Tutorials

Links to all the Tutorials on this blog

How I Made My Bustle Skirt
How to Make a Bustle Pad and Why You Should
How to Make a Victorian Cravat or Ascot
How to Bustle a Skirt
Making Patches with a Laser Printer
Upsizing a Pattern
Welt Pocket Tutorial (aka Those %&(%^#$ Welt Pockets)
Making a Corset with the Folded Seam Method
How to Insert Grommets
How to Make a Bustle Skirt from a Window Panel
How to Make Medals
How to Paint a Steampunk Gun
Cutting and Tipping Steel Corset Bones with Heat Shrink Tubing
Repairing a Worn Corset
Adding Faux Exterior Channels to a Corset
Recovering a Parasol
DIY Steampunk Boot/Ankle Cuffs
Painting a Steampunk Gun with Textured Paint
Modern Boots to Victorian Evening Boots
Adding Lace with a Serger

Dress Diary: Steampunk Cleopatra -The Idea

So I am about to begin a new long-term project for myself.  In a new thing for both myself and this blog, I'm going to document the project as I go.  I'm not really sure how long this project will take me, but I'm just starting to acquire the beginning supplies.






The idea started as I was randomly looking through historical fashion photos and I saw a fashion plate of Victorian fancy dress costumes that included an Ancient Egyptian outfit.  This started my brain working.  I suddenly feel in love with the idea of doing a costume of a Victorian VERSION of an Ancient Egyptian outfit.  I've had a passion for Ancient Egypt since I was very young and came very close to going into archaeology as a result.  So this was really a perfect outfit for me.  But the dress in the fashion plate was not really what I had in mind.  So then I went looking for more Victorian-Egyptian dresses.






There is this stunning Cleopatra outfit created by the House of Worth in 1897.  I have two different photos of it.  And it IS remarkable.  But it really wasn't perfect for my purposes.  For one, I don't have the ability or patience to do as much beading as there appears to be on that dress.  When it comes right down to that, I don't have the time, money, or skill to recreate that dress.   It's Worth.  It's exceptional.    But there is good reference material for possible accessories.  That fan is great.  The headdress is nice, although probably more ornate than I would do.

And then I found it.  I found the outfit I wanted to recreate.  I found it depicted in a watercolor on ivory portrait.  Here is the info I have about it: Mrs. Arthur Henry Paget (1853-1919), 1891 Watercolour on ivory The subject is dressed as Cleopatra, the costume she wore to the 1875 Delmonico Ball in New York City. In mock ancient Egyptian costume, including a headdress in imitation of Egyptian pharaohs, she is posed against a background of palm trees, a river, and distant pyramids. New York Historical Society - ALLURE OF THE EAST: ORIENTALISM IN NEW YORK, 1850–1930

Interestingly, this lady is also called Lady Paget, and so is the lady in the above Worth dress.  Without doing more research, I'm not sure if this is the same woman who upgraded her costume over time, or if this is internet attribution confusion about two women in Cleopatra outfits.  I'm horrible with faces, but they look similar enough to be the same woman?  Historical MYSTERY, y'all.  

Anyway, this outfit had it all.  The central piece seems to be a corset, which would naturally be part of any costume I made.  (Although it's probably a bodice, or boned bodice over an actual corset.  But I see a corset.)  A fairly simple black and gold draped skirt, sheer top, headdress, jewelry.  And more than the fact that I think I can make this, I really, really like the style of it.  I like the black and gold.  

The Vest of Infinite Style + Epaulets

Being a steampunk in Texas is sometimes hard.  Especially in summer.  Especially if you are male.  Us womens can get away with revealing corsets and hiked up skirts, but men tend to have much warmer components to their steampunk outfits.

My husband especially had problems because the most impressive parts of his outfits are his coats.  And so he has been known to walk around a crowded con in August wearing a long-sleeve shirt, vest, and a warm coat.  The sacrifices we make to look bad-ass.

So this summer he had a request.  He wanted me to make him a vest that looked super cool all on its own, no coat required.  I took inspiration from a few different places, and this is the result:

I used a vest pattern that worked for him before and just added a few details.  The bars on the front are just interfaced pieces of fabric with a buttonhole on each end.   The epaulets are removable, so this can be worn with a coat if desired.

I'm quite happy with how the epaulets came out.  I've made a pair before, but wasn't totally satisfied with the results.  My previous attempt used plastic yarn canvas, covered with fabric, with fringe sewn around the edge.  The problem was that they were never really stiff enough, and the fringe, since it was machine sewn to the top, tended to lay flat and poke out rather than to fall straight down.





For these epaulets we decided to try a no-fringe shoulder board style.  Instead of plastic canvas, I used buckram, since I had that around from my hat making projects.  I used a double layer of stiff buckram.  My husband wanted the epaulets to have a slight curve to them to fit his shoulder.  So I decided to add wire all around the edge.  This way you can shape and reshape the epaulets like the brim of a hat.  I sewed the wire onto the buckram with a zigzag stitch.  I used 16 gauge wire from the hardware store, I think. To cover the wire and make the edge padded, I glued bias tape down over the edge.  Then I covered it with fabric and glued that down on the underside with hot glue.  I glued a faux suede backer on the underside.

The braid was a leftover bit from another project, and I sewed it on before hot gluing the ends under. (I probably should have done that before putting the suede piece on.   The embroidered bars are a vintage military patch that we picked up at an estate sale, and I satin stitched around it to attach it. Finally, I attached the ribbon and two safety pins to the bottom with hot glue, which I borrowed from this pretty awesome epaulet tutorial.   I'm really happy with how my epaulets came out.  They are really thick and sturdy, but still shape-able from the wire.

And another shot of the vest.

How to Make Medals

So one accessory that can really add to any steampunk outfit is a medal.  Or tons of medals.  I have been collecting photos of different styles of medals on Pinterest, and I encourage you to check them out for inspiration.

We HAD to buy this one.
 It's shaped like a gear!

You can buy medals, both ones meant to be costume pieces, and real medals.  My husband and I found some old swimming medals for cheap in an antique store when we first started in steampunk.  People often asked where we found those medals, and never realized they actually had pictures of people swimming on them.   You can also find military medals in antique stores, military surplus store, and other dedalers. We've bought a few of these as well.   But sometimes they are prohibitively expensive, or maybe you don't want to wear real medals.  Maybe you just like making your own.






The easiest way to make a medal is to buy a pre-made one from a craft store.  Yes, Making Memories sells medals that you can customize with messages such as "Happy Birthday" or "#1 Dad."  We bought several of these about a year ago at Michael's when they were on sale.  They are actually pretty nice, so long as you want your medal to have a round, flat base.

















The most obvious thing to do with these is the ever popular "glue a gear on it."  And yes, I did it.  I kinda like the way it looks, actually.  Ok, so not the most original medal ever, but if you're looking for quick and easy, this is it.


But maybe you prefer to make a medal from scratch.  There are several things you need to be able to do this.  First of all, you need appropriate ribbon.  You would think it would be fairly easy to find vertically striped grosgrain ribbon.  Yeah, not really so much.  I went through all the ribbon in two craft stores and didn't fine any vertically striped ribbon that I thought was right for a medal.  The only plain stripes I found was red, white, and blue, and I didn't want an overly patriotic feel.  The rest of the striped ribbon was pastels and stripes of weird thicknesses.  It just didn't look like medal ribbon.  I settled on some ribbon with harlequin diamonds.  Finally, in the third store I visited (Joann's) I found some plain black and white and red and white striped ribbon and some brown with blue pinstripe.  And those were the only vertically striped ribbon they had.  It's just weird that this is so hard to find.  I even searched the internet and couldn't find anything in the right thickness.

Ok, so the second major thing you need is your medal charm.  This can really be anything and is subject to your imagination.  Any kind of pendant or charm can be used.  There are some jewelry companies that make pendants that look like medals.   But feel free to think outside the box.  An octopus medal?  Sure.  Mustache medal?  Awesome.

Other supplies you will need are large and small jump rings, fabric or craft glue, super strong glue, a pin back, and pliers.

Frenzy Universe has a great tutorial on how to make the ribbon part of the medal.  But the problem is that it only works if you have the same style of pin back they are using.  And those pin backs are a little difficult to find and quite pricey when you do.  I wanted to use a standard pin back from a craft store, so I developed my own method.  It's a little less polished, but I think it works.

Step 1: Cut a length of ribbon about an inch longer than double your desired medal length.  Or eyeball it, whatever.  Make this into a loop and glue the ends together, overlapping by 1/4-1/2", with fabric or craft glue.  Let dry, or mostly dry.

Con Report: San Japan 2012

I spent the weekend at San Japan in San Antonio vending in the Artist's Alley.  I haven't passed out yet, so I'll try to write something up, I suppose.

The prettiest bustle dress of the weekend was on a DOG.

San Japan has always been one of my favorite cons.  This was my third year attending and my first experience being there as a vendor.  San Japan is primarily an anime con, but they've always welcomed steampunk and there's usually a good steampunk turnout.   San Japan is a fairly young con, in its fifth year, and the crowd tends to be young, too.  I don't have a HUGE amount in common with most teenage anime fans, since I'm mid-30s and my tastes in anime aren't very mainstream.  But even so, the vibe of San Japan has always been pleasant to me.  The young crowd is upbeat and positive, mellow, and I've rarely run into any assholes there.

The con has been growing by leaps and bounds.  This year was the first in a new location, the Henry Gonzalez Convention Center and Grand Hyatt.  The change was mostly a good one.  The con had outgrown its former location and the main problem last year was overcrowding.  This year there was plenty of space, and at times that made it feel a bit empty, even though final attendance numbers were over 9400.  The events were split between the hotel next door and the convention center, which required some extra walking.  But I was pleasantly surprised to find that I rarely had to stand in line for an elevator.  Things seemed to flow very smoothly.

Of course, most of my experience of the con was from behind my table in Artist's Alley.  I was lucky to get a table as they sold out in 2 1/2  minutes.  This was my first time in an Artist's Alley and my first time vending a large anime con.  Overall, things went extremely well.  I have absolutely no complaints about con or hotel staff and everyone was very helpful and friendly.  The reception of my wares and my booth was very positive, as was the reaction to steampunk in general.  I liked that even when people seemed to have no interest in buying anything, lots of people passing mentioned how "cool" or "awesome" steampunk was.  There was absolutely no attitude about "what are you doing at an anime con."  Also, I actually didn't get asked "What is steampunk?" once.  People seemed to have at least a vague idea, or someone in their group (i.e. the kids explaining to parents) was there to explain steampunk.  So I definitely noticed a change with increased visibility of the genre in the mainstream.

What I did get a lot was people who were looking to start putting a steampunk outfit together and wanted advice or assistance.  I heard multiple cosplayers say they were going to do steampunk next year.  So our ranks continue to grow.  Chances are many of these people will discover just how addictive steampunk can be.

A fantastic "Kraken" costume.

Since my previous vending experiences were at steampunk events, there were some surprising differences in what I sold.  For one thing my sewing patterns didn't sell nearly as well as they have at steampunk cons.  And my bustles were not nearly as popular either, which I don't exactly understand.   But I think people weren't shopping as much for steampunk stuff to wear that day, so much as accessories for a future outfit.  Whereas at a steampunk event, people are anxious to dress up and join the crowd.   But even if I didn't sell everything I expected to, financially, we did very well, though the price of the hotel, parking, taxes, and food did a lot of damage to our take-home.

My other major activity of the con was my presentation on corsetmaking.  It was well-attended, even if it was 11:30 on a Sunday morning.  I got some positive feedback, so hopefully people found it useful.  I always feel I'm throwing a huge amount of information at people really quickly, but I wasn't given as much time as I asked for, so I was rushed.

A customer shows off the gold skirt
 she bought from me.

As for steampunk at the con, I honestly can't comment that much since I spent pretty much all of my waking moments at my booth.  I didn't attend any evening events because I was so exhausted from vending every day.  (If you've never done it, you might not think vending is exhausting.  It is.  Especially when you're carrying your merchandise back and forth from your hotel room and setting up and taking down in the morning and evenings.)   Beyond a few steampunk panels I'm not really sure if there was any real organized steampunk activity.  I know there was some LARP on Sunday, but I don't know how it went or if it was very well attended.  In fact, I'd say this is something for the community to improve: we need a way to better advertise what there is for steampunks to do, except for standing around chatting or attending the usual  101 panels.  Even if it's not put into the larger schedule, there should be someway to let steampunks know what's going on when.  Even if it's just very informal stuff, like, "a bunch of people hanging in the coffeeshop, stop by!"   Maybe a twitter/FB account just for those kind of announcements?  Random thoughts....

At any rate, from my point of view it was a great con and a great weekend.  I look forward to doing it again!

And, probably my favorite costume of the weekend.
Sorry, steampunk, gargoyles captured my heart first.

Is a community organized into Airships a good idea?

NOTE: I realize this may be a controversial post.  I want to make clear that this is my own opinion, based on my own experiences and observations.  Certainly your experience may differ.  Let's discuss it, but please remain civil.  Any non-civil comments or attacks on specific individuals will be deleted.  (Also I promise my next post is a craft tutorial.)


All communities have strife.  The steampunk community is no exception.  But I'm starting to wonder if there isn't something about the steampunk community that is prone to having greater conflict than it should.  Specifically, I'm wondering if a community organized into airships is really a good idea.

Art by Brian Giberson

First of all, what is an airship?  People new to steampunk may not know or understand the concept.  The truth is that all airships are different and they all define themselves in their own way.  But loosely, an airship is a group of steampunks.  Some airships are businesses, some are performance groups, some are simply a group of friends who like hanging out together.   The structure of airships also varies from ship to ship.  Some are very hierarchical with strongly defined roles for every member.  Some are much more loose.  But most airships have a Captain or defined leader.

Of course, some airships aren't actually airships.  They are steam trains, or sailing ships, or submarines.  Maybe they are something totally different like an army or collective.  But for the purposes of this discussion, all of these things are "airships" since that is the most common term.

Why are there airships?  Why do people form them and join them?  As mentioned above, some airships are very defined entities.  They are businesses or performance troupes.  They have chosen to call themselves an airship and roleplay airship positions.  But probably most airships are simple groups of friends.  The reason we form these groups is probably simply that human beings are social animals.  We like to belong.  We like to feel we have a place.  Saying you are a member of X airship is comforting.  It assures that you have a place, a crew, a community.  You're not just a hanger-on if you're in an airship.  It means you're really a steampunk.  (FYI, I'm not saying this is really true.  But I think it is how it feels.)

Airships are also important to the roleplaying aspect of steampunk.  Steampunks usually have a persona, a character they portray, whether or not they actively participate in roleplaying.  Your character being a member of an airship crew gives your character a background, a raison d'etre.  I originally never imagined my character to have anything to do with airships. I'm an widowed aristocrat after all.  But my husband created a character that was a member of an airship crew.  So we had to work out a backstory that would fit both our characters and so the Airship Octavia was born.  It's this kind of compromise that can lead to the most interesting character traits.

So the reasons that airships exist are fairly clear.  But what is the effect of airships on the greater steampunk community?  And the follow-up question: is the net effect of airships positive or negative?

How to Start Sewing Step 2: Actually Sewing

Ok, you've got your hands on a sewing machine (as discussed in Part One.)  No matter what it is that we want to make, when we first start we all find ourselves sitting at a sewing machine with no idea what to do.

The very first step is figuring out the basics of your sewing machine.  You need to learn to put in a needle, wind a bobbin, and thread your machine.  Your manual (or one downloaded from the manufacturer's website) should help you with this.  If you have trouble with this (or really any sewing-related task) the internet is your friend.  You will find a million YouTube videos showing you how to do whatever it is.

I found a really great introduction to a sewing machine the other day on Shrimp Salad Circus.  It shows you all the parts and walks you through threading your machine and sewing a few stitches.  Definitely check it out.

So after you've got your machine threaded, grab some plain, non-stretchy fabric and start stitching.  You're not trying to make anything yet, just make some lines of stitches.  You can try different stitch types and machine settings.  If you're like me, you will quickly discover you have problems stitching in a straight line.  That's ok, just do your best.  I'll talk about this more in a bit.

Troubleshooting:
If you have problems with your machine, if it jams up or your thread is knotting or whatever, there are a few things to check.  First, make sure it is threaded correctly.  If the thread isn't through all the right places it will jam the machine.  Sometimes the thread slips from one of the guides during sewing.  Maybe it wasn't in there securely, but every once in a while it just happens, and usually it takes me way too long to realize what the problem is.

Other sources of problems may be your thread tension.  Try adjusting your tension knob slightly.  Typically I don't mess with mine a lot, but you need to find a good place to keep it set.  Another source of problem could be your choice of needle, thread, or fabric.  You need to have the right needle and thread thickness for your fabric.   Here is a good basic guide to choosing needle size and thread type.

One problem I ran into a lot when I first started was my thread knotting up.  I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong.  Well, eventually I found out: I had cheap thread.  At some point my mother-in-law game me several spools of 2/$1 Wal-mart thread and so that was what I was using.  I didn't think thread could really vary much in quality.  OMG, IT DOES.  I threw all of this thread in the trash because it was ruining my projects, my sanity, and possibly my machine.  You don't have to buy the really expensive, top-of-the-line thread, but buy a name brand like Coats.  For almost all normal sewing tasks you will use the same type of thread: the kind labeled all-purpose or something similar.  Don't buy "heavy-duty" thread (or other specialty thread) unless you know you need it.

You don't really need to worry about doing anything complicated at this point.  You need to be able to stitch a relatively straight line by using the seam guide on your machine.  Just doing that will get you through most beginner projects.  If you (like me) have a hard time sewing straight, I recommend a Magnetic Seam Guide.  I used one of these for almost a year until I was confident in my ability to sew an accurate seam.

Practicing/beginner projects:
Ok, so you've got your machine working and you know how to make a basic line of stitches on your machine.  Now what?  Well, you need to start with something that will hopefully be fun, make something you want to make, but won't cost a lot or break your heart if you mess up and have to throw it out.