Showing posts with label dandelion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dandelion. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

wonderland, part 7 ( summer 2010 )

A little more from last summer's production of Alice in Wonderland. These terrible photographs show a little of the process and materials I used to make the rose bush costumes, from the scene in which the Queen's cards are painting the roses red.




These are inspired by these dandelion hats from Pushing Daisies.




I sewed the base hat from the same vintage pattern used to make the hats for the Children of Hearts, but with the crowns extended to be over a foot tall.




This is so that the hat could conceal a half of an eight-inch foam ball. The ball was held in place with a little hot glue. Later, a circle of green felt was stitched over the exposed styrofoam inside the hat to keep foam bits out of the kids' hair.




The hat base. The chin strap secures in place with velcro, necessary because of the height of the hat.




Cut individual flowers on stems off of a few fake rose bunches. (If I hadn't been on such a tight budget, I would have more than doubled the number of roses per hat. As it was, between the three hats, I used a total of five dollar-store bunches of each color) The pin was used to poke pilot holes through the felt and into the styrofoam, so that the stems of the roses would go in more easily. Poke a hole, place a rose, repeat over entire hat.




The leaf mitts are the easiest part of the costume: trace around the hand in the shape of a leaf, making sure to make it extra-large and including some seam allowance. Cut 4, two for each mitt. Make a simple cuff with a doubled-over rectangle of felt that, with seam allowance, fits fairly snuggly around the wrist.




This would be a fun project to try with other kinds of flowers as well, or with feathers for a strange bird hat, or maybe mini feather-dusters for the dandelion look in the inspiration photo.

Thursday, December 31, 2009

New Year, New Things to Love

I thought I'd put up a little post about what I've been up to, and one of my favorite Christmas gifts.

I designed these two pairs of shorts (click the button that says "one yard" to see both designs; it defaults to a 1/4 yard segment) for a Spoonflower design challenge: Children's clothing on one yard of fabric. A yard costs $18, and the shorts fit up to a 23-inch waist (with elastic).

I took fifth place out of seventeen entrants; a quick look at the Spoonflower blog will show you the fantastic designs that won the contest. No arguments here! The winning design is lovely.



And here is one of my favorite Christmas presents: a set of measuring cups designed to look like Russian matroyshka (stacking dolls). Both the tops and the bottoms of the dolls are marked for measuring! Aren't they adorable?


Tuesday, May 12, 2009

good news!

I won!  Thank you to everyone who voted for my design. You can read Spoonflower's blog entry about my win here. You can also find a link for ordering the fabric from Spoonflower's Etsy site! Last time I checked, they'd already sold 37 yards of my dandyflat design! I'm not sure I can express how cool it is to think of all those people using my design in their projects . . . 

Friday, May 1, 2009

i'm finally in the spoonflower fabric of the week contest!

Once a week, Spoonflower (a new company that prints made-to-order fabric from your designs!) sponsors a Fabric of the Week contest for independent designers. Winners get free fabric, and their designs are put up for sale by Spoonflower to the general public. Vote for my dandylion pattern HERE!