Nexus, Dahling!... Fin!

I powered through the last bit of the coat tonight!

Viola!

The coat, just hanging on its own, a view from the front.

The coat, just hanging on its own, a view from the back.

A view of the inside.

I made all of the seams "french" and then felled down the seam to make it flush.

A view with the shirt.

A closer view with the shirt.

And we're finished!

Nexus, Dahling!... Moar...

I *had* hoped to have a picture of the completed shirt and the completed coat tonight, but with a Saturday spent shopping and vegging instead of sewing and a Sunday morning spent teaching...  Well, I just ran out of steam.  Here were the fruits of my labor for today, though:

Nexus, Dahling... Part Duex!

Tonight was intended for the finishing of Nexus' shirt, but it became the "rough-work" of the shirt instead.  My eyes aren't keeping open (probably something to do with my 4:30AM wake up call this morning), so it will just have to wait until tomorrow.  Some "in progress" pictures for you, though...

As of this moment, I am lacking sleeves, a hem, and some lacing to make the keyhole neckline even more devilishly handsome.

Nexus, Dahling!

I have very many crafty friends.  I don't meant crafty in terms of general deviousness (though that is true as well), but I do mean crafty in terms of the shared ability to sew and create something out of nothing.  One of these friends is Nexus, who is an amazing artisan.

Nexus was in the midst of creating this...

... when I pretty much begged him for it.

We happily worked out a barter, this wonderful chapeau for a fancy-court-garb ensemble for himself, and set our "due" date.  The date is rapidly upcoming, so I am very rapidly sewing.  Nexus has asked for me to take pictures as I go, so while these blog posts are for mostly for him, I didn't think the rest of you would mind following along.

My color palett:

I really need to learn to photograph things better.  These colors show up as dull when they are really quite rich.  The grey is a suedecloth, the navy blue is silkessence, and the silver/black is a sari brocade.

The overall goal is to make my dear Nexus look something along the lines of Jareth from "Labyrinth".

Tonight I whipped out the pants:

The pants are very basic, and are cut from what I lovingly refer to as the "Captain Tight-pants" pattern.  While most pants I make are unpatterned, this pattern never fails to make a pair of pants that hugs the butt just right.  Like magic.

Tomorrow night I'll start to tackle the shirt.  ^_^

Witchy-ness

I churned out another Halloween costume.  This piece is for my friend, and was meant to be evocative of Elphaba from "Wicked".  It isn't any great innovation in terms of pattern or design (it is straight off a Simplicity Pattern), but there are some fun tweaks to it.  For example, the buttons are all mis-matched.

I managed to overcome my fear of gathering with this project, which is notable because while I am forced to gather for my lovely three-tiered skirts, I really hate it a lot.  Pintrest now owns my soul, I believe, as it gave me a snazzy tutorial on making gathering easier.  It totally worked.  Check it out here.

Faerie; Halloween 2012

Tonight I did the hair, make-up, and dress trials for my completed Faerie costume.

The dress is an old one that I made many years ago for an unremembered occasion, though its been decorated and redecorated a couple of times for different feasts and/or parties.  My hair is held back with a fancy metal hairband and fascinator, and some clipped in flowers with glittery edges to hold back my bangs.  My makeup isn't anything revolutionary, but I am trying false lashes for the first time.  A hilarious undertaking, really.

Anyway, as they say, "TA DA!"

Faerie Wings; Fin(ish)!

With other projects that I am working on (and this crazy idea that I'm going to craft my way through Christmas presents) I needed to finish my wings tonight, but was a little stuck on how to harness them to my back.  Unfortunately, this wasn't something I could play with using my dress dummy, the faithful Genevieve, so I had to conscript my wonderful (and usually patient) sister, Rivi.  Ultimately, we found that a long (long, long) scarf wrapped and tied in crazy ways holds the wings securely, and masks the wooden block (that masks the joints of the wings).

Viola...

Tomorrow I am doing trials of the dress, the wings, and the make up all together.  I will endeavor to have pictures taken in order to share with the rest of you.  :-D