Do Rhomboids Dance?

Crazy.  Busy.  I can't believe I haven't posted since February - I'm sure my absence sent the blogosphere into a frantic tizzy. Just kidding! - but my disappearance was mostly due to MY being in a frantic tizzy for about 4 months.  Let's just say that my Sanity-Meter was tipping precariously toward "In-" and leave it at that.

I may have mentioned this before, but this is my younger son's senior year of high school.  Originally, he was planning to participate in the marching band in the fall, and then instead of doing percussion in the spring, he wanted to take a break from the constant rehearsals and competitions and move over into the Wind Ensemble instead. Things didn't work out that way, though, so we just got finished grinding through another spring competition season, which culminated in an incredibly jam-packed trip to Dayton, Ohio for the WGI Percussion World Championships.  Which meant mom was plenty busy measuring for drumline uniforms & measuring for custom drum covers, followed by plenty of pattern drafting, manufacture, and repair work thrown in for good measure.  Add in driving to competitions (some of them were nearly 100 miles away, one way), providing meals on the run, a sudden (and most welcome) upswing in client orders, one custom wedding anniversary dress, another VW bus refashion, sewing for charitable needs, and one of the most unusual costume requests I've gotten in awhile, and you have one very busy seamstress.  (Disclaimer:  You are not permitted to ask about housework.  Just sayin'...)

Obvs, I can't write about all of it at once (or you'll fall asleep at your desk or wherever you happen to be picking up my sudden reappearance in BlogLand), so I'll keep it to one topic for this post - and bring you up to speed a bit at a time.

Because I know all 9 of you have been fretting worriedly about my sudden drop off the edge of the Web map.  (Here there be monsters - right?)

The percussion ensemble up at the high school was bumped up into the World Class category recently, which is saying a LOT - these are very talented, very dedicated kids that take their percussion work very, very seriously.  And their spring show provided an insight into just how dedicated these students are - the theme was derived from the last 10 miles of railroad track that was hand laid in preparation for setting the Golden Spike at Promontory Point, UT in 1869 (an amazing and - to date - unparalleled track-laying feat that you can read about here), creating the first transcontinental railroad.  The indoor percussion show required a costume that would be reminiscent of the "coolie" type clothing that a lot of the chinamen wore during the track laying - but something ephemeral and slightly ghost-like as well.

Front Ensemble members with their instructor, after World Championships.

The drummers and the cymbal players out on the floor mat were required to hit the floor - literally, as well as figuratively - and often on their knees with a bit of a twisting motion.  You can probably guess what was coming down the pike, since these uniforms were made of a cotton muslin that was thinner than Osnaberg.  Most of the time at a competition is spent NOT competing, but rehearsing parts of the show, over and over, usually in an outside lot.  Without the floor mat.  Loosely translated, this means that these kids are now on their knees, twisting & grinding the fabric into asphalt.

And yes, they were all wearing knee pads under the costumes.  That helped to keep them from getting injured, but didn't keep the fabric of the pants from shredding.  It would have been nice to have ordered the costumes with that in mind (reinforced knees, anyone?), but sometimes at the beginning of a season you don't always know what all is going to get thrown into the show at a later date.  

By the end of the season, nearly the entire drumline had patched up knees that looked like this:

Dude, this knee isn't going ANYWHERE now.  Well, unless you count the one bass drum player whose knee ripped RIGHT NEXT TO all the stitching you see here.  The day after I had just repaired it.  Sigh.

Luckily, the thread immediately picked up the dirt & grime from the asphalt they were practicing on, resulting in a patch job that more or less resembled the spray paint that had been applied to the costumes in the first place - even with the newer "color," it all still blended in with the overall aesthetic.  Works for me.

We almost decided to just leave the holes in the pants, figuring that the students would look more and more like the original coolies that had worked almost non-stop on that historical day.  You know, they wouldn't have had a seamstress standing by back then to repair their workclothes....so it would have made historical sense NOT to repair the knees.  The only problem with doing so would have been that all of their kneepads would have shown through the huge holes in the knees - and they weren't all wearing the same color pads.  Black or buff would have posed no problem, but some of them had bright blue ones - that would have been a distracting jolt of color out there.  When you're in World Class, sometimes competition scores come down to the hundredths of a point difference (yeah, sort of like Olympics scores), and that's when the visual effects scores can make or break your ranking.

To make the repair job blend in and last as long as possible, I ended up fusing two layers of tight-weave muslin fabric together.  Then I applied more fusible web to the outer edges of the resulting patches (or used fabric glue - it depended on the shape and size of the original tear) and adhered it to the wrong side of the pants material.  After turning it right-side out again, I used the darning/mending stitch on my Viking machine - a thing of beauty, once you get the hang of it.  For some reason, the programmers opted to have the darning stitch sew a continual 14-row darning patch, after which you can reset the machine to start where the last group of stitches left off. Only each row in that 14-row group moved diagonally up and over a few stitches.  Which meant that you ended up with a rhomboid of stitches (yeah, sorry - hopefully that term's not dredging up nightmares of high school Geometry tests - you can look it up here) - and that makes it a little hard to match up the next group of stitches, especially if your tear isn't as symmetrical as the programmers seemed to think it should be.  If you look closely at that repair photo, you can see about a dozen rhomboids dancing across the knee.

Do rhomboids dance?

The Sewing Assistant SO does not care if rhomboids dance. 

Patchwork on the knees held up through World Championships - thankfully - because it would have been a bit difficult to get my sewing machine through TSA...although I will admit to packing a patchwork repair kit, complete with a travel iron, on board the semi before it drove off to Dayton.  Just in case.

Next Post:  How many calculations go into making a whole set of custom drum covers?  Or, Why I Suddenly Needed To Renew My Painkiller Prescription.  (Hint: it has something to do with headaches.)

Anatomy of a Burning Bird

The final show of the fall competition season is over.  The band is SCJA Division 5 champions for 2012, a very well-deserved honor.  Now that the season's done, I can finally reveal the behind the scenes story of The Year I Set the Drum Majors on Fire (The Making Of).

Every year I've worked with the band (seven, at last count), in addition to the other tasks I've done, I've had a small part to play in soft goods props- whether it's been for the drum majors, the entire band, field props, flags, or front drop covers.  I've done color-change surprises, of which I have no photos (my old desktop died a sad and gruesome death, and took the first three years of band photos with it, darn it).  

I've shopped with the drum majors for formal gowns, which then had to be altered to make them safe enough to climb up and down ladders and run around the field, as well as making sure they left arms free to conduct without the danger of being too revealing (while <cough!> hiding the fact that I allowed them to choose a color that wasn't pre-approved by the directors).  Again, no photos.  Darn PC.  

I've done a magically appearing neon scarf for a drum major salute (the only surviving photo of which I cannot locate at the moment), as well as custom painted gauntlets:

I've constructed large prop covers:

That's 85 yards of fabric you see me buried under, there.

Monolithic veil.  Same yardage, different venue.

Made custom drum major baldrics (sashes):

Made several secret pockets for wireless mikes:

Made color guard flags for special occasions:

Helped create front drop covers (which I thankfully did NOT have to sew or construct - just source fabric and give dimensions/directions for):

The Monolithic front drops, behind the drum major. The drum major, along with 100+ students,
is wearing a grey veil matching that of the giant field prop.
All of which also had to be calculated, sourced, cut, & finished (thankfully, I was able
to get a lot of help producing these).

And helped with covers again this year, after our prop masters constructed brand new front drops:

Bare frames, in front.

Really impressive work done by our prop masters - back view

Front view.  Miles ahead of what we did the previous year.

Now that everything was set for the field, the drum majors approached me for one last favor:  could I come up with and construct special baldrics that would reflect the theme of this year's show (Fire)?

You know me.  I have a really difficult time saying the word, "No."  

The three drum majors and I met several times to hash out what they had in mind, while keeping the show's focus uppermost.  One of the drum majors came up with a rough design draft after all the discussions:

Gorgeous, no?  Only one problem with the design - it had to remain hidden because the bright fire colors didn't hit the field until more than half-way through the show.  If the drum majors wore it the entire time, as soon as they turned to face the field, the fire/feathers would be showing to the audience, while the band & color guard were still wearing & using the smoke colors.  The drum majors would pretty much be upstaging the entire ensemble.  (Nope - no good.)

The silver/black fabric in the upper left will be the front of the baldric sash.
The grey, sheer fabric at the lower left might work, but was too transparent
to go over the bright colors of the fire/feathers.
Did you recognize it, by the way?
Yep.  We refashioned some of those veils.

How to hide it, how to hide it......an origami styled setup that would be the same smoke color as the new front baldric I was making?

The origami style hidden pouch was too stiff in the silver/black fabric and looked like something Alexander Calder might have constructed.  (Nope.)

Maybe I could have used several layers of the veil fabric to hide the fire/feathers, but that ended up looking like an egg-sac from a Monolithic Spider.  Plus, the fabric would have made a quick-release using Velcro nearly impossible.  (Double nope.)

C'mon, Neko - give me an assist, here.

I AM.  I'm being the world's best pattern weight.  Or at least the heaviest.

It wasn't until I was really under the gun, with only a week left to go (with three comps, though) that I finally figured that the simpler, the better.  I made the front baldrics separately, from the silver & black fabric:

For the back portion of the baldrics, I constructed three semi-matching manila-folder-like setups that matched the back of the drum major uniforms. I used more of the grey veil fabric attached to the outer cover for the "smoke" (with the fire/feather wings sandwiched in the middle of the "folder").  The whole setup was pinned to the back of the drum major jackets, and all three had a quick-release tab that they were able to reach up and pull (sort of like a ripcord) while still conducting:

Here is the drum major, with the "smoke" billowing out behind him.
Can you spot the sandwich?  

Drum major after the quick release - now you can see the
Firebird wing, along with a trail of grey smoke which
moved out to the side with the slightest breeze or swing
of the arms.  The fabric "folder cover" of black is now
hanging to the right, and just looks like an extension of
the drum major's jacket. 

A better view of the flames during awards. 

Dang, I love it when things work out right.  Especially since we didn't get in trouble with the band directors, who were in the dark about the entire project.  :)

Color Guard captains, all three drum majors, drumline captain, and the two directors.  The young man without the hat

happens to be my son, who is graduating this year.  He represented the front ensemble when they went out for awards.

The head drum major still appears to be trailing smoke.  (LOL!)

I'd do it all again, in a heartbeat.

Fine Tuning & Going a Little Old School

 Because I am that kind of mom.  I mean, I'm all for new technologies and such (and trust me, I use it to my advantage on a daily basis), but sometimes you just gotta fall back on what you knew way back when.....

Still playing around with the Halloween decor; fine tuning the eyes in the tube for all the outdoor plants up the front walkway.  It's starting to look nice & creepy (and here's a shout out to new technology - LOVE the night setting on my camera, even though it means I HAVE to get the tripod out and set it up just to take a simple snapshot...)   :

This will either make them laugh, or it will keep them from coming
to the front door.  We'll have to see how it looks when I have all of them
cut out with all the different colors in them. 

Whazzat?  You have no idea what I'm talking about?  Hmmmm.....after trolling my blog, I'm discovering that you are (ahem) in the dark after all - I guess I never posted about this little project.  My bad!

Old School #1:
Simple craft:  save your cardboard tubes (from toilet paper or paper towel rolls); head to your nearest Dollar Tree or 99 Cent Store and pick up multi-paks of glow in the dark bracelets (they are EVERYWHERE right now with the Halloween stuff); find some eye designs by Google-ing images of scary (or Halloween) eye clipart; draw them on the tube (it doesn't really matter if they are perfect, trust me); cut them out carefully with an X-Acto knife and a very sharp pair of small scissors; crack the bracelet and shake it up; fold it into the bracelet shape & attach the connectors included in the pack; stuff it into the tube; then go outside and stuff it into one of your trees, bushes, or plants.  The bracelet should glow for several hours - this is one I cracked open about three days ago to start beta-testing, then threw it into the freezer.  It's still going strong, so I'm pretty sure the new ones will be scaring the kiddos all night on Halloween.  Especially since we have about 8 of these multi-tier topiary type bushes out front, LOL.......just imagine eyes in every tier, in about five different colors.....

Someone is fired - AGAIN:

 The Sewing Assistant, sleeping on the job.
As usual.

New School # 1:

C'mon, seriously?  Who names their daughter "Monet?"
No matter - as long as they can pay for the embroidery job....

An Old-School, New-School Combo:

New School:  The wireless mic that the field show soloist needs to have somewhere
on his person because he doesn't have time to run up to the podium during the show
for his solo.  Needs a secret, secure pocket close to the front, so he can hit the
button and have it near enough to the pickup on the bell of his sax to prevent
distortion or loss of sound.

Crappy photo of Old School:  After measuring the mic, I serged the top edge
and turned it under for a clean finish.  Then I measured the front of the pocket with the
mic unit inside of it, took two tucks in the bottom corners for depth, and sewed them diagonally.
After rechecking the fit, I pinned the front part of the pocket to the back part, to make it
a little easier to remove and reuse should they need it again next year.
When I'm not "with the band" any more.  

Stitched the side from the top of the pocket (with reinforced backstitching)
to the point of the diagonal and stopped (backstitching again for reinforcement).

Folded the diagonal toward the side that was already stitched,
started the stitching on the bottom at exactly the same point where I had
just finished off, and continued across the bottom.   I repeated this
when I got to the other corner.  After stitching all of this into place, I
serged around the entire pocket, leaving the top of the front open.

The finished pocket, sewn to the inside of the soloist's jacket with
a simple straight stitch.  This will make it possible for the next uniform chairperson
to detach the pocket and reuse on the jacket of whomever has the solo next time.

The inside, hidden pocket with the snugly-fitting wireless mic firmly in place.
Wish you could see & hear the show - the music is awesome this year.

Really, Really Old School:

Son # 1 comes home with some hysterical story from work roughly three weeks ago, about one of his co-workers who seems to have a real gift for humor.  He can come into the break room, look one of his fellow employees up and down like he's deciding whether to make a pass at him, then mutters "Mmmm, mmm, MMMMHHHH!" before walking on.  Apparently, this scenario repeats itself every time these two guys cross paths - and it's pretty funny because everyone knows they are just posing.  Son #1 gets the bright idea to make a custom t-shirt to wear underneath his uniform shirt as a surprise - then brings the other employee in on the joke and they decide that I need to make at least three of them - one for each of them to flash at the employee the next time he comes into the break room "eyeing" the other guy, then one to present to the employee as a gag gift.  

(Notice how "the son decides to make custom t-shirts" became "I NEED TO MAKE AT LEAST THREE OF THEM"?   Yeah, I did, too.)

Son #1 surreptitiously photographs the "swinging" employee, brings it home, puts it through
Photoshop & makes a black and white, high contrast stencil silhouette.  He tapes the printout to
a piece of Reynolds freezer paper, does part of the cutting
before he goes to night class, and mom finishes it up.
Note that he had to "borrow" mom's X-Acto knife, mom's cutting pad, and mom's new blades to do this.
And that mom had to go hunt for these items in said Son's bedroom afterwards.  Just sayin'.  

Mom irons the freezer paper stencil, shiny side down, onto a pre-washed shirt.
Out comes the Jacquard Textile paint in black, and mom paints it
on with a cheap-o foam brush.  It's much better than using a bristle brush.
(Dab the paint on if you're going to try this at home.  Works better than actually making brushstrokes
 - especially in areas that have tiny or thin pieces of the freezer paper cut.  Otherwise, you
can dislodge the smaller cuts and distort or ruin the pattern.)

This brings back all kinds of memories of doing late-night, last-minute painting projects
during art school (college), and mom gets all nostalgic and stuff.

Thought you might appreciate a view from the stencil side.
I know it looks like some crazy kidnapper got wild with the
duct tape, but be patient - all will be revealed when the paint dries
and the stencil can be VERY carefully lifted off the shirt and re-used.
Remember, mom has to do three of these suckers, and she's not about
to spend another three hours tonight cutting out all these tiny little details.  

The finished project (shirt #1).  Two more quickly followed
this one.  Can't wait to see the photos of the other employees
when Son #1 presents the shirts to them.  

Yes, this kind of detailed hand-cut stencil work takes a lot of time.  But - I really didn't have time to hit that learning curve to burn and use a silkscreen on my Yudu tonight, possibly wrecking the only two sheets of emulsion that I currently own and probably ending up doing it this way, anyway.  I figure I saved myself a lot of time & frustration.  But I WILL master that Yudu some day....especially if (and probably WHEN) either Son #1 or Son #2 come up with an idea for multiple t-shirts that they "really, really need by tomorrow, Mom!"

Absence makes the blog go flounder

LOL!  Not the best title in the whole world, but I'm pressed for time while altering about 20 percussion ensemble uniforms for tomorrow's competition, cooking for 50 (for the same comp), experimenting with meatless taco filling for the vegetarians in the ensemble (and the instructors - here's hoping it's not an epic fail!), trying to fill orders for a couple of regular clients and juggling smaller jobs that have started coming in again....

Not sleeping much these days!

Somewhere in the middle of all of this, I helped my son's girlfriend work on a spectacular refashion.  I'd love to post photos, but she took the dress (made from a maternity skirt) home to complete so we don't have pictures yet of the finished garment.  Soon, I promise.  Soon.

I also got a bee in my bonnet about my purse - I made one a couple of months ago, and found that even though I loved it, it was too cavernous for my taste - I just couldn't find anything in it.  So I decided to start recycling some jeans that a really good friend donated to the cause, and using a Vogue pattern, this is what I came up with:

This is the front panel, with an external zippered pocket.
The fabric was a freebie from Dorell Fabrics in Fountain Valley-
they sell upholstery material but sometimes they have
bits and pieces that are just too small to do much with -
you can take one free sample every time you go into the shop. 

The inside of the front pocket.  It's lined with another
recycled garment, a blouse that a friend didn't wear anymore.

The inside of the purse, with a couple more open pockets.
Nothing moves in here when it's zipped shut, and it's not so
deep that I can't see things when I'm looking for them.
Bonus!

My favorite part of the pattern - a side zip pocket.
You can put one on either side of the purse but I opted to
put only one in this time - I only had one zipper of this
length and color.  Next time I will line this particular
pocket (and the matching one on the other side, should
I put one in) with a fabric that matches the outer
fabric - the way the zipper is put in, you can just see the lining
around the perimeter of the zipper.  Bummer.  But this one's
not for sale, anyway, so lesson learned.  

Nicely reinforced shoulder strap (while not being too stiff); bag is stablized with fusible fleece so it is still a bit slouchy but doesn't slump; lots of pocketses for everything to have its own place (with a nod to Lord of the Rings); overall a fairly easy pattern to work with.  This may become my favorite bag pattern.  And I have three boxes of jeans to go through....each pair renders one complete handbag using this pattern (Vogue V8661).  I've already had two requests to make more, with fabric for the front panel that has special meaning for the recipients.  A nice way to refashion jeans and to keep a treasured swatch of fabric close at hand!

Of course, the Sewing Assistant remains hard at work, inspecting each incoming order, large or small.  

Or comfy, regardless of size.

Quality Control Expert, hard at work.

In other crafty news, it appears that my sons have been bitten by the craft bug.  Picture any other 20 year old young man, dressed head to toe in black (and variations of black), rides motorcycles, studying to become a machinist and loving every minute of being able to work with his hands, up to his elbows in some kind of engine fluid or other, surrounded by motorcycle bits and parts.

Now picture that young man making something as cool as this to give his girlfriend for Valentines Day (and reserving a single bloom for his dear ol' mum):

These are coffee filters, folks.  Watercolored by hand, hand cut, hand crafted with floral tape, and accented with extra recycled leaves cut from silk roses from one of my projects long ago - my wedding bouquet!  He presented them in a recycled tin from the Pirouline type cookies.  

Dude's got good genes, both the refashioning and the crafty kind.

If you look very carefully at that first photo, you can see the man as a little boy in the photo in the bottom right corner - he's the one dressed in red.  :)  

More Fun Around the Sewing Room

One of the last projects for the band that I've been working on - my first foray into draping/designing - drum major capelets (by special request).  I worked for hours on making sure the front drape worked necklace-style from shoulder to shoulder, and that the back cape part wouldn't impede the conducting:

 Started with a drum major jacket with the existing
baldric (sash) removed.  After figuring out where the scarf/drape would hang, I cut out fabric in the approximate shape of the drape I was expecting.

 Pinch-pleating on and off the form, looking at the drape on the jacket and making sure that everything was even and symmetrical.  Then I pinned everything into place because I had to move it from the cutting table into my workroom to sew it into place.

 The pleats weren't hanging quite right, so I pinned the fold further into the drape.  You can see the result on the jacket at this point.  When I sewed the top of the pleats, it was great - but when I tacked the drape where the second set of pins were, then it lost its definition for some reason.  So, out came those stitches.

Now for the back part of the cape.  They wanted it to fall in a semi-triangular fashion, so I needed a trapezoid of sorts to begin with.

Pinch pleating on this one was pretty simple, and then I just sewed it straight across.  Back onto the jacket, and then narrow hemming on all parts, then some gentle tweaks here and there to put it all together.  Here is the semi-completed cape:

From the back:  you can see I trimmed off the bottom
of the trapezoid - I think the squared off bottom looked
a little better than the point.

This is the finished cape/drape, pinned into place.

Whew.  Drove it over to the school just in time to drop it off with the drum majors, who were on their way to a field competition.  Gave them brief instructions on how to pin it to their jackets and had sent photos to one of their moms (so they could see the finished product for pinning).  Imagine my surprise when they appeared on the field with the capes over their shoulder, but the other side of the drape pinned underneath the arm. I thought they had misunderstood me, and it was kind of like a valance on a curtain rod that was falling off the wall on one side - the drapes don't quite hang right when they're not level. *Sigh.*  Turns out that they decided that they liked that look better.  I'm probably the only one who noticed or cared.  As long as they are happy and confident, that's all that matters.


Having some fun today working on some embroidery for a special order.  I'd read on the internet that working with onesies was difficult for a number of reasons, so I did some researching and I'm really glad that I did.  General consensus is that it's easier to do a onesie through the neck opening (which I definitely would never have thought of), and better with the water soluble topper, even though it's a flat knit.  It's also easier to hoop by hooping the stabilizer only, then applying the onesie with double sided tape, spray adhesive, pins, or something to hold it down until you can fix/baste it in place.  Loads easier than trying to turn the little thing inside out, stretch it over a hoop, and try to keep the rest of it from curling over itself.  Most important thing?  Never, EVER leave a onesie in the process of embroidering.  All kinds of wonkiness must ensue, since that was the one thing I saw noted repeatedly in my research.

Other than a matte thread that refused to work in the machine for some reason, the onesie stitched out really, really well and I was pleased with the results:

Inside out, through the neckhole - only moved my hands out of
the way to take a photo and then quickly held the neckline
again - all the vibrations & motion makes it collapse inward in a second!

The finished onesie - done in a font called Swirl - so cute!

Closeup of the stitching - if you look carefully, you can just see
the basting stitch holes around the name.  These came out in
just a few seconds by pressing with a warm iron.

After that, it was on to a Minky blanket.  I had to disassemble the blanket for about 10 inches or so from both sides of one corner in order to get it situated in the hoop properly.  I did hoop the fabric along with the stabilizer this time, I didn't want to take a chance that the blanket could shift unexpectedly while stitching.

Dark brown on one side, light pink on the other with raised
polka-dots.  Name stitched in dark brown in a font called
"Nimbus."  REALLY glad this didn't show hoop burn
after I worked the fabric a bit!

Still to come:  a couple of new maternity designs; about a dozen cat mats for a local girl scout project; and maybe another purse for myself or to sell.  Will have to see how that fits in with the orders I still have for this week!

P.S. - The final note on the replacement Lovey;  the mother recently sent an email to my friend, who forwarded it to me:

"Jackie,

Thank you so much. We were able to retire Addisons old lovie doll. I washed sewed and put it away for safe keeping for her when she gets older. We told her her daddy washed and sewed her baby and it was pretty.. she loves it and believes its the old one.. THANKS AGAIN..

I will also be sending my donation out this weekend.. Thanks!"

Now, THAT'S why I love doing what I do.  Just thought I'd share that with you!