Halfway to Halloween Shindig

So if you follow my facebook or twitter feeds you'll already know that Mr. Fiance and I were invited to a Halfway to Halloween party tomorrow night.

So if you're in the Atlanta area you should totally stop by and say hello to us. Just saying. 

As you can imagine there is not enough time to make new costumes for tomorrow so I'm busting out our Logan's Run costumes again. I wasn't completely happy with Mr. Fiance's Logan costume last time around so tonight I'll make some adjustments.

Here's a photo of us from last October.

Over all I was satisfied with the costumes. I was very happy with the mock turtleneck undershirt, but I thought the tunic was off. When I made the tunic Mr. Fiancé was unavailable for measurements so I traced one of Mr. Fiancé's teeshirts to make the tunic pattern. I didn't take into account where the shoulders were going to lay and thus this happened.

Poofy Poof Mc Poofyshoulders. Luckily it only needs some minor adjustments. I just need to take in the shoulder lines a little bit like such:

And adjust the neckline like so:

Cake. No problem. Just a few quick snips and some blind hem stitches and we'll be good to go.

As far as the Jessica Dress I really only need to redo the belt. I'll swing by the hardware store this afternoon and see if I can't find any 2 inch silver O-rings. I had originally ordered 3 inch rings but they were way too big. I had thought the 3inch referred to the total size of the ring, not the opening. I still think it normally does, but I bought my rings off etsy and I suspect the seller was a little confused.

My Stacey, what nice boobies you have.

I ended up tossing out two of the rings and making the belt with three rings rather than the five rings used in the movie.

Three rings in front, two larger rings in back.

I also need to reinforce the inside of the belt with a stronger fabric so that it can actually support the rings. I'm not going to lie... the last time I wore this costume one of the rings popped off and another was barely hanging on by the end of the night. So I figure I'll either shove some interfacing in there or a piece of scrap flannel depending on what I've got lying around the house.

All in all I suspect it will take me a couple hours to complete the miner alterations. I'll update you on how I jury rigged everything afterwards. I briefly contemplated getting us some fabulous wigs for tomorrow night, but meh. I'll save that for Dragoncon.

And hey, if you think you might make it out tomorrow send me a line or leave a comment and I'll make sure to look for you at the event.

"Logan Costume!" or "Halloween in December..."

Alright! The long awaited (at least on my part, maybe not on yours) Logan shirt post. I know this is a month over due, but I hope you'll forgive me.

The overall steps were pretty easy. I started with this pattern for the undershirt.

Which I'll note is just about the easiest darn pattern that there ever was. In fact, I'll share with you all the complete construction instructions. 

Sweet right? The first step was to cut out the pattern pieces. If you've ever used a stretch-and-sew pattern you'll know that the pattern is double sided and you always have to trace the pattern pieces onto pattern paper. I was sort of out of pattern paper at the time so I used some parchment paper, but halfway through the torso pieces I ran out of that so I switched to wax paper. I wouldn't really recommend wax paper for this job unless you get in a pinch like I did. It's not the easiest thing to work with, but it gets the job done.

There's nothing quite like jury-rigging. Yup. I have mad taping wax paper together skills.

The second step as you'll note from the pattern above was the sew up the shoulder seams. Since this was the undershirt and I was working with jersey knit I wanted to add some seam stabilization.

I do not buy store bought seam stabilizing tape for my knits. The tape is expensive and I find that a little bit of interfacing cut into strips does the job better than tape ever has. Plus it's a good way to get rid of all those interfacing scraps you inevitably have left over and it STRETCHES. Heck. Yeah.

I used fusible interfacing for this shirt because it was the only thing I had in black, but non fusible works pretty well as long as it's stretchy. Just stick it on top of whatever seam your sewing and proceed as normal.

After all the seams were sewn I ran a hot iron over the seam stabilizer/leftover interfacing to secure it a little better. As you can see in the above picture to save on fabric I cut the back piece of the shirt out of two pieces of fabric and sewed them together (top left). I left about five inches unsewn so I could add a closure later. My gray fabric was not very stretchy and would never have fit over Fiancé's head. Thus, velcro was a must.

I forgot to take pictures of the mock-turtleneck collar installation, but it was pretty straight forward. I cut a strip of gray fabric to 17 inches (the measurement of fiancé's neck plus one inch for overlap) by 4 inches. I folded it in half, sewed the ends closed, snipped off the corners, turned it right-side-out and pressed. After that I turned inside out again and sewed the right sides of the shirt and collar together. I turned the shirt right side out, folded the collar over and top-stitched the collar to secure it to the shirt.

And Presto! A mock turtle neck for your viewing pleasure. I hemmed the sleeves and added a velcro closure to the back of the shirt to finish it up.

The next step was to create the outer tunic. I started off by graphing all the triangle details into the front of the shirt with a ruler and some tailors chalk. When I had it the way that I liked it I went ahead and top stitched over all the lines. This took for-eeevvvv-eeeerrr, but was totally worth it.

For the tunic itself I took one of Fiance's teeshirts and traced it onto my black jersey. I added a 1/2 inch seam allowance on all sides and cut it out.

After I had all my tunic pieces ready I decided where I wanted the gray bar to go.

I subtracted a 1/4 inch seam allowance on the top and the bottom and cut out the black panel.

I used the cut out as a stencil for for the gray fabric and added an additional 1/2inch to the top and bottom of the panel to make up the difference.

I sewed the panel onto the front of the tunic and then attached the back of the tunic. To finish it up I hemmed the neck, armholes and bottom of the tunic.

I'm pretty happy with the outcome of the costume. There are a few things I'll go back and change before we wear these again.

1. Take in tunic arm holes a little more. I wasn't happy with how far they were poking out.
2. Adjust neck line on tunic so it doesn't cover up the bottom of mock-turtleneck. It's the wrong shape.
3. Finish the 70's pants that were suppose to go with this thing.

But otherwise I was quite happy. Our social circle is full of geeks and they certainly embraced our costumes.

I'd also like to note, Dear Readers, that I was just rehired to my old company! Hurray! And just in time for the Holidays. I'm thankful to my friends, readers, and especially my parents for helping us through the layoff period. E-hugs to all of you!

Halloweeeeen!

So we had all kinds of fun this weekend. Here are the final results. I was actually shocked by how many people knew who we were. I was expecting maybe one person or so to recognize us, but ten people must have stopped us to snap our photo. Fiancé even got stopped in the parking lot with a "hey Sandman!"

Once upon a time in the year 2116 a person's age is strictly legislated. 30 years to the day of your birth, Lastday, you must "renew". Those who don't renew are called Runners. They are hunted down by the elite police force called Sandmen.

Aaaaaaaaaannnnd the big reveal. We took this in a dark warehouse party so the flash did all sorts of stuff to our faces, but just pretend it's not so bad. I had to switch the Jessica belt up a bit, the o-rings I ordered came in too large. They were more like 3.75 inch rings than 3 inch rings. I'll be redoing the belt at some point, but I'm definitely going to have to get some smaller rings. Maybe 2 inch or 2.5 inch.  Also had a little costume malfunction. One of those rings decided it did not want to be attached any longer and flopped halfway off about 30 minutes into the night. It was my own fault for rushing the belt.

You can see the ridiculous quilting I did for the gray panel on the Sandman costume. Yes all those lines are stitched, not drawn. That was definitely the most tedious part of this whole endeavor. Fiancé really liked his costume and I have to say I'm quite happy with the results. The lifeclocks we bought looked awesome. I had to pull mine off at some point during the night because the Spirit Gum we used to attach them was really aggravating my skin and starting to hurt. (Curse you pasty white skin and your extreme sensitivity to everything). I solved the braless issue with pasties which also irritated my skin. Lame. Next time I wear a nude camisole like I was going to do from the beginning. 

I'll be posting how I made the Logan costume later this week. Hope you all had a great Halloween and have a  happy All Saints Day!

Logan Costume - Logan 5 References

Last night I began work on the Logan costume. I did not take any photos as last night consisted of opening patterns, washing fabric, changing out thread on the machine, and lots of pattern tracing. Generally pretty boring stuff.

Just two pieces to cut and sew make this pattern a popular and versatile answer to the knit top and sweater wardrobe for the men in the family. Try it with a crew neck, turtleneck, or buttons down the front. Pattern number 100 was designed especially for knit and stretch fabrics. You will enjoy its versatility and the simplicity of construction.

I must say that this 1967 Stretch and Sew pattern is just about the greatest pattern I've ever used. Four pieces. FOUR. Well, five if you add the turtle neck as I will. You also have an option of adding a ribbed knit collar should you so desire. I didn't have enough pattern paper so I traced the pattern onto parchment paper. 

And then I ran out of parchment paper so I traced it onto some wax paper.

Yeah, it was a little jury rigged. Don't judge.

Next step was to round up all my reference photos and get a good last look.

Velco in the collar.

This costume is going up for auction in December. Starting bid? $4,000. 

 

Quilted Triangle chest detail. 

After that I rounded up my reference photos and discovered something that had somehow escaped me before. That gray bar on the sandman uniform doesn't go around the back. Glad I was able to figure that out. Less work for me!

Tonight is make the shirt and tunic night. Totally doable if I don't run into any mechanical problems. Yay!

Logan's Run: The Jessica Dress

A Jessica dress in 20 easy steps. 

Step 1: Trace muslin onto fabric, adjust accordingly.

Step 2: Fray-check the heck out of everything. 

Step 3: Sew shoulder seams together. Check neck line.

Step 4: Apologize to blog readers for ugly no makeup face and wet hair. 

Step 5: Decide you hate neck line and that the fray-check itches like woah. Have miner freak out. Do what any person would do in this situation and run crying to Mother. She takes approximately 0.2 seconds to solve all neck line issues. She also suggests sewing in a facing to the collar. 

Step 6: Tell your mother she is awesome. Rip out shoulder seams. Install facing. 

Step 7: More fray-check.

Step 8: Resew shoulder seams with a larger seam allowance. Press flat. More fray-check.

Step 9: Test new neck line. Approve. Do happy dance.

Step 10: Sew and press side seams. 

Step 11: Figure out where elastic waist will go. 

Step 12: Sew on casing (not shown)

Step 13: Grab the GREATEST sewing tool EVER and thread elastic through waistband in 6 seconds. 

Step 14: even out elastic and scrunching.

Step 15: Close casing, sew down elastic so it doesn't move around on you.

Step 16: Compare costume to original. Approve of costume.

Step 17: Take costume for a test drive and decide on hem length.

Step 18: Install pretty lace hem tape. 

Step 19: Sew Blind Hem by hand for the first time since Highschool. Decide it wasn't as bad as you thought it would be.

Step 20: Pat yourself on the back.