Reservoir Bears

A local theater group, Theater Artists Olympia (TAO), is doing a stage adaptation of Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs.  I have a real love/hate relationship with Tarantino; he is terrifically funny and I love his dialogue, but his films are horrifically violent. I'm interested to see how this all translates to stage performance.

My husband is on the board of TAO, and it's not unusual for him to come home some night and ask "Can you make a plate of fake scrambled eggs/snowman costume/lamb ears/etcetera for the show?" And for this play, the costumer (Laura) actually asked me to help get costumes for all the actors, knowing my love for thrift shopping. (I've never looked at so many black pants and jackets in my life!) I was out shopping for more black pants when my phone rang. It was destiny calling (and by destiny, I mean one of the theater guys) and they wanted to know how big my forehead was.

"Why?" I asked. (And you are probably asking this, too.)

"The woman who gets shot in the carjacking just bailed on us. We need someone who will fit her makeup prosthetic."

"I WILL TOTALLY DO THAT FOR YOU GUYS."

Have you ever seen Reservoir Dogs? It's not shown in a linear style. The scenes break up to show flashbacks, something that would be hard to work on the stage, so the director is filming some scenes to use for promotion and to screen during the play as the flashbacks. One of these is the scene where Mr. Orange and Mr. White, running from the cops, hijack a car from a woman who resists, shooting Mr Orange in the stomach and getting killed herself. Wait, let me see if I can find it for you...   here we go. If you don't want to watch the whole thing, the scene I'm talking about is from 1:34 -1:42, very short.

Okay okay okay, I can see you're wondering why I'm telling you all this. I mean yes, it's a project, in a way, but it's not like I'm sewing or building anything.  And what's up with the post title "Reservoir Bears"?

Well, there's a car seat in the car, and later on in the film, Mr Orange (the fella with the stomach wound) says something about how the woman in the car was a mother and he feels guilty for killing her. When TAO did their filming, there was no car seat available so I offered up the use of Ivan (you might remember Ivan from previous posts) because nothing says "This lady has a child" like a teddy bear. Except maybe Cheerios scattered all over the car, which was another thought of mine.

The shooting (film and gun) went really well. Here's a pic of me playing dead. I hope you don't find it too shocking. See Ivan's nose there by my hairline? He's a star!

Here's Christy Reed of  MassFX Studios- Makeup Artistry Services and Special Effects mourning Ivan, who portrays death almost as well as I do.

Yes, yes, I can hear you muttering, but where's the bit where you make something?

Oh, you mean besides Hollywood magic? Stop your fretting, we're getting there.

What this all boils down to is this: eventually there will be an opening night for this play, and I will be there and Ivan will have to come too because he is convinced of the importance of his own role. And what does every well-dressed bear need for the opening night of Reservoir Dogs?

That's right: a black suit and tie.

I'm using a pattern I got (can you guess?) at Goodwill. It's a bit precious as shown. I got it with the intention to do tweed as shown on the cover and steampunk it up a bit, but with a few minor tailoring changes this is a perfectly good pattern for a black suit.

I can't remember the last time I sewed anything from a pattern I didn't make myself. There are only four pattern pieces in the jacket, so it seemed simple, but the instructions have these wee diagrams that I'm finding difficult to interpret. I got out some scrap lightweight black wool and managed to work together the two front pieces and the back, and attach the collar.

It needs a good press with the iron, and then I'll stitch down the facing and put in the sleeves. It's kinda fun to work on little things. I'm handstitching it so I can work while watching TV. It hardly seems worth bringing out Sally and winding up a bobbin to sew two and three inch seams.

I'm thinking once I get the jacket, shirt, and tie done (no vest), maybe I'll just skip the pants. Bears are very lucky in that their culture doesn't demand pants as part of a proper outfit.

Just quick!

I know I've been a little sparse with the posts lately. It's not for lack of projects; it's just that what I'm working on the most is something for my parents' 50th wedding anniversary, and Mom reads this blog. I don't want to spoil the surprise, so... sorry, everyone!

Here's a little something I thought you might find interesting, though: Edyth Miller over at The Compleatly Dressed Anachronist did a post today about how to layout your pattern on fabric in the most economical way. She is one super-smart lady, you guys. Her whole blog is a treasure trove of 15th century goodies. Get yourself a cocoa and have a read.

If you can stop yourself getting all inspired and jumping up in the middle of reading to go make yourself a new linen frock for spring, you're a tougher sort than me!

Go on, shoo! Visit Edyth, and I'll see you here next time.

No junk in MY trunk.

I've been taking my time with the trunk renovation. Now that it's warming up, the garage is a more inviting place to be, though, so I've been out there cranking Johnny Cash tunes and working away.

Last night I finally steamed out the last of the paper lining. Then I gave the inside a casual wipe with a damp rag as a finishing touch and was appalled when it came back absolutely black. Out came the wood soap and I scrubbed the dickens out of that box! And yeah, I didn't get before and afters -- typical, huh? But there really isn't that much of a difference to be seen. It still looks pretty beat up and rough, but I have this pretty paper to line it with once I'm done, so I'm encouraged to keep working at it.

The next step is to remove the wooden slats on the outside, prepare the metal surfaces, and give it a coat of fresh paint.

Stay tuned! There will be better pictures next time, promise!

Skirt Review.

I don't like it.  Here's why:

It's dark this morning, so I had to open up the aperture on my camera. This makes the photo quality a little grainy. Sorry about that.  But you can see the pleating -- and more importantly, what's not pleated: the placket in the middle, where the skirt fastens together.

I think that's the problem.

If there were pleating all across the back, and the fastening was on the side, I think the drape on this skirt would be much more becoming. As it is, there's a "valley" between the two gathered bits and it looks kind of horrid -- at least in my opinion.

Looking at the original piece from which this pattern was made, it's a bit hard to see what's going on at the back. It appears similar, but the photo is small and... well, I linked it, but I think I'll also just pop it here.

I made the pic as big as I could, you guys. I wish it were a better picture. Oh well.

I can't tell what those light-colored tabs at the top of the extant skirt are meant to be -- maybe an attachment point for the bodice, or to affix to an undergarment to help support the weight of the backskirt. They weren't included in the pattern, at any rate.

My pleats look bigger than these, and I think the dressmaker overlapped the placket or something to obviate the "valley between the pleats" appearance that I've made. It looks much narrower than mine, go figure.

I made my pleats half an inch, which seemed small compared to the cartridge pleats I'm used to seeing on medieval constructions. I think perhaps that was my problem: thinking with my medieval brain, instead of checking with more current Victorian trends. Squinting at the blurry pleating in this pic, I think mine should have been smaller. If I had done that, perhaps the extra wool would not have been needed, also.

All that said, the rest of the skirt turned out very nicely and I like the shape and drape of it. I think I'll write this one off as a learning experience, tuck it into my unfinished projects drawer, and maybe revisit it at another time.

Now... what shall I make next?

The sewing is back!

Gosh, remember long ago when this blog was about sewing? Pretty outfits... embroidery... whatever happened to that? Now it's all "I have a horse!" and "Look at the mask I made!" and "Steampunk! Rawr!" 

Well, feast your eyes, my friends: The sewing is back!

Kindly forgive the slightly blurry snap.
I'll take another one when the lighting is better.

The bottom hem still needs to be done, but otherwise my test run of an 1895 evening skirt pattern turned out quite well.  And yes, that's a bit of a train back there -- my hem isn't that uneven. And yes, I have a pillow under it to act as a small bustle.

The pattern I used was from Costume Gallery, presented free, online. I got to get out my graph paper and customize the measurements, which wasn't too difficult. Once you sew the darts, it's basically all long straight seams. On a machine, it goes together pretty quickly. Even the cartridge pleats at the back were not terribly time-consuming.

The directions called for a lightweight fabric, so I chose a shirtweight brown linen that I had in my stash. I would have preferred something more lively, but my stash is what it is and I use what I have. And besides, linen is so lovely to sew with. It just looks so nice stitched and pressed, and you can crank that iron up all the way to the top and there's that whoosh of steam-- very satisfying.

I know everyone is all about Downton Abbey these days, but I'm rockin' it old school and watching the 1970's series of Upstairs, Downstairs. It's a very satisfying watch and the actors are spot on. I think I'm rather in love with Hudson.  So I'm watching U/D and the machine is stitching away grungrungrungrungrun and I mark my pleats, feeling very domestic and happy.

I use standard DMC embroidery floss to stitch my pleats. The skirt instructions say to bring the fabric width down to three inches. I do, and end up with this:

Ugh. That looks terrible! This lightweight linen doesn't have enough bulk to make three inches of nice firm cartridge pleats. It's all loosey-goosey and untidy. This won't do!  I tear out the pleats and press the waist hem flat again. (I should mention here that I hadn't stitched the waist seam. You can see in the righthand part of the picture, I had just turned the waist over and pressed it.)

Away to my stash of wool! I measure out a strip of medium-weight wool and use a little spray sewing adhesive to keep it in place, folded the waist seam over and pressed it again so my wool was sandwiched in there nice and snug. Then I stitched the pleats again like before, and pulled them to three inches.

 Look how gorgeous that is. And the extra length on the wool gave a bit of extra body to the drape of the skirt. If I were to do it again, I'd make it a little longer, and maybe cut the tail end into scallops to improve the drape further.

And here it is from the outside. Mary Poppins practically perfect in every way!

I have to go to work now. For my next entry, I'll go over the details of the skirt, it's construction, and what I think of the general fit and look of it.

Tack-y!

Washington is famous for many things: apples, trees, grunge bands... and rain. There are parts of the state that get so much, in fact, that they meet the criteria to be called rain forests: 68-78 inches of rain a year.  That's a LOT.

That's great, Wen, I hear you saying, But why are you going on about rain? We want to see pretty pictures of what you've been working on this week!

Okay. How's this for a picture?

That's mildew, folks, and mold. Furry grey-green yuck all over a very nice English saddle. It happens faster than you would think, thanks to all the dampness here.  The crud just loves to get into dark, damp places and eat up all the yummy sweat and grime and stuff that we and our horses leave on tack. This is why it's important to give your gear a wipe after riding rather than put it up damp and sweaty.

This is an extreme case. A saddle in regular use wouldn't get this bad. This one was in storage and -- if I'm any good at guessing -- elicited screams of horror when it was found. (No, it's not mine. It belongs to a client. But I would have screamed.)

Step one: get rid of all the crud. It wasn't until afterwards that I realized I should probably have been wearing a dust mask while cleaning. All those airborne mold spores -- I can feel them in my lungs. Ugh. *cough-cough* I just popped the whole works -- stool and all-- into the utility sink in the laundry room and used saddle soap on a damp sponge to wipe it all down. Then I got a fresh sponge and scrubbed the whole thing again, under all the flaps and into the crevices and it just felt so good, you guys.

Look at that. No more green!

Such an amazing difference -- now for the top coat! I used a product by Farnam called Leather New Foam that I got at the local tack shop. Cleans, conditions, and shines in one easy step! it says. I appreciate their use of the Oxford comma, though I am usually not a fan of one-step products as they usually produce substandard results. This stuff is pretty good, though, and came highly recommended. I just put a dollop on, rub it around with my hands, and then wipe off the lather with a bit of clean toweling.

I like how it gives a bit of shine without being dazzling.

The final step is a go-over with a moisturizing wax I make myself with beeswax, olive oil, and tea tree oil. The tea tree oil has anti-fungal properties which I hope will help prevent a recurrence of the nasty mess we started out with. 

Isn't it pretty? I can't wait to take it back to its owner and hear the happy exclamations.

Stripping.

Steaming the paper off the inside of the trunk has revealed some little surprises. 

First, there is a gap between two of the slats in the bottom and instead of fixing it snug, the maker just slapped a piece of cloth tape over it and then covered it with paper. I suppose they figured the metal covering would keep out the damp and whatnot, so I can't fault them, but I do think it's kinda funny.

Also, contrary to what I expected, most of the wood slats are very rough, not sanded smooth. Again, since the inside was covered in paper and the outside was covered in metal, why waste time sanding? 

I'm very glad that my trunk doesn't smell of mothballs or anything else, really. When I steam away, all I smell is damp wood and old paper, and I don't mind that at all. 

The wood is in pretty good shape, for being a century old. 

Here's where the handle attached, where the worst of the rusted metal has to be taken off. You can easily see the original color of the paint, and the white and gold speckling that made up the "mottled" finish. I really wish there were a way for me to easily recreate that effect at home, but I'm not one for slinging around solvents and applying heat with torches. Things go boom!

I pulled the rusted-through metal off the right side. I thought it would be in one piece, but it wasn't; it was in strips about five inches wide, so I only had to remove one of the wooden slats to take off the bad pieces. The wood underneath seems fine. One or two of the nail holes are a bit worn, so I'll touch them up with wood filler before putting the new metal on.

The slat clamps (that's what those metal bumpy things on the corners are called) were pretty corroded by rust on this slat. I'll have to replace one for sure, maybe both, but i'm trying to retain as much of the old hardware as I can.  (Oh, and those pieces of tape are marking where tackheads came off, leaving sharp little spikes in the wood that I'll have to dig out.) 

I'm using a piece of aluminum to replace the stuff I took off. I've read sources that say the material on this trunk is tin, and others that say it's steel. I'm no metallurgist, but I do know that the steel and aluminum sheets I found at Home Depot were too thick, and they didn't have tin at all. One of our neighbors had a piece of aluminum vent that is just the right weight to match, and once it's painted I think it'll look fine. And if anyone wants to make a fuss about that, well, they can do the trunk rehab next time.