New project: Ladies' Riding Hat

I've wanted a riding hat for a while, and never really found a nice one, so I faced up to the fact that I would have to make it myself. I used this pattern, which is very nice, has good instructions, and includes three styles of top hat in multiple sizes.

I've never made a hat from buckram before, but with this pattern, I felt confident while making it. The only parts that really gave me problems was binding the edge of the brim and attaching the brim to the rest of the hat.

The hat is constructed of heavy buckram, millinery wire, cotton flannel, and scraps of brocade I had left over from another project. Here is the finished hat base.



But one of the reasons for making my own hat was to add lots of trim to it. Here is the final trimmed hat.







The feathers and veil came off an old hat I've had for years. I've been wanting to use them on a hat that I will actually wear, and now I have! The band I made, mostly to the pattern. The octopus was from a necklace I foolishly bought at a steampunk event and never wore. Here's a picture of the hat on my head, but I took it myself, so it's not the best picture ever. But I don't feel like waiting till this weekend to get a decent picture taken.



Honestly, I was surprised by how easy it was to make. Some parts were a bit tricky, and I had to do some of the sewing by hand (which I always hate) but the result is pretty fantastic. I'm not going to become a full-time milliner or anything, cause this is a lot of work, but I'm happy.

Realms Con 2011 Con Report

I spent the weekend in Corpus Christi at Realms Con. This con was significant for two reasons: it was the first con the Airship Octavia XIII attended as a group, and Abney Park was there.


The crew of the Airship Octavia XIII

To be absolutely honest, the only reason we were at the con was for Abney Park. We were lucky enough that they played both Friday and Saturday nights. They were spectacular both nights, but Saturday's show had an extra quality of awesomeness to it. I saw AP at A-Kon in 2010 (my first steampunk event!), and even though they were great then, they are even better now. The band has gained a new guitarist, who adds some great crunch to their sound, and as a whole the band seems more on their game. It was very difficult for this disabled girl to stay seated and refrain from dancing and jumping around, but I (mostly) managed.

As for the con itself, it was smaller than I expected. Since it's held at a convention center, I expected it to be larger and have more attendance. But they really only have a small corner of the convention center set aside for the con. Attendance may have been hurt by the Guest of Honor, Tom Felton, backing out at the last minute, but honestly, I don't know what attendance numbers were, or what they were expected to be. It seemed a shame that the Abney Park shows were only half-full, but Corpus is a long drive from pretty much everywhere. If I were running the con I would probably try to find a hotel that could house it, as I think having it at a convention center may have cut the attendees. Having to leave the venue to change, eat, or rest, means many may not have returned. Especially when they have to pay for parking. So that's my $.02, for what it's worth.

However, I do have to commend all the con staff and volunteers as everyone I interacted with was friendly, nice, and laid back. There were no security nazis harassing anyone, and I didn't get yelled at once. (Except for the convention center employee who told my friend she couldn't have her bottle of coke because there was no "outside food or drink." She informed him she bought it from the machine downstairs... Some people.)

As for the activities of the Airship Octavia XIII, we mostly wandered about and chatted with other steampunks in attendance. It was lovely to see everyone and get a chance to actually talk and hang out. The vibe of the weekend was very chill. I know the steampunk panels put on by Airship Isabella were generally standing-room only, as we couldn't get in to one.

Finally, I have to give yet more props to Abney Park. After their Saturday evening show, they provided autographs to a horde of fans. The items people got signed were increasingly entertaining. I know people who had them sign their goggles, gun, flask, leather gaiters, wallet, and who knows what else. Silly me only got my Abney Park RPG book signed. There was some kind of techno dance party going on in another corner of the con floor, and all the steampunks in front of AP's table started dancing to the music, at which point Nathanial and Jodi hopped the table and joined in to our silly dance party. And then AP posed for pictures with anyone who wanted it.


Octavia XIII with Abney Park.

To our surprise, we later ran into the band and some of our steampunk friends back at the hotel. There was an afterparty out on the hotel deck on the beach, and we grabbed some of our liquor and joined in. I think it's safe to say that everyone who was present got completely blitzed, but we had a blast. The band were lovely people, and the evening was emblematic of everything right about the steampunk community: enthusiasm, silliness, a welcoming open-arms attitude, respect, community, family, and having a good time.

It was a weekend I will never forget, and I can't wait to see everyone again.

Keeping an Inspiration Folder

Apparently, I am procrastinating from packing, but I had another thought for a quick post.

One of the things I would recommend for anyone new (or old) to steampunk, is to scour the internet looking at pictures of other people's creations, outfits, etc. When I was first thinking of putting a costume together I went on Flickr and searched "steampunk costume." And then I saved all the pictures I liked and showed them to my husband, to give him an idea of what I even meant by "steampunk."

Now I don't specifically go looking for pictures most of the time, but I do come across a lot of them. Whether it's from the Steamfashion community on Livejournal, the Ravelry group Steamy Stitches, the CorsetMakers group on Livejournal, or one of the many steampunk friends I have on facebook, I see a lot of pictures of people's creations.

And when I see something I absolutely LOVE and moreover might want to incorporate some aspect of it into a creation of my own one day, I right-click and save to my Inspirations folder. So I have a convenient little folder on my computer that I can look at to remind myself of various projects I might want to start, or study how someone made something that is particularly cool, or just show to other people to convey a better idea about what I am describing. And this way, when I want to think about making a hat(or whatever), I can go look at all the pictures of cool hats I've saved.

Some of the pictures in my inspiration folder are antique photos, some are products that are for sale, and some are one-of-a-kind creations made by others. I don't especially bother with identifying where I got the photo or who created it, because these pictures are just for my own use. If there's something I want to be able to find again to buy, then I save the link elsewhere.

Here are a few of the pictures in my inspiration folder.















Keeping a folder to save inspiring pictures is a simple recommendation, but it's one that I suggest everyone follow. If you think you'll just "remember" an item or be able to find it later...well, I recommend you just save the pictures.

Making Patches with a Laser Printer

I've been busy recently dealing with a very severe flare of my back condition while simultaneously working to get ready for RealmsCon in Corpus Christi this weekend. (I get to see Abney Park again!!) So I just have a short demo for you today.

I love patches. Patches are the very essence of punk rock fashion, in my opinions, and I enjoy bringing that aspect to steampunk clothing. I'm planning quite a large project involving many, many patches that I've been collecting for over a year. But in addition to ones I've bought, I wanted to have some custom ones of my own. I know a few people who will make lovely custom patches, but in the interests of frugality, and because I just always want to see if I can do something myself, I started researching how to make patches.

I don't have the talent required to either hand-paint or embroider onto fabric free-handed. I considered various types of stencils and stamps (which I may end up experimenting with anyway.) But the easiest method by far was to simply print onto fabric with my home printer. Now if you have an inkjet printer, this is fairly simple. You can buy iron-on transfer sheets that you can print on, or you can print directly on fabric if you pretreat the fabric with commercial solutions they sell for the purpose.

But I don't have an inkjet anymore. We ditched ours due to outrageous ink costs and bought a black-only laser printer. Lengthy googling told me that laser printing onto fabric would work great and be permanent. It also told me it would never work and I would likely set my house on fire. I decided to go for it anyway.

My first attempt was a patch for the Airship Octavia that I made a couple days before a con. Therefore I printed onto fabric I had on hand. The first step to printing on fabric is getting your fabric to go through the printer. This is really easy. You go to the grocery store and buy freezer paper. You iron the freezer paper (shiny side down) onto the back of your fabric. Cut the fabric and now-attached freezer paper to just under 8 1/2" x 11." Then feed the fabric and freezer paper into your printer. Make sure to set your printer to the thickest paper setting, and best quality.

I don't have a photo of my first result, but I was thrilled! My airship logo looked fantastic and I cut it out and sewed it onto my costume. However, after a day of wearing it at a con, with it taking quite a bit of sweating and rubbing, the image had faded A LOT. And I was a very sad Baroness.

So, determined that I would make this work, I set out to attack the problem scientifically. I gathered three different fabrics: the grey mystery blend I had originally used, plain white cotton, and brown cotton duck. I printed the same pictures onto all three fabrics. Here are the results:



The white and the grey look the best. The duck didn't take the printing very well, due to the texture and dark color, I think. My next step was to see how well the image STAYED on the fabric. I had read somewhere to iron the image after printing to "heat-set" it. So I ironed it with a pretty hot iron. Too hot for the poly blend grey, as it puckered up in one place. Oops. One site advised waiting at least a week until you try to wash the fabric. I gave it a day and then threw three octopus squares into the washing machine. I washed them on delicate, cold water, with normal detergent. I then put them in the dryer. These are the results.



The white came out pretty good. The areas that are very light are where the fabric got folded in the wash and therefore got the roughest treatment.



My synthetic mystery blend, on the other hand, was disastrous. This explains my previous experience with wearing a patch printed on this fabric. The synthetic poly did not keep almost any of the printing.



The duck doesn't look great, but it never looked very good to start with. So obviously the winner is the plain 100% cotton. To further test the printing's durability, I sent the cotton square through the wash again, this time on Hot and Heavy Duty with a load of sheets. It came out looking like this:



Not bad, especially considering that I'll probably never wash any costumes this way at all. Some of my items, I wouldn't put in the machine to begin with. And the nice thing about this technique is that if your patch does get a bit too faded, you can just print another one for virtually free!

So, I'm planning to experiment a bit further with this technique, once I have a new logo for the new Airship Octavia XIII. I want to see how it will look on various colors and even prints. I'll report back.