Thorin Tunic - Post 1

Okay, so I skipped a day. Got busy, which tends to happen to me a lot. It's a terrible thing. Trust me. Despite missing a day on my blog, though, I wasn't completely idle in the crafting department. I was actually doing a lot of hand sewing yesterday on my Thorin tunic (the bottom layer of my "Prince Thorin" costume, which is going to be epic). I made a lot of progress whilst in the waiting room at the doctor's, as well as in the car while my mom was driving. I was totally planning to come home after my appointment and be all productive, but then, Goodwill happened, and two hours later, my mom had bought herself a bunch of colorful shirts. I think it was an impulse buy, personally, but I'm glad she enjoyed herself.

I'm really off topic, aren't I? Sad. Well, to get this crafting train back on track, I'll say that this post is meant to detail some of my progress in making Thorin's shirt, not all of which has been documented, as the advent of this blog was sometime after I'd begun the shirt. Oh well. The first part's fairly basic anyway.

So, to throw you right into the thick of things, I'll start with the collar. Thorin's shirt (much to my sadness) does not have an awesome hood like Fili's and Kili's. Evidently, the one he uses is on his coat or something. This picture illustrates my collar pattern, which was mostly stolen from a Simplicity pattern I've had since high school. (I don't expect you to know how long ago that was. I'll just be vague like Edward and say it's been "a while.") 

The pattern, in case you're wondering, is Simplicity 4942, and is basically a generic Théoden, Legolas, and Elrond pattern. I'm sure there are dozens more that would work, but this one is perfectly sufficient to use as a base pattern. Base patterns are incredibly helpful when you're trying to achieve a particular original design, but don't want to start from scratch. You modify beforehand, using a mockup, or if you're impatient (like me), you modify as you go, to mixed results. (I'm getting better about that, I swear. I'm trying to be more professional.)

Anyway, back to the task at hand. Making a collar.

I cut two of the collar from my linen fabric, and one out of fusible interfacing. Fusible interfacing stiffens the collar and will make it stand up like it's supposed to. It's great for cuffs, as well, which I'll also be making for this shirt. 

So here you can see one of the fabric pieces being laid over the interfacing. Placing a damp rag over the fabric, once it's where I want it, I fuse the interfacing in place with my iron. Then it's time to sew the interfacing fabric piece to the non-interfacing'd fabric piece, the bottom 1/4" or so I've ironed up so once I've sewn my seam, I can hand slip stitch the facing in place. Sounds complicated, I know, but it really isn't. 

Once I've sewn around the top, rounded part (I altered the shape a little bit from the original pattern to make it less rounded, because Thorin's collar is more squared off at the edges), I can turn it and press.

Now it looks like this. Totally epic, right? I don't have pictures of the process of attaching it to the shirt because I did it in a rush before work, but it's really straightforward. You just pin the longer side (the one where the white is showing) to the back of the neckline on the shirt and sew about a quarter-inch seam (technically, you're supposed to sew 5/8" seams, but I usually don't when I'm drafting my own patterns. Anyway, it's an easy thing to fix if it ends up being too big. Not so much if it ends up being too small.

So Thorin has über awesome shoulder pads on his shirt. We're not talking 80's dress suits here, people. These shoulder pads have a purpose. They're meant to keep weapons straps from making your shoulders sore over time. (I wish I'd had this shirt when I was still playing bass in my brother's band, lemme tell ya.) The process of making them was a whole different story, what with making a weird sandwich with the fabric on the outside and cotton batting on the inside, then drawing the lines, then quilting them with my machine. I then sewed along the existing outside lines to attach the shoulder pads to the shirt. And they look... sexy? 

Notice all the cool lines along the front of the shirt. I've seen people actually cutting the fabric and then piecing it back together to achieve this look... *shakes head* You poor, poor people. So much easier to just mark, press, and sew a tiny seam right in the existing fabric piece. Same, exact look (if not better), and it's soooo much easier. Also sturdier construction, so you don't have to lie awake at night fretting that your seams are going to come apart and you're going to have a wardrobe malfunction and everyone's going to get an eyeful. 

So my next task was to make a binding for the front edge of the tunic, and a fabric lacing to go through the eyelets. A few days before, I'd found this cheesy, plastic strip cutter at a thrift store (I get so much whacky stuff at thrift stores), and I decided I'd put it through its paces. It actually... worked. Using fabric leftovers, I managed to cut a huge pile of 1 1/4" wide strips, which I then attached together in ingenious ways to make a binding/facing for my tunic front, as well as enough to make a lacing. A bunch of cutting, sewing, pressing, pinning, and sewing later, this was the result:

It looketh so prettyful. I was quite pleased with myself as I collapsed on my bed that night. After a lot of hand sewing the next day (mainly the front facing and the inside of the collar), as well as (today) finishing the lacing, this is where I'm at now (ignore the lacing; I've just draped it over the front, and it's not attached):

All that remains to be done now are the sleeves, the side seams, the back hem, and the eyelets. Oh, and I have to dye it a darker color. Wow. I had no idea I was actually that close to being done. That's amazing. Hopefully, tomorrow I'll have time to make more progress. If not, I'll cheat and make a blog about something else. Because Mahal knows, I'm always working on something, and get distracted ridiculously easily. I'm the most ADD crafter in the world. It's a wonder I ever finish any of my projects. *sigh*

It's Raining Bofur Hats!

Maybe I'll cheat and just make a post describing my crafting process for Bofur hats. Because I was lazy today and didn't do anything epic. So my first attempt (mark I) was made with some corduroy and faux leopard fur I already had lying around, and was primarily meant to be a pattern test. I spent a long time browsing pictures of Bofur's hat, and looking at tutorials for similar "bomber hats" and "trapper hats." After a while, I came to the conclusion that I was basically wasting my time, as someone out there had probably already come up with a pattern. 

As predicted, someone had. I proceeded to steal their pattern, print it off, and make my mark I hat. It was actually really, really easy, despite the lack of instructions. Very self explanatory construction is always nice. Faux fur is awful to work with, though, and the hairs get everywhere. Remember to turn the fur over and trace your pattern on the backing, because if you don't, the mess when you cut will be at least 9.113 times worse. (The voices in my head gave me that figure; don't ask me where they got it). 

I then quickly assembled the three pieces, which my machine tried to eat, because that's what machines do. They like tasty fabric, especially really thick, substantial fabric. It's a lot more filling, I guess. Actually, for my mock up / mark I, I had to make two separate hats and then sew them together, which created a nice fur lining with the corduroy on the outside. 

Oddly enough, the way the pattern was sewn and the thickness of the fabric "ears" of the hat lent themselves really well to sticking out the way Bofur's do in the movie. Just a few tacking stitches were all it took.

When I made my mark II hat, though it was different. As mentioned in yesterday's post, I finished dyeing my Sherpa suede and cut out the pieces for the hat. Since the suede was two-sided, meaning it had suede on one side and a textured wool on the other, I didn't have to make a lining for the hat, but could just assemble it the way Bofur's is in the movie, because his is made from actual sheepskin. (When I get rich, I'll make an accurate one, but until that day comes... Sherpa suede will have to do.) The fabric was originally a light tan on the outside, and the "wool" was white. I dyed it in black polyester dye, and darkened the outside somewhat, while turning the wool a nice, light gray. 

Assembling the pieces was even easier than with mark I, as I only had to sew through two layers, not four. This done, I hand sewed the front, folded up piece of the hat, and tacked up the back and the edges of the ears. That makes them stiffer, so they want to stick out like those on Bofur's distinctive hat. The one drawback of the thinner fabric layer for mark II is that it didn't want to stick out quite as much as mark I did, so I'll have to apply a fabric stiffener later. 

Today, I applied the decorative stitches to the seams running along the cap, which was surprisingly quick and straightforward. There must be something wrong. I'm getting worried. Usually something goes horribly, horribly wrong at least once for each project (yesterday's dye apocalypse notwithstanding), and everything went together too well. *glances around suspiciously* Maybe the mischievous crafting sprites have taken the day off. 

But yeah, for any of you attempting Bofur's hat, the stitch used is very simple, and involves hand sewing diagonals across the seam, looping the thread back around each stitch before moving to the next one. That makes for a lot cleaner, more uniform look. I've seen some people sewing weird x's along the seams... don't do that! It's way more work, and it's not accurate. Silly people.

I am going to finish my third Bofur hat tonight, and then I'll probably be content. I don't have three heads, so I definitely don't need three hats. I'll probably donate the others to lucky friends. ;) You know who you are. The third one is actually faux leather (really nice faux leather, mind you, as I wouldn't waste my time with aught else), and a Sherpa fabric. The construction will be more like mark I, but I'm confident the end result is going to be awe-inspiring. I'll probably update this post with pictures when I'm done.

For tomorrow, expect a post on Thorin's tunic, and quite possibly a semi-tutorial. Or at least something mildly helpful for those making one of their own. :) 

Overdyeing Fabric - Dwarven Design of Epicness

Okay, so today I was dyeing Sherpa suede fabric for Bofur hats. *nodnod* It was fun. I mixed up a boiling vat of black polyester dye on the stove, and proceeded to add my Sherpa. Everything seemed to be going well, but then - the stick I was using to remove the fabric from the vat slipped.

Splat!

That was the noise of roughly five pounds of wet fabric sloshing back into the dye, spattering the wall, the counter, the stove top, the toaster, and the cupboard with concentrated black liquid. I won't deny a bit of "French" escaped my lips at that particularly happy moment.

Calmly, I removed the pot of dye to the back porch, then scrubbed the dye off the various surfaces it had splattered. Piece of cake. Okay, okay, maybe I wasn't calm, and maybe the wall behind the stove still looks like a weird, green Dalmatian, but still... I couldn't fixate over it. I had to be moving on. Living my artistic life.

So I resumed the dyeing process out on the back porch. (The back porch is now ruined, but I digress.) Thankfully, out of all this trauma, a Bofur hat came to be, and a valuable lesson was learned: dyeing ruins stuff. Be okay with having your stuff ruined, because it's clearly for a really good cause.

Once I'd had my fill of Bofur hats and their ilk, I decided I was still dying to dye. So I made a new batch of dye and overdyed this awesome white fabric I'd gotten from Hancock Fabrics the other day. The design woven into it was super dwarven, and I thought I'd bring it out more by overdyeing it in a grey-blue.

Which I did. And it worked. I don't know why that shocked me so much, but I was truly, genuinely astonished my evil scheme had actually succeeded, and the design didn't accept the dye while the fabric around the design did. Which is 100% what the costume designing team of The Hobbit did for Thorin's velvet over coat. They found a grey velvet with an awesome design and overdyed it, and it was majestic.

Now I've just got to figure out what to make with my dwarven fabric. Won't work for Thorin's coat because it's not velvet, but it looks like something he'd wear. An original design, maybe? *schemes*

Introduction

So basically, this new blog isn't really anything fancy or structured, and as I don't anticipate having much of an audience, it's more of a way for me to document my creative endeavors as I go than anything else. A bit of fun.

That being said, in the event my train-wreck of a creative process helps some other costumers out there - great. Learn from my mistakes, oh kindred craftsman, for I make many, and have an awesome time in the process. :)

Major future projects to watch for:

-"Prince Thorin" costume, featured at the beginning of The Hobbit: an Unexpected Journey
-Kili costume upgrades, as well as his coat, bow, quiver, and boots