by kelerr
Looking at this blog, you would think I’ve turned all my attention to reading lately, which is so far from the case it’s laughable. It’s just that I’m determined to complete that reading challenge and to do so the same way that I’ve done the past ones: by writing posts about it. My reading time, however, is actually very limited. Even though I’m off for the summer and not working, between driving upstate and seeing friends and doing various activities, […]
by kelerr
Cogsworth was the second character that came to me fully formed, costume-wise. I knew exactly what my plan was, and though it got tweaked here and there as we were going along, he ended up looking exactly like what I pictured when I originally started doing my designs. The first step was planning. For months I had asked my coworkers to send me cardboard that they would otherwise be throwing out, and as a result I had tons to choose […]
by kelerr
Every year, there are some characters who seem very simple on the surface but it takes me forever to come up with a costume idea. This year those characters were the Silly Girls (a.k.a. the “groupies” who follow Gaston around everywhere he goes). In the end, I took inspiration from both the animated and live action versions. I liked that the characters in the animated version wore matching dresses, but I also liked that in the live-action they wore different […]
by kelerr
For whatever reason, two of the most challenging costumes came to me immediately. Mrs. Potts was one of those. As soon as I knew we were doing Beauty and the Beast I knew I wanted to fashion a oblong teapot, and I knew I could do it with hoop skirts. The original intention had been to construct them myself, but they weren’t very expensive so ended up buying two and working with that. I found the fabric I wanted at Materials for […]
by kelerr
After an extremely lazy morning yesterday, I got started on my latest: the city toile dress. This was a dress I had in the works for a while, in varying stages. I picked the fabric a long time ago, another one from Rifle Paper Co that I coveted for a long time before finally buying. Fabric in hand, I originally planned to make the same shirt dress as my flamingo dress, but I ended up finding another pattern I wanted to try. […]
by kelerr
My last two dresses went together so easily I barely stopped to take pictures of the progress. The Chantilly dress is now completely finished and the Rosa dress will soon follow. I did manage to get a few pictures of the finishing up progress. Let’s start with the Chantilly. This dress suffered a bit due to my error in judgement when it came to the lining. It was supposed to have a full skirt lining, but I decided to skip […]
by kelerr
The Rosa Dress has been on my “to sew” list for a while now. I’ve had both the fabric and the pattern on hand, ready to go but have been waiting. For what, I couldn’t tell you but I finally decided to wait no more! I wanted to put this dress together. I started with the bodice, of course. It consisted of this center piece with bust darts which got attached to the two side pieces creating diagonal, shaping seams. […]
by kelerr
Normally I name my dresses after the fabric I’m using but in this case I went with the pattern. I veered away from the major pattern companies and finally tried out the Chantilly Pattern from Colette Patterns. The last time I attempted it, I stopped while doing the yoke because something about it was off and my skills were just not what they are currently. However I still loved the pattern and I knew it would work perfectly with some rayon […]
by kelerr
Cutting out patterns and fabric is usually the step that makes me procrastinate the most at the beginning of a project. It’s not particularly difficult but I always dread it for some reason. I think it has to do with making sure I keep the pattern organized as I work and making sure all the pieces are together. Sometimes it’s just easier to have a “cutting day,” in which I take all my fabric and patterns and cut out my […]
sewfancybrooklyn.com