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 flowers 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...OK?...  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 2014!! 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?  

 

How to Rhinestone

This is the costume I've been working on forever. Today I started the back of the skirt

I refer to rhinestoning as just stoning, and given the need to heat things in spoons on elements and little plastic baggies, frankly the whole set up is a bit Stoner!

This is how I do it. It works really, really well, does not involve toxic glues and doesn't take very long. I took photos as I went, hopefully these will illuminate the process!
You need:

My menu of rhinestones - AB Rosaline and AB Rose, AB Peridot, Peridot and Emerald. These wee baggies are worth nearly as much as I imagine they would be if they contained an illicit substance ;-) These are from www.rhinestonz.co.nz

• Something to Rhinestone (my robe as shown above)
• Flatback rhinestones - I use Arabesques because I am a cheapskate - they are fifth of the price of Swarovskis and not quite as good, but on this costume it's all about the quantity. 
• Beeswax
• A wooden skewer
• A teaspoon with a heatproof handle
• Aleene's Tacky Glue - it is by far the best glue as it holds its shape really well and dries fast. For stretch fabrics or things you will need to wash, use Aleene's Flexible and Stretchable, which isn't quite as thick but holds a blob well.
• Silicone baking paper - pretty much essential for thin fabrics or areas like sleeves where you have to have one layer of a costume over the other.
• PATIENCE

 To make an applicator stick, first cut a sliver off a block of beeswax. Pop this into the bowl of the teaspoon and put on an element to soften/melt.

 You only need a little bit of beeswax for this - you can use the rest for sniffing!

 When it is soft enough to mash up with the end of the skewer, gather up some and form a  knob of it on the skewer end. Let it get a bit firmer before using.

 I am starting with the dark green stones. I tip enough to do the job onto a lid, so I can move them around easily while working.

 While my beeswax is cooling, I turned all of the stones up this way.

I spread the gown on the kitchen bench return, over a layer of the silicon paper.

 

 Now squeeze out wee blobs of the glue where you want the stones to go. With these deep green stones, I am working on the darkest branches of foliage in the pattern.

 

See how many blobs I can do in advance! You can do more than this too. The glue stays wet for plenty of time, though I wouldn't wander off halfway through to take a long phone call. I use the wax stick to gently catch the top of a rhinestone and transfer it to a blob of glue. Gently press it in.

  This is the whole branch completed. See all that white glue showing? It's a good thing! It dries clear but the ring of glue means the stone is held well in place.

This shows the second round of stoning - once I completed the first branch (top of pic) I then glued up two more.

Here's the finished area after I've gone over it again with the other colours of stones. Because this is the back, I've been pretty light-handed - the fronts have about three times as many stones. But I have found the hard way that backs of costumes get a hard time with sitting etc, so this is just about it not being obviously not done!

Top tips:

• Your beeswax applicator my get less effective if it is cold.  I use my fingers to soften it back up again. Remember you need only the lightest pressure to lift the stone and transfer. It should release, really easily as a result.
•  Aleene's dries enough to peel the fabric off the paper in about an hour. Gently peel it off - it will be stuck but it will still lift. It is not dry enough to wear until at least the next day but preferably a good week of curing is best. But with a huge job like this neverending robe, I need to shift the completed stuff so I can do the next section
• Of course you can follow a pattern - I do this too but it is far easier to follow the pattern of a piece of lace, a print or a brocade design. Same principles apply.
• If you can't find non-hot fix in your colour, get the hot fix ones and stick them on this way. It's no biggie.
• ALWAYS stretch out garments that are worn stretched, before you do them. 
• ALWAYS use a thick, tacky glue like Aleenes - if you are working on a foam cup bra or some other surface that is not flat, it won't dribble down the slope like GemTac or Tiger Grip. Not all PVA based glues are the same!

Good luck and let me know how it goes!