beautiful costume pieces, I wish I had the time, talent and access to the incredibly lush fabrics she uses so that I could create my own. I also wish I had a place to wear such clothes. (I know, Suzy, I should come to Pensic!)


I love that these are made to fit women's bodies. That means that while skinny girls like Kate Moss would look pathetic in these corsets, ladies with figures more like mine would look great. You can check out Michelle's website to see more photos of real women wearing her garb.












Michelle Thorstrom's story makes me happy. She decided, almost on a whim, to make a few corsets and sell them at a Renaissance Festival. Now she and her husband are supporting their family with this business. I think that's wonderful and incredible. I hope the magic continues for her!













. . . .

This weekend, I had a customer ask me some questions about Brass stampings. In composing an answer for her, I realized that this would probably be a good blog topic as there seems to be a lack of honest, concise information out there about these pretty things that so many people are buying and using these days.






The first place to start would be what Brass is made of. Wikipedia has a good explanation
that needs no extra babbling from me. Copper and Zinc. No lead. Yay!






Part of the confusion around all of those pretty filigree pieces out there today is the question of whether they are truly "antique" or "vintage" or not. Based on my experience with these items, I believe that most of them for sale today on Etsy and elsewhere are actually newly manufactured items. There are some out there that are obviously old - left over from old boxes stored in warehouses for decades but those show significant oxidation beyond the simple patinas that modern jewelry artists are applying. The truly old stuff is often dirty and pitted and have come from some auction house clearing out old, unclaimed stuff.




All of my brass pieces are newly made from vintage and antique dies by manufacturers in the U.S. (Yay for American manufacturing jobs!) For basic information on the manufacturing process, we turn to Wikipedia again. In many cases, these dies were put away for decades until the recent fashion trends in vintage style, Steampunk, and retro Victorian jewelry came into vogue. Then the old dies were pulled out and put to work again to create new findings in vintage designs. Thus, you can buy a brand new filigree piece of the exact same design used in a brooch your great-gramma wore. Molly Byn was excited to learn this as she was recently allowed to claim some goodies from her Great Gramma's jewelry box - some items needed repair or repurposing and she discovered a treasure trove of possibilities in my studio. (I'll post some of those creations later on.)

Raw brass items are just that - brass charms, filigree and findings that are unaltered from their original state. These pieces will age and darken, sometimes in a very unlovely fashion and will probably leave a green mark on your skin unless they are sealed in some way. Floor wax, jewelers sealant, clear nail polish and furniture wax (like Renaissane micro-crystaline wax) all work well for this purpose. Brass reacts with all sorts of chemicals unless sealed - amonia will quickly darken brass and will actually eat away at it if exposed for too long. I have started using a jewelrs grade sealant for my patina items so that my customers' creations remain stable and clean.

Because brass reacts with many chemicals, there are many solutions that can be applied to create a patina on the brass. The most usual patina color is a brown-gold color that makes the piece look aged. I recently learned how to apply a green-blue verdegris patina that will start appearing in my shop soon and I have seen a few other colors that I'm intrigued by - chartreuse, deep purple - but I'm intimidated by the chemisty right now and will have to wait until I have a studio with beter ventilation and running water for safety's sake before experimenting with those.




















. . . .

Two posts in one day? No way.

I stopped by Sharon B's blog (which has moved to Pin Tangle) today and she had a link to a costume exhibit at Kent State University Museum. The exhibit is called - are you ready? The Art of the Embroiderer.

Fabulous stuff. You must go look at it. I've borrowed a couple of photos that link back to the exhibit to tempt you.

As much as I would LOVE to make my living embroidering such marvelous dresses, I live in great dread that someday Molly will expect me to embroider and bead and embellish some amazing dress for her. When she was little, I made her a Flower Fairy Halloween costume - it's still somewhere in my hope chest - with all handmade ribbon roses, beads, sequins, trailing ribbons, a wand, a circlet crown of ribbon rose flowers. It took weeks. She wore it for two hours. Kind of like a wedding dress.

Maybe if I start on one now, It will be ready by the time she finds someone to marry.

I'm really pleased that Kent State has put together such a marvelous online exhibit. What a priceless resource! This is why we need to continue to fund the Arts & Education.