TARDIS Bridesmaid Gown

Regina came to me a few months ago with a challenge. She will be a bridesmaid at a Dr. Who theme wedding and she needs help creating her attire: a deep-blue long gown with a white Victorian-inspired bolero. Essentially, she wanted to be a TARDIS incarnated as a bridesmaid. Challenge accepted.

She gave me this photo reference for the gown.

The bride had given Regina the material for her dress; I would sew her gown from scratch. She wanted to look for the white blouse that I can just renovate into the bolero she imagines, so she went all around town until she found a long-sleeved ruffled piece.

Incorporating Regina’s ideas with the online images of Victorian boleros, I mocked-up this design for her approval.

With all elements agreed on, I went to work. Figuring out the bias skirt for her gown was a bit tricky because even after I did all the math, my pattern still came out wrong. Luckily, there was enough material to absorb the standard 10% error margin.

Same goes with the bolero. Good thing I had enough white voile in my fabric stash to cover for the wrap-around and wrist ruffles.

For this project, I had to fire up my serger machine for the ruffles and edge overlocks. It was an essential tool for the ruffling and the hemming of the spandex gown.

Here’s the gown and bolero ready for the fitting. [Another vital tool in use here is the adjustable body form. I set it to Regina’s measurements. I won’t be able to complete these sewing projects without it. So yes, I need an adjustable male body form.]

The biggest challenge for me was the pair of “window” patches on the bolero. Because I had given up my embroidery machine in a previous life, I had to figure out how to make it using either my regular sewing machine (the zigzag feature) or the serger (the rolled hem feature). I used up so much thread and practice cloth but finally succeeded in zigzagging the window panes and hand-sewing them onto the blouse.

To complete Regina’s TARDIS persona, I made these jewelry accessories for her: the pilot light earrings (come back for a blog post on how I did those), the "police box" bangle, and the door sign pendant necklace. She liked them.

And here is our gorgeous bridesmaid at the church... 

... and at the wedding reception (with her doppelganger). Achievement unlocked.

Resin and Polymer Clay Bracelet Inspired by The Hobbit

Am I evolving into a mixed media artist? Certainly felt like it when I got my first resin casting kit a few weeks ago. Creations with polymer clay and resin – should be fun, right? I had to give it a try. Throw in the Hobbit theme, and voila!

For those curious about how I did it, here’s the story.

First, let me share my first-try pieces with resin. Not bad. The process is easy enough.

Suddenly, I had this design in my head of a Hobbit-inspired bracelet combining polymer clay, resin, and cord knotting. Since there would be 12, no, 13 pieces, each element had to be small enough to complete a bracelet that wouldn’t be too bulky. I started making circles with polymer clay. Bake clay, then on to the next step.

I had printed out a photo of the dwarves when I first started making Thorin’s scalemail armor, so that would be the source of my bracelet photos.

Long story short, I prepped the dwarf faces, glued them onto the round setting, sealed them with Mod Podge (this step is essential because without the seal, the resin will eat up the photo), and delicately covered each photo with resin one drop at a time.

No matter how slowly you stir the resin mixture, bubbles will appear in the pour. So I had to tend to the pieces for a few hours, checking to see if bubbles are forming.

To remove the bubbles, I used a butane lighter. I just swiped the flame very quickly a few inches over the bubbly piece to create enough heat to pop the bubbles. Some crafters blow through a straw, but that’s tedious (and your breath moisture could create droplets that will end up on the piece); others use a heat gun (which I don’t have) or a hair dryer (which some don’t recommend because the air flow is hard to control and it could kick up dust/debris that will stick to the piece).

 I covered the curing pieces to protect them from dust and lint.

While the resin was curing (this is the toughest part for me -- the resin requires two days to harden), I molded the back pieces – the thingies that would help me string the bracelet. Nothing fancy, just has to do the job. Baked, then after the resin hardened, glued them on.

It was a little tricky knotting the band of dwarves but I got it together. And here’s the knotting effort:

And the finished product. Who can tell me why my OCD is nudging me to redo the final step?