I recently attended the Designing San Francisco exhibit at the De Young Museum with the Greater Bay Area Costumers Guild. Everyone was encouraged to wear fashion from the last century. While I had hoped to have another piece from the 50’s I’m working on done in time, I had also recently finished this one so I opted to go 60’s.

This is the Charm Patterns Francie Top which I made up in some French terry. I made up a 4 on top graded to a 6 at the waist and hips and then extended the top an extra 9” to make it into a tunic dress.

The pattern is extremely simple. It’s only 2 pieces of actual fabric. Not much easier! And yet I managed to have so many issues with it. First, I cut the pattern crosswise rather than on the grain. This was the biggest issue. This wouldn’t matter much for a woven, but on a knit it very much can. It did for this knit which was much stretchier crosswise than on the grain. So the fit it is a bit off for that. It’s part of the reason the neck is so stiff. It’s not even interfaced!

I didn’t have knit interfacing, but given how stiff this fabric was when I had it on, I just opted to skip it. I still think this was the right decision, but meanwhile I managed to cut out the interfacing pieces from fashion fabric and was very confused for a while why I had 2 pieces leftover.

It’s white so you know at some point I pricked my finger and bled on it.

And, wow, did this fabric wrinkle. I rarely have knits that wrinkle this much. But yeah, these photos are the best I could do because it was sooo wrinkly.

I still managed to have fun doing some photos and playing around with them. Shout out to my friend Jill for bearing with me in the rain to get these while we were at the museum. I do plan to make this again in a knit with more drape, hopefully cut the correct direction the next time.

And yes, I’m a goofball who enjoys playing around with Photoshop for some 60’s sci-fi vibes. Far out, man.

     

For part 10 of my series on my Totally Minnie winning look for the Her Universe Fashion Show 2023 I’ll be sharing how I did the shoulder pouf. If you want to start from the beginning of the construction journey, start with this post. This is a pretty short one and perhaps less exciting than some of the others, but a useful technique for the future.

This was supposed to be posted a week ago, but I mess up some settings when I posted it . . . so now you get it a week later. I’m trying to wrap up this series and only have a few more posts that are mostly written but need photos. Hoping to knock those out this week or next. Anyhow, on to the post . . .

The pouf was a combination of trial and error though I could recreate it if needed. I had an idea of the right shape that was need to get the look I wanted. And I knew I wanted it filled with netting to give it, well, “poof.”

The basic idea is that it’s a circle folded in half that’s gathered on the long, curved edge. I had plenty of organza (see the Fifty Shades of Red post) and plenty of netting (see the Mistakes I Made post) so I was able to test it out and if I screwed up, I’d have plenty to try again. But this was one of those parts that actually went together fairly easily.

I cut out the circles by layering the netting and organza, folding in half, and eye balling a half circle. It didn’t need to be perfect since it would be gathered. I did a running stitch on the long edge of the half circle and gathered until it was the length of the shoulder strap.

It was good, but it was almost too big. Yeah, I know, hard to believe on this dress, but it was almost as tall as my head which wasn’t quite what I was going for. So I played around with it for a bit, accidentally folded it in half, and saw that worked really well. It not only made it the right height, but also gave it more structure, physically and visually.

The shoulder strap itself was a double layer of grosgrain ribbon with elastic between so it had a little give. The elastic is why it looks like it’s twisting in the picture above. In hindsight I would have done it a bit longer with the same elastic, but this worked. It was attached to the dress with large snaps that were hand sewn on to both the dress and pouf and made sure to have a clean finish, hiding all knots.

Similarly, when I attached the grosgrain to the pouf, I made sure to have a very clean finish on it as well. I had no idea what the judges were going to look at and this was easy access for them so I need to be sure it was clean.

I carried it separately so that it wouldn’t get crushed and it worked great. No issues with it popping off or anything. Having it detachable made it much easier to get on and off. Here’s a close up shot of how it looked on:

Photo by Brian Sims

     

I spent a lot of time on the accessories for this look so I thought they needed their own post. Also, the accessories were mostly not sewing like the rest of it. There were actually 2 sets of accessories since there were cosplay flavored ones for the Disneyland Half Marathon and the fashion ones for the fashion shoot.

In both cases, I utilized 3d printing heavily. First up was the eyeballs. I’m going to show photos from the visor eye balls because they’re bigger so it’s easier to see what’s happening. Above is one of my test prints. I modeled it in Fusion 360 from photos of the Snowths. And, in case you want to make your own, I’ve uploaded them to Thingiverse! Get them here.

When I actually printed everything I did I at very high resolution so they looked pretty good and fairly smooth. Certainly good enough for a race.

And then I crazy glued everything together.

Pretty good once it was all together.

Then it was just attaching to the visors. Yes, that is me in the hotel room sewing it on the day before. Of course. When I modeled the eye balls, I added sewing hooks so I could attach it and have something to put the thread through. I was a little worried that the thread wouldn’t hold up to the bounciness of running, but it seemed to do just fine.

The visors also had horns. These were simple 2 piece shapes that I sewed and stuffed. I drafted the pattern on the computer. The right is how it started, but that was way too big. Not cute or proportional. Then it became the one on the left. Those were also attached to the visors the day before the race.

The final look:

The race was great and we got recognized so often! We were the only Snowths I’ve ever seen on a race and it was so much fun to have people shout “mahna mahna” at us and sing back for most of the half marathon. Gave us something to do when going through some of the drearier parts of Anaheim.

For the fashion shoot, I once again made use of my 3d modeled eyeballs. I modified the attachments on the back so they could be dangled as earrings. These are also printed at 50% compared to the others. I think they’re quite cute! I have this version up on Thingiverse as well — get them here.

For the fashion shoot, I also wanted a nod to the horns. Actual horns like on the visor were too in your face, so I decided to do my hair up in horns with some pink wefts and I’m quite pleased with the combination of fashionable and thematic. I had created a headband as part of my Her Universe Minnie look. It was a part that didn’t get used in the final version, so I was happy to have a reason to use it now! I modified it to have 2 posts instead of 1 and then modeled the horns.

I made the horns with ridges along them so that my hair would have something to grab on to. I also tried a few different sizes before finding the right one. The first ones were way too tiny. The second one way too big. The third one was just right.

The final headband is below. I actually totally messed up the part of the horn which the post sticks into which is why these are not on Thingiverse. When I pushed them down, they actually cracked off the inside so I ended up having to just superglue the horns down. It was fine for the shoot, obviously, but they’re not at a quality level right now where I’m comfortable sharing with others.

Here’s how they looked in the final shoot:

     

As I mentioned in the previous post, I was going to do a separate post on the top. This is the Pattern Emporium Keep It Simple Semi Fitted Tee. I used the leftover moisture wicking fabric from Califabrics that I used for the lining of the vest and skirt. I made my usual size 8 graded to a 10 at the hips with the high round neck option. Overall the pattern went together really smoothly as I’ve come to expect from Pattern Emporium patterns.

The fabric is great, but I didn’t realize until I actually tried it on that it doesn’t have the amount of stretch required for this pattern. Due to the minimal horizontal stretch, it made for a great lining for the vest and skirt. However, it means it was a bit snug across the bust for the top. It obviously still fits as you can see, but I would have done an FBA (full bust adjustment) if I had enough fabric to make a muslin. Due to the snugness, I do have to pull it down every so often.

But all that being said, with the right amount of stretch, this would fit perfectly so I’ll keep this pattern around and make it again with a stretchier fabric. Given that it’s moisture wicking fabric, I’ll probably wear this for running and it does seem to fit okay with a sports bra since that compresses the bust. But it worked great for the photoshoot and I love that I had enough fabric that I could have everything coordinated!

     

So yesterday I showed you some of the photos from photoshoot, but now I’m going to talk about the actual construction. There are three garment pieces to this look — the shirt, the vest and the skirt — as well as the accessories. The shirt was made just for the fashion shoot so I’ll do a separate post on that. And I’ll break the accessories which are mostly 3d printing into a separate post as well.

For the vest I used the Greenstyle Pacific Pullover as the base pattern but with significant differences (most notably the front zipper). It took me a while to find the right pattern because there were several things I was looking for and I almost got to the point where I was going to draft my own, but then I stumbled across this one. Since I was making 2 of these (one for me and one for my friend Coco), I didn’t really want to draft my own because I don’t have a lot of experience drafting for others. Here’s what I was looking for:

• Hood with a high neck so that we could get the “snoot” of the Snowths by tightening the drawstring
• There were lots of patterns with hoods, but most just ended right at the neck opening.
• Zipper into the hood
• Many of the patterns with high necks were full on pullovers but this one had a quarter zip and actually a tutorial to turn it into a full zip!
• Princess seams
• I really wanted princess seam pockets so that the pockets would be hidden amongst the fur. 
• Simple seams
• Most of the patterns had very interesting seams, but since I was going to be working with fur, I wanted to keep it simple. You wouldn’t see any of the interesting seams anyways, so why bother? Also, I had to make 2 of these so I was trying to keep it simpler.
• Standard, non-raglan sleeves
• Since I was just doing the vest, I would have to alter Ragland sleeves. So many patterns were raglan sleeve style. Again, I could re-draft it, but I’d have to do it twice and I really wanted to save on time.
• Drawstring around the hood
• This wasn’t a dealbreaker because I could always add one. But it was nice that the Pacific Pullover had one.

I did make a muslin. It’ll eventually be it’s own post because it’s quite cute. I got it done enough that I knew my size would fit, but haven’t quite finished it yet (hem, hood facing, etc). But I will. Once I knew how my size would fit, I was able to make a good estimate on which size would fit Coco best since we’re different sizes.

For mine, I made size D based on both my body measurements and the finished measurements and knowing that my fabric had some give (both the fur and lining were a bit stretchy). The only adjustment I made was to shorten the waist by 1 inch which is standard for me. This was perfect. After making the muslin, here are the changes I made to the pattern overall:

• I dropped the armscye down by 1 inch.
• It was fine with sleeves where you want it higher for movement, but since it would be sleeveless and fur under the arms, I didn’t want the fur to get too matted (it did get a little matted, but it was fixable).
• I added a strip of lining to the front zipper edge on each side so that the fur would be less likely to get caught in the zipper.
• This definitely helped. I wanted to put a flap to separate the fur and zipper, but I also wanted it to be “seamless” for the fur so I forwent that. Maybe next time.
• I self lined the hood rather than using a facing.
• This was both easier and more in line with the look I wanted.
• I self lined the entire bodice.
• The basic pattern isn’t lined, but given the fur, I definitely wanted it lined. Plus, moisture wicking fabric! I just used the same pattern pieces.
• I added inside pockets to the vest.
• Since it was fully lined, these were just one of the outer pocket options, but on the lining version.
• I added the puffy tube around the edge for the drawstring.

For the vest, the construction was pretty straightforward. I did the lining method where you leave the armholes unseen so you can pull through the sides at the shoulders. Then you sew up the sides, pulling one of them through the other. And eventually you just have one little gap to slip stitch as I’m doing above. And yes, that is in the hotel room after the first race. ?

The one (major) snafu I had with this whole outfit was that I accidentally sewed Coco’s lining to my outer. Since these were 2 different sizes, this was a problem. And it was the day before I had to leave. I genuinely didn’t think I would get these done. But I did. I had to rip out ALL those stitches. I almost cried. But at least sewing the correct lining to the correct outer was way easier and I already knew what I was doing. However, as a result, I had to skip the princess seam pockets. I’ll talk more about those in a bit.

Cutting the fur was a new experience for me. Can you believe I’ve never work with long pile faux fur before? Yup, me neither. I ended up tracing the pattern onto the back of the fur and then very carefully cutting just the backing fabric, or at least tried to. This kept the fur fluff around the room to a minimum and I actually did a pretty good job. There was still plenty of fluff around, but much better than it could have been.

Sewing fur is actually not too bad. A lot of sites/videos tell you too trim down at the seam allowance, but I didn’t really find that was necessary. I just used my serger and then pulled the extra fur out of the seam afterwards.

The skirts were self drafted. I used the waistband of the Hey June Sloan Leggings lined with power mesh. I think it’s just a great fitting waistband so I’ve used it many times and almost always line with power mesh since I prefer that to stretch interfacing which tends to stretch funny.

I kept the card pocket in it since we were going to use them for running. And then I drafted the skirt.

I wanted something of an a-line but not a full circle. So I measured the bottom of the waist band and used that for the top with a slight curve to it, cut on the fold. Simple, but effective. I just use the same piece for the front and back although technically I should have made the back a little longer to account for the booties.

The hood tube was my own invention. I wanted the edge puffy like the snouts of the Snowths. I looked up tutorials for how the little skirt puffs on Sailor Moon skirts are done. Once I had the idea, I figured out what I needed to do. I had some leftover 1-sided fusible Pellon foam. I fused the yellow to it, leaving enough to fold the ends over and stitch them down.

I folded the whole long piece (measured to be the length of the hood edge) in half lengthwise and basted it. Then it was just a matter of sandwiching between the two hood pieces. The whole hood is sandwiched between the lining and the outer at the neckline so that it wouldn’t slide around.

And now finally the pockets. I couldn’t make an outfit I was going to use for running without pockets. I just couldn’t. The inside pockets were easy. That’s actually one of the options for the original pattern so I just coverstitched the edge and added them to the lining like it was the outside.

The outer princess seam pockets were a different story. Due to my lining snafu, I didn’t have time to do the pockets before the race although I had everything cut out. Fortunately we had enough pockets between the inside pocket, the waistband pocket and our pants pockets during the race. When I got home, I was getting everything ready for the fashion shoot and every time I would put the vest on, all I wanted to do was put my hands in pockets. I knew it would annoy me terribly if it didn’t have pockets. I was worried it would ruin the line of the princess seam on the outside since I had already trimmed the fur by serging that seam, but I dove in (and as you can see above on the right, it totally didn’t ruin it!).

These pockets were special. I didn’t want to just stick a zipper on the seam. Fur would definitely have gotten caught in it. So I devised a pocket that had 4 rather than 2 pieces in order to put a zipper on it, but inside. I had to have a zipper because if you’re running, you don’t want stuff to fall out. Here’s how it works for the most part:

In the last photo, the 2 layers on the far left get sewn to the side front panel while the layer that has been folded to the right gets sewn to the center front panel. That layer that is sewn to the center front is what protects the zipper from the fur. And the pocket is created as normal with the two large pieces. It looks like they don’t match but that’s because things aren’t pressed and topstitched down. Figuring out these pockets was a fun puzzle and one of the reasons I love sewing. Practical puzzles! And I’m so pleased with how they turned out. I’ll definitely do this again next time I need a stealth pocket.

Oh, the fabrics. The faux fur and the yellow spandex was from Joann’s. It was so soft and the perfect look for the Snowths. The lining was from Califabrics and was some designer deadstock moisture wicking athletic fabric. And I just want to say that the Califabrics customer service was A+ for something that came up with my cuts.

The best part about this fur? It goes in the washer and dryer just beautifully. Comes out looking refreshed and fluffed. A must if you’re gonna be sweating for 13.1 miles in it