no, you don’t get to call me that. my parents love me. i’m not some adult child of an alcoholic that’s gonna take that shit.
— Tina Fey’s response to being called a ‘cunt’, from Bossypants. she’s my hero. (via kerbird)
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How to Alter a Vintage Wedding Dress
Before you embark on a project like this, consider the number of steps.
A lot of this required negotiation because the ways I would normally do something (bagging out for example) or things I wanted to do (add a high collar for example) were impossible because of the previous construction.
*Pre-Step: got advice from every stitcher and patternmaker I know, which conflicted, but despite that was extremely helpful.
1. Released hem, which included the lace fabric you can see and a stretch net lining that you can’t. The lining had shrunk and was pulling the lace into a bulbous shape. Took out horsehair from hem which was wonky from being shoved in a box or somethin. That’s the woven synthetic strip they use in these types of hems for shape. I released the Center Back seam as well which was contorting the dress because of lining shrinkage. Don’t wash a wedding dress, kids!Ironed/steamed dress thoroughly.
2. Drew a new lowered neckline in thread, machine stitched just above it with a Wooly Nylon stretchy thread in bobbin to give some slight gathering and cut the new line. My friend and co-worker from the opera, Rachel, advised me throughout this operation. Then I cut a bias strip of netting to bind the neck. I stitched the strip to the seam, folded to encase the seam allowance, and hand stitched down. The dropped neckline gives the dress some ease of wear, reveals some skin, and makes the whole thing less stiff looking.(how to cut bias):
3. There is an internal bodice that pulls the dress in at chest and waist, and that was too small for my bride. So I opened it up, made a pattern for extensions, then cut those out of netting and sewed them in, and put in a new zipper (this is under the dress so it’s not visible in the pics, but is responsible for the fit) and a hook & eye at top.
4. Shortened train, making a new shape for the hem. It was sort of impossible to mark white lace, so i just used pins and my eyes, and had to trust myself (new!)
5. Removed adorable covered buttons and closures from sleeves. Marked (with a pencil, it bled through and I had to Shout it out) and sewed a line for new 3/4 length sleeves. Her arms were too large for original sleeve so I measured the extra width we needed, made a gusset pattern, cut and sewed net to extra cut lace (that we got when I cut the train) in that pattern shape, and sewed in the gussets. Turn turned (technical term) up sleeve hem to encase seam allowance and hand stitched.a turn turn:
6. Steamed bust. It was a little small and needed to be stretched. Both the lace and lining have give to them so I put the dress on a dummy, steamed and stretched the fabric over the dummy’s bust with my hands (this dummy and I get pretty intimate).
7.
Went to M&J trimming (trim mecca) in New York to find a lace finish. We got this lovely French lace that wasn’t cheap ($30 p/yd and we needed nearly 7!, but fortunately they give student discount and i, though not a student, have a student id ready to go for just such occasions) for the hem and sleeve hem. We got this piqued trim for the neckline that was pretty cheap (like $2 p/yd) also. It doesn’t look like much on the bolt, but it really makes a line pop! We got the rosette trim for the waistline (also expensive). Lauren (the commissioner) came with me to NY and we made all decisions jointly, and then she bought me ramen.
8. Turned up hem of lace and handstitched. Turn turned up (technical term) hem of net lining and machine stitched.
9. Sewed lace trim to hem. This took forever and involved blending in pieces of lace to each other to make a long enough length of trim. (a long enough length, talking about sewing is so funny). Each whipstitch I did was tiny and it had to be done at the top and bottom of the trim. Took 3 days. I borrowed Rachel’s intern for 1 of them. We needed extra length in the front so I positioned the trim to hang off the edge of the hem in the front and gradually blend into the hemline in the back.
10. Sewed trim to sleeve hem, blending at seam.
11. sewed single string of rosette trim at under bust.
12. sewed piqued trim to neckline by hand.
13. The back had been attached from neck until hip with hooks and eyes. I removed these. Then I took the closures that had been on the sleeve and sewed them to a strip of net spaced 1 and 1/2” apart with a zig zag by machine. I then sewed that strip to one side of the seam allowance at center back (“women are right on, men are leftover,” I said to myself while determining WHICH side). Then I sewed the little buttons to the other side. Then I sewed the remainder of the center back seam back together, net and lace joined.
14. Then I got creative. Seeing that we had a lot of leftover trim, I started playing around with configurations on the dummy and came up with this bodice shape that you see in the photos and pieced it in, with a million pins and tiny stitches.
Voila!
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Warning Signs
Today I was charged with the task of writing some office etiquette signs for the Opera Company. The two problems at the shop are:
1.
not cleaning out fridge
2.
not keeping kitchen tidy
I prepared to create a way of expressing these problems that would suit our philosophically minded staff.
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These are the messages I came up with:
1. (for the refrigerator)
Attn OCP Staff:
You are what you eat.
There are many things you’d like to be someday, but realistically won’t.
When the current opera ends, so must these illusions.
Free Your Food.
…
2. (for the kitchen)
Cleanliness is next to godliness
The sponge is next to the faucet.
The cabinet is above the sink.
Cleanliness prevents joblessness,
Among other things.
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The Mighty Hougan
2/16/2012, after Hougan recommended a D.C. restaurant
Mighty Hougan,Let me explain what happened, how events unfolded, action by action, so that you can fully understand how things ended up.I had every intention of taking my sister to Two Amys. I left Philadelphia with my nose turned up at all the corner pizza shops (what is NYPD pizza doing in Philly, anyway?) thinking about certified pizza and olives. I read Murakami on the bus and made it to D.C. around 1:00pm. I ate a light lunch at Union Station and decided I’d better visit museums before checking into the hotel. -
The Mighty Hougan
(from an email to Hougan, 3/4/11)
I woke from a dream this morning of which the last line was, “Put that mozzarella on the wall; it will look professional”. And that sort of sums up where I am in life.
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Thought: sometimes you accidentally input an extra digit into the year: i.e., 19993 and you add 18,000 years on to now, and you realize that the year 19993 will one day exist and that time is a scary thing, indeed.
— Microserfs (via charliehoey)
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this would make a great costume for beyonce. just sayin.
Leviathan in the Grand Palais in Paris by Anish Kapoor.
Photograph by Alexis Paoli.
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How to Learn to Make Clothing
(I suppose you could just enroll yourself in a fashion program, but this is how I did it/am doing it)
1. Free yourself from mental oppression
2. Practice drawing, collect images, inspect your clothing. Buy fabric you won’t use for years but really like, try and mostly fail at teaching yourself how to sew, take something apart with the intention of altering it but fail to put it back together. Alter something by making it uglier or very very weird, by hand.
3. Take any basic sewing class anywhere. Make a pillow case. Put a button on something. Insert a zipper.
4. Buy a comprehensive sewing book with pictures. Like a thrift store 70s version of The Vogue Sewing Book. Things don’t change that much.
5. Buy commercial patterns online and make them by following the directions. Always make a test garment out of muslin first.
6. Make a friend who knows things that you don’t and bother that friend. Or call the Vogue helpline and bother a tech. Mine was named Donna and she was very patient.
7. Alter your commercial patterns so the finished garment fits you perfectly. This will give you such satisfaction! Even if your garment isn’t so special, people will compliment it because they aren’t used to seeing things that actually fit people.
8. Take an Intro to Patternmaking class at a fashion school.
9. Buy a patternmaking book. It will tell you how to do just about everything.
10. Get involved in something above your skill level. Like making a wedding dress out of live flowers and dupioni silk.
11. Give yourself creative projects and complete them. Try draping. Do that DIY style. Give yourself free range. Get weird. Make accessories and sell them somewhere.
Make gifts for your friends. Like a drapey dress.
Or a lion tamer’s jacket.
12. Start getting paid to sew. It is a real motivating factor in the learning process. Find a wing to get under. Then find two or three.
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Art & Science
While I understand the desire to pursue them, I would describe most modern attempts to fuse art and science (an artist rendering of the periodic table of the elements, say) as belonging to a very specific set of works producing a very specific reaction in me that I call Not Actually Interesting.
Or, more accurately perhaps, modern attempts by art to celebrate science. The way that art can celebrate science is by understanding it and applying its discoveries, not by fetishizing it. Pretty much anything artistic with ‘Science!’ in the description is Not Actually Interesting.
We must accept that the path of the ancients is closed. But it’s true that you can almost see the corner of it with enough LED lights.
