tusken inner robe part deux

the general layout in half. It's a basic t- tunic design 

French seams which last longer

with cummerbund

how the cummerbund is attached

the tusken life

tea water and some salt.

white to tusken sand

babybath serves as a dye bath

round 1 , wet and dark looking

oops the roof in the winter garden leaks...

round 2 this time with walnut added to the mix.

much better colour with more variations.

One of my Squad mates is doing a Tusken doing as in collecting the parts to put an outfit together. When I asked him about the soft parts ( ie the clothing bits) he said he was waiting a bit to afford them which sort of sent a bell off in my head.

When I made my tusken girl the most expensive part of the whole costume was the mask, the rest was dirt cheap because I used what I had handy and I have a lot of stuff handy. I used old sheets for most of the costume and old flannel sheets for other parts and some canvas I had kicking around. I dyed everything with tea and coffee and then weathered with paint stuff I have here. It was easy and cheap. When I heard how much he was planning on paying for an inner and outer robe I made an OMG face. 100.00USD for the outer robe alone. yoiks, The fabric in the US is not expensive, dying it costs pennies and sewing it is two straight seams, a few more if you are doing a hero version. The longest part of the whole process is waiting for the fabric to dry after it's been dyed. I think 100.00 USD for an outer robe is bloody highway robbery but that's just me because I can do this stuff myself. I guess if you can't you'll pay for it. Anyway... after this conversation I offered my help. He's a squad mate, you help your squad mates. And I like to do this stuff, it's no brainer costuming. So I will make him his inner robes and sash. The whole thing will probably cost me around 5 euros since I buy the fabric dirt cheap on flea markets, we have old tea in the house always, thread I have in abundance also thanks to flea markets and my time is well spent learning to get it right.

Personally I think if you are spending more than 50, euro on the soft parts something's wrong with the picture. ( again this is just me and I'm Scottish so I don't like forking out a fortune for something I know I can make on the cheap.) So we agreed on a small price and now I am in the process of getting the fabric ready. I started with a straight forward tea bath, it was a lovely light sand shade when it dried but then, drying in the wintergarden, the roof leaked and created a perfect bulls eye so I needed to redye. I did that this morning and it took around an hour in between I got other stuff done. This second dye job had the added bonus of walnut shells/husks to add a deeper brown colour. I get the striations by draping the fabric in bunches and tossing the rest of the dye on the sheets while they hang then I let nature and the wind do the rest.

The nest step will be to cut and sew the robe. Then make the sash and redye that darker as it is usually a more contrasty colour than the robes. Tuskens are fun to make you get to do cool stuff like weathering and so on. And it shouldn't have to cost an arm and a leg.

annoyed.

So almost a year ago give or take I paid  Jonah Rapp,  a guy I met via the 501st officer's board to make me a pattern for an officer uniform. He seemed on the up and up etc.. blah blah but nothing happened. He promised and had excuses etc and then he vanished I eventually found him on face book where I pm him on the 20th of August 2013 to ask wtf was up. I got this answer:

I've had it mostly done for ages. This... has been a bad year. I won't annoy you with details, but the short version is nothing has gone as planned since about October. I got internet back not too long ago, and I've been re-connecting with various online communities and rebuilding unintentionally burned bridges.
I'm SO sorry I not only didn't get it to you in time for Celebration, but wasn't able to even let you know. Are your and your husband's measurements still the same?

I've messaged him a couple of times since but nothing, no answer, no pattern and no refund so do not buy anything from this guy he's a total rip off and untrustworthy.

switching time streams

currently I have been working on medieval clothes. I am not only a mad sci fi / 501st costumer I'm also a part the SCA ( Society for Creative Anachronism) This year we have a big event coming up and I, as the saying goes, don't have a thing to wear. Well I need to amend that I don't have anything that I've made that looks great to wear as I have some very very nice hand-me-downs made by people who actually know what they are doing.

Anyway I have been working on a basic Tudor era style kit kirtle, partlet, chemise ( smock or shirt or what ever you wish to call it.

I don't have pictures of the disaster smock yet because I was in WTFDIDTFT mode but I think it will be  *ahem* acceptable and the next one will be better. It's a good job I have a very large supply of old linen and cotton sheets on hand.

The kirtle is made from green raw silk. It used to be a burgundian style dress but since I hated that dress and never wore it I decided to un make it and do something with the fabric I actually would wear.

Most of this was mainly to see if I actually could do something more complicated than a T-tunic because with the 501st star wars Imperial uniform my confidence has been blown out of the water. What I have discovered is that I am really great with hand work but when it comes to 3 dimensional  pattern drafting I am pretty clueless and it's frustrating the hell out of me. So this is what's been keeping my hands busy. This is a distraction from the officer uniform because I'm really not sure I can do it even though in my head I know I should be able to. *sigh*

back at it

Things have been put on hold for a while then I did some FedCon stuff ( TOS red shirts) and also tried to get an Idris ( the Doctor's Wife ) costume done but the bodice was a huge FAIL. 

The TOS costumes worked out quite well so that was something at least. The accessories I bought for M as a birthday gift and the tribble found us at FedCon thanks to Dirk's awesome shop.

If I can find some I'll post Idris skirt pictures later.

Now it's back to the Imperial Uniform. I have been waiting on a pattern for the last 7+ months that I bought off a guy on the IOC boards ( he was drafting one with instructions) but that seems to have fallen through, which is to say after the last update in Feb where he said it would arrive in march and it didn't and since then silence, now I'm back on my own to try and at least get Marcus something ready for Legoland. I'm pretty unhappy about the whole situation actually but in the end it's my fault for trusting that when people say they'll do something they actually do it especially when you've already paid them.

One of the things I will be doing is studying the art of tailoring more closely. I should have taken costume studies when I really wanted to back in the day but nope i studied art history instead, about as useless as it gets. Anyway...today, since I've now sorted and tidied the sewing niche (again) I will be back at it. My plan is to actually make the civil war uniform the way the instructions tell me so I understand the construction then hopefully altering the pattern will be easier afterwards because right now I am sewing like a blind man in an unfamiliar maze.

hibernation

I don't get a lot of sewing done in the winter due to massive lack of natural light and very bad indoor lighting soon to be remedied I hope. The number one costume on the block is still the officer uniform.

will update as I get stuff done.