Thursday, February 28, 2013

Pinkie Pie's Gala Dress Candy Corn




With Naka-Kon 2013 coming up, I've been working on a couple of cosplays. The one I'm putting most of my effort into completing is Pinkie Pie's gala dress, humanized. I can't find my original sketch of what I'm doing, so allow me to explain some details with the help of an image of the pony herself.

I've actually broken the project down into smaller parts. The top is short-sleeved and Pinkie's skin tone. The blue and white stripes will be a vest, with a pink bow holding it at the top and a lace neckline. The top set of ruffles will be attached to the skin-tone shirt, as will the dark pink set of ruffles in a tier. The white ruffles I've turned into a sort of apron.

Today, however, I'm working on one specific part of Pinkie's outfit: the candy corn on on the apron. I'm actually hand-embroidering them, first onto some scrap fabric, which will then be ironed to some facing, and finally sewn to the apron.

Here is the whole project, set out. You can see that I've already finished one candy corn, plus all of my supplies.
This is the scrap fabric I was talking about. I actually have about a yard of this and it's mostly for experimenting with different things so I don't use more expensive cuts of fabric on mistakes. I purchased it at a thrift store for 39 cents.
 What I did first was trace the candy corn shape I wanted onto a piece of card stock. I used some packaging from a bobbin case for that, no need to go out and buy a whole piece of card stock! Unless you happen to have some on hand anyway. I used a blue fabric pencil.
Next, I started embroidering with a simple hatch-line stitch. If you've heard of cross-hatching, this is basically eliminating the cross, leaving just one line. You can faintly see in this image the blue lines I'm using as a guide for the three colors. Usually in embroidery you use several to gain a "3D" sort of look, but I don't need that.
And here is a close-up of the completed candy corn.
It does take some time to do it right, but I enjoy doing my own embroidery, rather than allowing a machine to do all the work. Sure, the stitches aren't all even and there are a lot of places where the cheap fabric shows through, but that's okay. That's what makes it hand-stitched.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Introductory Post

Good morning, fellow artists, writers, craftsman, etc., and the occasional laymen. I am Curly. Of course that is not my real name, which will become apparent later in this post. I call myself by many creative titles because there is a lack of a title to apply to a woman like me, who wants to dabble in just about every creative outlet there is.

Every week, I will be making posts here about the current project on which I am working. Occasionally, you will hear about my life at home, or my attempts at becoming a creatives-dependent self-employed woman. While I am at college learning to be an English and Science middle school teacher. I digress, however, because I really wanted to let you get a sense for who I am with this one.

I am a happily married woman with a shared girlfriend between my husband and I. Though the relationship is still on a rocky start, we are determined to make it work because both I and Billie love my husband, Samuel, with all our hearts. It is for that reason that I respect her and put up with some of the (slightly) insane things that followed her into our home.

Billie and I each have a daughter of our own, her from a relationship that ended poorly (for him) and me from my husband. My daughter, Rue, is two and some months old and is slow to learn her speech. She rarely speaks actual words, and prefers to babble or shriek. Needless to say, potty training is not going well. Her daughter, Venus, will be five soon, and as a matter of fact shares my daddy's birthday.

Venus is a brilliant child, but needs discipline. She is at that age, after all. However, there is an issue between Billie's family and her that is causing everyone a deal of stress.

I began doing homemade crafts when I was about four years old. I was drawing long before that (mostly the scribbles of a normal small child). I didn't consider a serious study of art until I moved from the East Coast to the Midwest. With no large cities around for entertainment, and nowhere that seemed to be really safe to play outside, I took to drawing. It soon became an obsession, and I still claim to this day that God let me see my talents in his own house. I realized at the age of thirteen, while sketching during a church service, that I loved to draw. I didn't consider formal training until I was seventeen. As a graduating senior I entered a class and competition and won first place.

Convinced I could make it, I entered college studying studio arts. Two years later, and I moved back to the East Coast to attend art school. It became far too expensive and the economy's nosedive made it impossible to continue. I moved back and decided that I would rather study on my own now that I had several techniques under my belt. Occasionally I will take another studio class, but I prefer the old adage of practice, practice, and practice (til your wrist aches from repeating the same circle too much).

Now I go to school full time. I was also employed full time in retail until they fired me over minor details that caused no financial harm to anyone but the fact they fired me. (They have long admitted I was the best employee they'd had in said department in eleven years.) I might return part time, but now that I've held the freedom of working for myself a few months, I think I'd like to keep it that way.

For now, my soon-to-be readers, toodles.