Sci-Fi Adventure: A 25th century Outer-Space Babe Flies Again

As promised, my real one-day outfit based on a movie genre is ready today!

Any of you who watched the show were probably ON THE EDGE OF YOUR SEATS wondering which genre I would go with. Sci-Fi won! (Although if I was actually on this episode, you know I would have without a doubt chosen "period piece" and made one of my renaissance dresses to kill everybody)

So here we have a revised version of Wilma Deering from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, played by the goddessly gorgeous Erin Grey. I think she looked better with dark hair than the blonde hair she adopted after the first season, don't you agree?

So this outfit is to offer a non-early-80's version of the lycra flightsuit that Wilma wore on Buck Rogers. I still wanted to go with something that hinted at a white space-suit, because, as you know, in the future all people will be dressed in monochromatic colors and at certain points all women will be wearing miniskirts.

This outfit has so many great details that will probably get overlooked and/or the camera doesn't pick up. You can see the holster on the pant leg, which I think makes a big statement. Imagine that detail not there. It wouldn't be the same.

Anyway, this outfit has pockets and fold-overs all over the place that don't all open at the top. When you're in space, there's no gravity, so why not make pockets with the opening at the sides or even at the bottom?

The undershirt has a strange, branch-like pattern on it as well that looks like the cooling tubes in real astronauts undergarments. I lucked out having that one!

So this one is a contender for one of my favorites right now. Please ignore the badly photoshopped white shoes on her feet. There, I said it! I used photoshop on something!! Don't judge! You don't know me!

*runs away*





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Okay, Done!


Okay! Movie Premeire dress finished! Isn't it GORGEOUS!?!?!?! I seriously could charge a thousand dollars for this one!

Just kidding, actually. I was testing to see how this material draped and photographed, so I just wrapped it around Nora, pinned it over her shoulder, and IT TURNED OUT LIKE THIS. The whole thing took maybe 15 seconds! It would have taken five, but I had to reach for the pin.

I wish that everything was this easy!!


The REAL outfit is a one-day challenge and will be done tomorrow.
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The News Is In: More Colour and More Cuteness Brings The Sunshine In

Trina is ready to travel back in time and steal Barbara Walter's job. Or at least steal her husband...

After last week's misguided attempt as a business suit, I was reminded that Trina's strength lies in vintagewear, and I hate anything that ends up looking colorless. I've been wanting to use this great fabric for a long time, but was just waiting for the right outfit to make from it to pop into my head.








I decided to go with a modified 50's/60's jacket with a large notched collar and crossover closure in the front, just to make it different.







If I could start over and make it all again, I would make the collar even larger to go even more over the shoulders, and make the crossover even more pronounced.

Learned experience from this project: If you go with a bold color/pattern with a bold statement in construction, it would probably not be such a bad idea to go bold all the way!


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Let Them Eat Cake: A Paper Doll Creation That was Easier and More Fun Than I Expected!

I was actally considering not participating in this assignment at first. After all, what is the chance that I would ever again be asked to make a dress out of newspaper? But after finding two messages in my inbox immediately after the show saying, "I can't wait to see what you so with this week's challenge!!" I changed my mind, and I sure am glad I did!

So this is obviously is a Maire Antionette-ish dress. It is inspired children's paper dolls and by those old TV-movies that don't really try too hard to make the costumes historically accurate as long as they look pretty. I wanted to create a wearable art peice that would utilize the nature of paper, which is to be stiff and creasable, rather than fight it and try to force it to act like fabric.

I decided to go with panniers (the strange hip sticky-outy things) because they are hard to make... with fabric. But with stiff paper that stays where you fold it, creating this usually difficult to sustain look was easy! Also creating rows of pleats with newspaper was easier than fabric as well since I could put 5-7 layers of paper and pleat them all at the same time AND they would stay folded without needing to use an iron.


So I love this little paper doll number. Yes, it's "costumey" (eeeee!), but the assigment was to create any type of garment we wanted as long at it was made from paper, and I wanted to make an awesome paper costume!

Moonlighting Stranger: A Mistakenly Grey Suit for a Mature Professional



Here it is! Made entirely out of newspaper!

Well, not really. I decided that only one outfit a week was just not right!

I have been working on this one for a couple days. I wanted to do a professional looking outfit for a woman that is not necessarily in her early 20's to be ready for that very plausible future challenge. I chose a Maddie Hayes "Moonlighting" private investigator type as a character to dress. I think the suit turned out okay.

I kind of had a hard time picking a material after I did the sketch of the suit. The jacket part has a lot of panels and peices and I needed something that had a good weight and behaved well with the iron. I ended up using this houndstooth patterned wool that I got at a garage sale. As plain fabric, it looked blue, but as soon as I finished sewing the pants and stood back, I realized the navy and the white in the pattern blended to look grey! Eek! No color?! NOOooooooooooOOOOOOO!Anyway, it was a good practice in jacket drafting and I really like the shape of the pants. In a different material (like a warm solid that would highlight the seam lines) I would make this again with perhaps interesting gathers at certain points of the bodice and/or a more pronounced tunnel collar to make it look less like a Korean Army Uniform.



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Industrial Girl: Call her Neon Nora


This week was an official One-Day challenge that featured outfits designed for the models to go to an important industry party. They needed something to make them look good, but more importantly, to stand out in the crowd.

I agonized for a few moments on which of my girls to pick. But, Leonora came out the winner as I think she would be the one most likely to work a room at an industry party. Trina would want to be the hostess, and Raine would most likely either want to brood in the corner or spend all her time throwing things on the ground for the other models to slip on.

Looking at these pictures, it's very evident that the camera did not capture how BRIGHT this fabric is. I chose it because it is definitely a color that would stand out amongst most other outfits.

I also have been wanting to make a culotte pants ensemble, so this was the perfect time to do it! You don't see this type of pant a lot right now (although they are still around, and they are EXPENSIVE... regardless of the fact that they are just as easy to make as skinny pants, if not easier)

The collar/top went though a few trials and errors, but I think the way it came out is okay. If I had more time, I would have tried to do something more interesting with the collar area, as at this point the judges are beginning to frown on all that which is Boring, but it's still a clean line that fits the model well.

From the way she's working her face in the pictures, I think Nora likes it, too!






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Beach Challenge Part 2: The Sea Goddess Lives to the East of the Constellations


The second half of the Beach challenge was to create an Avant Garde look that was a companion to the surfer girl outfit. While some (pretty much all) of the designers created something that didn't have anything to do with the first look, I decided to take elements of my very simple previous outfit and make it artistic.



This dress is entitled, "The Sea Goddess," and from the hems of the skirts to the "wave" of the hood, the fabric is meant to look like the waves and ripples of beautiful aqua colored sea water .



Avant Garde is supposed to be more artsy than wearable. I could have gone further with the "artsy" aspect, making more billows and strange looking puffs in odd places, and making it look less like this other dress, but for my first attempt at something like this, I think it's pretty cute! I think it's perfectly wearable if I ever had to costume a Bollywood movie.











The bodice of this dress was something new for me. I drafted the fabric to gather at the corner and sweep across the body diagonally, but when I sewed it, the fabric stuck out and didn't "ripple," so I used a needle and thread and did a strange zig zag pattern to hand gather parts of the top to a very interesting effect! I will definitely use this technique again!























Fun Extra! I have made a Sea Goddess concept before with Crystal. This is more an excercise in my photoshop "expertise," but I designed and made the shell crown! I was very disturbed when I remembered that I had just recently thrown it away with my last move. It would have been perfect to wear with this outfit.


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Gidget Goes Comfy: A Functional Beach Girl Outfit That Fits a Purpose

This week's challenge was a double-whammy. Two outfits were to be made and I got behind because I had an actual paid sewing job to do! So, therefore, I am pushing myself to do these outfits as one-day creations, so let's begin!

The first task was to create beachwear for a surfer girl. Unlike some designers, I actually listened to what the surfer girls were saying in their interviews, and picked up that they like function over fashion, and at least one had an affinity for hooded sweatshirts.

So I took to the idea that I wanted to make something with hidden functions that a surfer girl would find useful.

Besides the obvious comfort of the stretchy fabric and the warmth of the hood, I made an extra extra long back panel, so the girl could throw this on right out of the water, sit down on the sand, and not get her shorts wet.

The sleeves have pockets on the side for a cell phone, car keys, or a little pen and paper.

There are two long panels on each side for the surfer girl to fiddle with, as well as use as hand warmers, or to wrap around a cold beer bottle so her fingers don't get numb. These also function as an addition option for a closure.

The elastic waistband was made tight enough so that if she wants to have to front completely open, she just doesn't zip the zipper. The elastic automatically pulls all the fabric to the back.

As for the inside, it's just a standard halter bikini top and a pair of hotpants, but I think they are cute by themselves!

If I sent a girl down the runway with this on, I would definitely instruct her to take off the sweatshirt halfway through and drag it behind her as she exits.

So I know this outfit would probably not win any pretty awards, but it serves the function well, I think! And Nora found it quite interesting to see what she looks like with a tan.






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Flipper: Le Porpoise Parisienne

If you pronounced the above title, "Luh Pour-Pwah," extra points for you!

I have a lot of days off this week, so I decided to speed sew and make one garment each day. This is the second. It's actually less stressful, I have found, since I don't have something unfinished hanging over my head when I go to bed at night. Who would have thunk it!

This little creation is a little unusual, I admit, but that is not necessarily a bad thing! Yes, it's meant to look like a combination of a Parisian evening gown, a dolphin, and a scuba diving outfit. I say Parisian because when I think of black/white/gray mixed with a bold red, I think Parisienne. The dolphin and scuba should be pretty apparent.

I really wanted to make a formal dress with a hood. It's not something that you see every day and not everyone can pull it off. You have to have a really strong face to basically have no hair. But for the woman that can do this, it can look amazing.

The bodice is pretty simple, made out of stretch fabric and fit snugly to the body. There are pleats at the shoulders. The little spray of tulle at the shoulder came later, when I realized that the black of the waistband needed to be balanced with something black higher up. If I had actually planned to put it there, I would have made the shoulder pleats gather up into the spray rather than equal at both shoulders. But even if I wanted to start over, I couldn't. I used up EVERY bot of material I had of this shiny grey mini-argyle. A skirt like this takes a lot of material!

Speaking of the skirt, it obviously is the Pièce de résistance, no?  Even with the hood and super tight bodice that shows every curve of the woman's body, the red lining is what people would remember, I think.