Patchwork Underground

We dressed to kill and danced for our lives! That’s me with the phone strapped to my head…

OMG there’s Gaga….

And this is me stalking her after the show…note my fellow queer in the background also vamping before the bus…

As you can see, I did not wear pants. I know I told you all earlier that I was making the pointy-shoulder padded dress by Jeremy Scott that she wore on this one TV appearance….you remember, this one:

Well, I was totally all set to make that.  I had already developed the pattern and made a short blue version without the bolts.  What happened??  Well, a crazy heatwave hit Portland for several days right before the show and it made me not want to wear so much clothing to the show, which I already assumed would be HOT.  I had to throw this telephone-inspired ensemble together the afternoon of because I’m silly and of course I spent all the days leading up to the Portland show working on my outfit for the Tacoma show.  (You’ll see that doozy in a couple days!!)

Anyways, enough about my personal costume drama.  The show was amazing!!  When Gaga told the crowd that she had been biking around Portland I almost died.  (I crossed my fingers to see her at the Dollar Tree earlier that day in Oregon City but no dice.)  Julia, Kelly and I tried to stalk her and get her to sign our records after the show but I guess she ran away before we got there. Luckily, we are going to the show in Tacoma, WA tomorrow (Hello, Washington!!!!!!) so we’ll get another honest crack at it.

Next time: Binoculars.  Water.  *Successful* signature-getting.  More pictures of the crowd’s costumes!  I have to say the highlight of the whole evening was my on-going mutual lovefest with the other costumed folks.  So much FUN!

OK, if you are one of the very select group of folks who has been following my crafty exploits since I was in high school then you may recognize the center of this wall hanging in progress…

It started as a crewel embroidery sampler on fabric I ripped out of an old floor pillow.  I began in the center and then just worked around that first flower you see in the middle.  It just kept growing.

I would take it to work with me at the Games Gallery in the Santa Rosa Mall (yes, the old Dungeons and Dragons store that closed like 10 years ago) and stitch on it behind the counter.  I would take it to Mme. Newlon’s french class with me and work on it there.  (Best way to determine a teacher’s craft politics is to bust out a needlework project in class, right?)

People were really drawn in by it so I started making it more and more trippy and cosmic because that seems like what it wanted to be.  If you start in the middle and work your way out towards the edges I think you can really see the progression from tidy sampler to tripsoidfloyd mandala.

Anyway, once I stitched on the women (which are stuffed applique) and filled in the sunrise to match the added fabric color, I figured I was done.  I pretty much ran out of fabric to work on.

Then, something unexpected happened: PANIC!

I never really had a plan beyond the stitching itself.  I thought maybe an insert on the back of a jacket?  Or?  Then the white background started to wear on me.  I had pangs of regret for not stitching on a cream or light blue piece of cloth.

With all this uneasy indecision I put it in my top drawer and forgot about it.

Then, moving into my new house I rediscovered it and really looked at it for the first time in years.  I still really like it so I hung it up, unfinished, in my sewing room.  I still had no idea what to do with it.

A few days later, I was working on piecing a small log cabin quilt. I had a few of the blocks laying out on my cutting table when I suddenly realized that the colors in the log cabins matched the colors in the embroidery PERFECTLY.

Sometimes I trick myself like that - I start making something for one purpose and then in the middle of the process I realize that I am actually making it for another purpose.  Cool.

Thanks, sewing angels!

(P.S.  I am in the process of thoroughly testing my new Gingher Dressmaking Shears and Pinking Shears.  Rest assured, it is VERY scientific work.  Stay tuned for a detailed review of these lovely cutting tools!)

This made my morning…..

These Lady Gaga cookies were made by FadedLines6 and Catatonicpatient - you can see closeups of each outfit on their flikr stream. Can’t pick a favorite - too many awesome ones.  I was happy to see that even when she’s fat and cookie shaped, Gaga still looks hawt!

OMG! Hat Making - where have you been my whole life!?

This hat is insane and I love it!  The back story: I was bumping Lady Gaga in my sewing room and testing out a traditional Dresden plate pattern that I found on the internet. When it was done I was like, “OK, so, this is cute and would make a nice pillow or whatever - but seriously now - what would it look like on my head?”

BANG!

I used super stiff iron-on interfacing as the body for the brim, ironed it onto the Dresden plate, hand stitched a rad fake fur lining onto the other side and stitched a doily center onto the middle to form the crown.  I hid the unfinished bit where the brim meets the crown with matching lace so that it just looks like an extension of the doily.  I also hand-stitched wire into the brim so that I can move it all around and change its shape however I want to.  I used tiny stitches everywhere so that the whole thing is REVERSABLE.

Plans for the next hat are already in the making.  This time, I want to actually wet felt a vintage-looking hat together….with feathers and rhinestones and fake foliage, of course.  I already put a couple different millinery books on hold at the library and they should be shipping to the North Portland library for me soon.  There’s a right way and a wrong way to do this thing and I’d like to actually learn how to do it for reals.  Yay!

I found these freakin’ fantastic pumpkins at ExtremePumpkins.com.

Still don’t have my pumpkins yet.  Thinking about heading out to the Sauvie Island Pumpkin Patch/Corn Maze sometime this week.  Time is running out!!!!!  Now if I can just find a bit of time to work on my costume….