Ench By Sew-37: Savage Beauty of Alexander McQueen (Halloween Style)

 

 October is a month when many of us in the Western Hemisphere get in touch with our own emotions and comfort dealing with

mortality. Folks in my neck of the woods celebrate Dia de Los Muertos – Day of the Dead. Dia de Los Muertos is a day for celebrating ritual death tradition- engaging in crafts, creating and eating special foods, and putting out images – colorful, beautiful, and also macabre – that may touch on a connection with departed family members.

Listen directly to this audio/podcast on the web by clicking on this link OR.... to download the show from iTunes Click on this link to iTunes  , 

In our neighborhood we put out beautiful pumpkins, scary dancing skeletons and bright lights. Then we celebrate our connection to another world, by welcoming in the trick or treaters- be they costumed beautifully, colorfully, or gruesomely - by handing out free Halloween candy.

Fashion designer Alexander McQueen focused on designing beautifully romantic, avent garde fashion. He also had a strong interest in the macabre. His masters fashion exhibit “Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims”, was a hint that this emerging designer was not going to be run-of-the-mill when it came to setting his artistic tone. Other chilling exhibits followed. “Highland Rape” and “The Widows of Culloden” , among others, carried McQueen’s historically inspired fashion artistry farther into the dark side of the human soul.

Morose? Yes – often- but his work was also drop dead gorgeous. Many of McQueens materials, embellishments design lines, colors, technology and elements inspire my arty-romantic sewing nature, even as I am frightened by other aspects of his work.

As you accompany me in the show, I’ll share the beautiful, and the colorful as well as the scary.  Because that’s what this time of year is all about, where I live.

Ench By Sew-025: Restyling

Hey! 

The latest Enchanted by Sewing Podcast has been published!

Listening Option I) You can listen to the show right on the web by clicking on this link

http://traffic.libsyn.com/enchantedbysewing/FINALCastOct2014RestylingEnchantedBySewing.mp3

~ OR ~

Listening Option II)  Click on this link to iTunes  to download this and other Enchanted by Sewing shows to your mobile device (iPhone, Android, etc.) free from iTunes 
( https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/enchanted-by-sewing/id566370325)

This month’s show  is  Restylin’.
It all came about when I started shaking the dreams from my hair. Restylin' is about my transition in sewing and wardrobe style . It involves looking at patterns in a new-to-me way, and working my brain around ways I want clothes to fit me.

The Enchanted by Sewing Podcast is, an extension of my regular sewing blog - Me Encanta Coser, which,  roughly translated means, Enchanted By Sewing 

My blog is written in English. The name celebrates the historical and modern use of the beautiful Spanish Language in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, where I live. 

This month I’m working on creating two tee shirts M6078 and V8323. The details are in these blog postings from MeEncantaCoser.blogspot.com
V8323 - Princess Seamed - Katherine Tilton Tee http://meencantacoser.blogspot.com/2014/10/princess-seamed-tee-shirt-pattern-work.html

M6078 - Retro Style Polka Dot Cowl Neck Knit top - Reminiscent of I Love Lucy http://meencantacoser.blogspot.com/2014/10/reworking-retro-style-polka-dot-tee.html

1) Pensamientos Primeros
– (Sewing) For my wardrobe’s sake (How about those red accents!)
2) Technicos  
Reworking my sewing style/methods. Pattern alteration experiences.
3) Pensamientos Finales
Transitions - Restyling  

David Crosby sang, 
“I almost cut my hair
It happened just the other day . . .”

4) Epiologue 
Redefining what I want to create

* * *
Restyling has me  shaking the dreams from my hair.   That’s just one more thing that keeps me . . . 
Enchanted by Sewing.

Halloween - What Would Marie Antoinette Wear? (Costume)

Am I the only sewist who's ever been tempted by the thought,
 that  she could pull together an historic ensemble, like this, in no time flat?
Golly with modern sewing methods,
and inexpensive luxury-look fabrics, what's to stop us?
Yeah, right!

Am I the only sewist out there who suddenly starts dreaming about the perfect Halloween costume less than a week before the big celebration? 

Wouldn't I just look ravishing, while passing out chocolates and other sweeties, in the fashions I associate with Marie Antoinette's times?

And really, how hard could it be to whip a gown like this up in no time flat?

Hummmm. Yes, it will be the witches hat, and orange tee shirt from the craft store for me again this year. Maybe 2014 will be the year I start getting serious in early September.....

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Resources*

I highly recommend the lovely, and informative, book, Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution. It's a lovely read about what Marie Antoinette actually did wear to masquerades (like our modern day Halloween), grand balls, or just toddling around Le Petit Trianon with the dear little daughter, she nicknamed Mousseline, a fun allusion to the fashions that Marie herself made popular at the time. 

Since I like to keep my iPad happy, I bought the Kindle version of Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution.

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* Thanks Sponsors! *

* Thanks so much, to readers who sponsor the work of this blog and the Enchanted by Sewing Podcast, by purchasing books, ebooks and other products through links in this blog.

Costume: The Queen of Hearts

The Queen of Hearts
Ready to Trip the Light Fantastic

Techniques: The Queen of Hearts already owned the ruched/shirred black bustier and tutu skirt. For the inset I cut a long rectangle of white costume satin and ran a gathering stick up both sides and two, closely spaced down the middle. Then I spent a lot of time trying to get the white satin ruching/shirring to mirror the black satin. Finally I had to just go for it. The red hearts are two sided. I pinned the white sating rectangle to mirror the sweat heart neckline of the bustier, then loosely hand stitched the white section on. After which, I hand stitched the hearts down. I expect to remove the entire inset in the future with a seam ripper, so I didn't go for a permanent meet up between the insert and original bodice.

Technique for the future: 

Those hearts didn't come out with crisp edges, eh? Well frankly in this case I kind of like the soft floaty,  imperfect, homemade look. These days, too many costumes roll off the assembly line for my taste. However, if I wanted to achieve a crispy look on this soft stuff another time, I think I would interface a similarly rounded and pointed edge form to one of the sides, then sew them up (all except for one straight shot on the right or left leg, then turn the joined sections right side out and stitch it up. In this case I didn't have to stitch the open edge up, because I was sewing the entire heart down to the white satin, so I just caught up the open edge then.

It's a Pressing Matter: Get Behind Me Goo!

It's not the Queen of Hearts
fault that I foreswore the
press cloth in my attempts to
make quick work of her
togs

I'm pretty sure I'm not the first sewist to trot out the old phrase It's a pressing matter, when it comes to ironing  So I surely do apologize if another sewing blogger or podcaster has used it as a major theme. The good stuff tends to stick in my craw, and I often think I've invited it myself. It really used to irk me is when somebody else used my good ones, (particularly at work!) and got all the credit. But it happens all the time. I've learned to accept it, and realize I probably do it myself.

I've been a little more focused on pressing because of my Fashion Sewing 110 class at Cañada College.  Rhonda and Kathleen made rather a point of remembering to use the press cloth to avoid sticky situations. That pretty much saved my iron a few weeks back when I mistakenly used 2-sided fusible instead of interfacing (I was in a bit of hurry and it looked the same to me). One of the sticky sides ended up on my press cloth and not the sole plate of my iron.

However I wasn't so lucky yesterday. In a hurry to get 3 just-turned-right-side-out red satin hearts for my daughter's Halloween "Queen of Hearts" bodice well shaped, I thought the iron, minus press cloth,  would help give them more definition. Well, it did. It also gave the iron a nice coat of sticky residue. Apparently the slickery coating on that cheap costume satin comes off mighty easily - in this case onto the sole plate of my iron.

Luckily, I remembered that Kathleen had mentioned she cleans the iron sole plates in class with that fine product "Goo Be Gone". I'm not the only person who doesn't always use the press cloth, it turns out. Luckily I own a bottle of Goo Be Gone Spray Gel. And, interesting to me - is it to anyone else? - I bought it at Menlo Hardware, a store that Kathleen (and her parents before her) owned herself for a long time.

My iron is shiny clean now. And the Queen of Hearts is ready to trip the light fantastic in a few weeks time.