sew my own clothes

So I’ve been raiding the thrift stores in the last couple of months. I modded the cranberry velvet dress and wore it to the concert but it’s kind of blah, nothing special. I might take it apart and try again. Also, I slapped together an Elf costume for a photo contest. Again, nothing great. So I’m not calling this Thing done yet.

So I bought this cranberry velvet dress at a thrift shop with the intent of hacking it up for another project but I found a better color match for that, so now I have this extra dress that looks like a T-shirt (remember, I only bought it for the fabric) and I’ve decided it will be modded beyond recognition to be my concert dress in a week. No pressure yah?

This will be the project I finish! Grarrgh! shakes fisty fist of defiance

Well, to tie in nicely to the lightsaber thing, I’ve decided to make my own Sith robes to go with it. I’m trying to get out of wearing so much black otherwise, so I have some clothes lying around that could be made into a tunic and tabbard after Darth Maul’s signature style. It’s all cotton, thank goodness. I don’t know how Ray Park managed in all that makeup and four layers of black clothes, fighting in the desert.

For the cloak, I’ll have to go get new fabric. I’ll deal with that once I’m certain I’ll have enough time to finish everything else for Halloween.

I know I can do a decent backstitch by hand, but I also now have possession of an old Singer sewing machine. It needs oil, and such, but the point is, I have one.

I love rescuing things from thrift stores that could easily be re-designed. I have a lot of plans for various shirts. Not much fits me off the rack, especially since department store racks tend to not cary many things in my size.

I have a design vision for myself—I’m tired of looking cookie-cutter in an increasingly homogenized world. I want a little Art Nouveau, a little Ngila Dickson, a little Regency dandy, a bit of androgyny and a dash of funky. Kind of an urban-Elvish. :D Designs to follow shortly.