Costume makeover -from Grey to Teal!

 What to do if a costume, heavily invested in time and materials, ends up being....meh? 

My 100 hour, 1kg of rhinestones and 9m of boa, Meh costume.

 Back in 2018, I bought a pile of stock from a closing down shop. This included a big bag of grey turkey feather boa. This is important as I do not care to purchase it new, as the supply chain is far from kind.

Anyway, I used it on a costume made from a purchased City Chic dress, that had about a kg of rhinestones glued to it - 100 hours of work I reckon. the dress is black with grey flower and teal birds, and the grey boa looked lush and expensive and gorgeous. 

In my studio.

On stage, it looked like I had repurposed the fur of a deceased English Sheep Dog. I mean it looks fine in the photos but nothing like as good as it does in my studio! 

 I have worn it as is several times including at the Saskatoon International Burlesque Festival (seen above), but in the back of my mind I was preparing myself to unpick all 9m of it!

This costume spent a couple of years on the proverbial naughty step before I could face it, but my current dayjobless life means all kinds of projects are finally getting finished. 

So a few weeks ago, spurred on by my burly partner in crime Debbie's instructions, I unpicked all the grey feather boas from this costume. I wet them in the sink to get a sense of how many I could fit in my 8L pot. The answer was, four. I have six, so I did two in the first batch, four in the second.

The dye was Jacquard acid dye in colour Turquoise. It cost about $18. Apart from some tartaric acid, that was it! 

These are they drying gently in the breeze outside our door. They went from looking like Cookie Monster's fur to these fluffy floofs in a couple of hours.

 There is definitely colour variation in the batches, but it isn't really noticeable as I used the two on the sleeves and the rest on the bottom. My earlier made pink and green version of this costume has pink boa in three different shades due to replacing them from different sources.

And finally, I sewed them back on, which took ages with a "doll needle" and  some TV time. A doll needle is about 15cm long - I thread it up with an extra long, doubled thread, wax the thread, then it's a matter of sliding the needle inside the rolled hem for about 5cm at a time, coming up to do 2-3 overcasts that catch the centre rope of the boa. 

The final look, before and after! How did I do?

Photocredits: Left: LisaTrusler Photography Nelson, right Nicole Lorimer on her mobile from Saturday night, official pics to come! 

Small Projects completed, large ones to come...

I have been sewing so much! Having no day job has freed me up to focus on projects of all scales. I don't have photos yet of the big ones, but I can tell you that last night when my major costume commission hit the stage, the general incredulity and delight from people who didn't realise I had made it was very satisfying!

On a much smaller scale, it is my job to make the winners' sashes for DIY Burleskiwi held in Wellington on 6 June, and DIY Burleskoala held in September in Sydney.  As last year I completely forgot about 'koala until 2 weeks before, it was a scary rush to make and dispatch to Aus at an eye watering cost of $85.

I wanted to make the rosette, but there was so little time, Debbie made it and put 2026 on it by accident, so THIS year, I made the 2025 rosette. If that makes sense? but when I sent her a photo she said I should remake the 2026 one to match my new 2025 one...so anyway I made two. These rosettes are for the second place getters. And Debbie makes the 'kiwi one so no wonder she put 26 on the 'koala one! 

Two koala rosettes for 2025 and 2026

I made both sashes back to back, kiwi first. A NZ company called Nutex does a wonderful range of Kiwiana and Australiana fabrics, and we've fallen into the practice of using these prints as the base. The Aus one has different animals in floral circlets tossed across it. The NZ one is ferns. My primary requirement having learned the hard way, is to find a fairly low constrast fabric so the lettering pops.

I then use wool mix felt and steamaseam to make and attach the lettering, going over them with free motion machine stitching to ensure they never come away. 

After that I dive into my enormous collection of rhinestones and bling them up. 

Two sashes for 2026, 'koala and 'kiwi respectively.

Below are short videos of each sash that capture the sparkle better. Please excuse the footage of my dinner that night, it was sweet and sour sausages on rice, for the curious, one of MrC's specialties. :)

I made a tutorial about making bunting and adding felt lettering back in October 2013, and the other little project I completed lately was a string of bunting with a baby's name on it. Except I bought the bunting from the "no longer my" shop, which I had made back in 2013!! That was fun! I made a big pile of baby bunting back then but rather overdid it. Nine apple green letters spelled out her name. I won't post a pic as I am big on baby anonymity. Result!! 

The only change is I can't work out how to flip the lettering so I traced through the printout with a sharpie to make the reverse templates.

Let me know if you give it a go?  

 

My January

 How is your year going so far?

I was meant to go back to work on 12th January, and spent the 11th finally tidying up my "show table" which is the dining table covered in makeup and jewellery, props, hair pieces, drawers upon drawers of it. 

It took 5 hours! But the resulting two big bags of stuff for the op shop and a lot of stuff that went into the skip, as well as finding homes for things, has resulted in a much tidier space. Phew, it was the last big job on my break to-do list.

But, it ended up taking 2.5 weeks to get back to work due to an IT issue with my login. So, in the stolen back time, I binge watched all of The Traitors UK as well as sewing and relaxing. I am obsessed with TTUK. It's SO GOOD. So, not all is lost.

Last Wednesday was my first day I could work and true to form I went into the office all three days. It is as I suspected, very nice being around people again. I only have part time hours left, barely 55 for Feb, and I intend to make the most of them!

For most of January we had a house guest, as we always do. Our friend Colin comes home from Australia to host the Gardens Magic concert series as his alter ego PollyFilla. We hardly saw each other but we did have a really great day of sewing together and it made me realise how different it is to sew with someone who is an expert and we were working on our separate projects and just talking. I often am sewing with somebody needing my assistance which is fine, it just isn't as productive for my own projects!

Balance in all things. That is what 2026 is going to be about for me. Already is. 

Anyone got resolutions, determinations or missions for 2026 lined up?

Old photo for funsies!