This is a project for my Drama 113 Intro to Costume Design class students at Diablo Valley College
The One-Hour-Dress-Diagrams-Sp-2021 for my students
The booklet that started it all: The One Hour Dress by Mary Brooks Picken, 1925, Free PDF at the Antique Pattern Library
The class how-to videos:
Free Printable Miniature Books for Dollhouses #11 : 18th Century Banyans, mini books by Tara Maginnis:
Pinterest Page : Boys and Banyans
Making an 18th Century Banyan (YouTube)
Custom Made Banyans sold on Etsy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banyan_(clothing)
Old post on Banyans at The Costumers Manifesto
So, I recently was asked some questions about the Free Printable Miniature Books for Dollhouse Use and Miniature Books Pages, but the person who wrote me had an email address that kept bouncing back the answers. So I thought I would post answers here in case others had the same question, or she returned to those pages.
She asked if I had instructions, so here are some:
The process takes about an hour per book for me, but can move faster by working on several at once. I usually work with scissors and a purple disappearing color paste glue stick. Print the books on regular cheap thin matte copy paper on one of the better quality print settings.
Use the card stock template to cut out the three little pieces of card stock to make the covers stiffer. Thin card stock (like in cheap Dollar Tree 3×5 cards) is best. It also helps to cut about a millimeter or less off outer corners of the card stock front and back cover to round them very slightly.
Leaving a 1-2mm gap between the cardstock covers and spine for flexibility, cover them with the outer cover pieces by pasting them in to the cover with those small gaps. Then fold over the outer corners and paste, then do the top, bottom and sides.
Join the long strips of pages into a longer single strip, fold and glue and flatten, and stick the spine into the cover. Then trim and put the end papers on to hide any mess and help hold it all together.
Finally paste on the cover image(s) and spine text. Let dry overnight.
I like to work on several books in a row while watching TV. It helps to check the books as they dry, to separate any pages that inadvertently start sticking together from an over abundance of paste. If any book comes out too pasty, I usually can save it with a damp (not wet) q-tip and a bit of “massage” of opening and closing.
If you find you like the format, and have a version of Photoshop that allows lots of layers and want to create some of your own, I have the multilayered PSD templates I created on and use to just drop in pictures & text. You can find lots of copyright expired content online that interests you, and with practice insert and download it into the appropriate layout template in about an hour, so you can make custom books on any topic:
Google Drive: Photoshop Template for Miniature Books: Basic Portrait Layout Book
Google Drive: Photoshop Template for Miniature Books: Basic Long Portrait Layout Book
Google Drive: Photoshop Template for Miniature Books: Basic Landscape Layout Book
Google Drive: Free Miniature books 1-61 as a single downloadable PDF
That way if you are making a miniature library or whole doll house you can populate it with books that make sense for an imaginary household Grandpa with old military memoirs, Grandma with knitting books, Dad with books on sailboats and the Sartorial Art Journal, Mother with some books on interior design and travel, young uncle with western dime novels and porn, Shockheaded Peter and Oz books for the kids, cookbooks in the kitchen, etc.
Or if you are like me, just pick a topic you like and make it all in miniature!
So, needle felting is a craft that is curiously satisfying in a repetitively stabbing something way. It is like a cross between serial killing in miniature and playing solitaire on your phone. It is soothing, and when you are done you end up with something fuzzy and cute (mostly).
Daiso makes teeny $1.50 kits of wool roving for making teeny toy animals. They don’t come with a lot of instructions (or the stabby needle), just the wool, but once you get introduced to needle felting, you realize why: You pretty much can figure out what to do once you see someone do it.
However, I’m sending a bunch of these little kits with my extra needles to some relatives, and I’m guessing they have not seen needle felting and might need a how-to video or two, and some explanation, so here it is on this page:
Fortunately, they are out there:
Once you get past the basics of making little felted do-dads, you can explore a little further and take wool objects like a beret and needle felt designs to them:
This gives you a notion of how to make and add felted bits to a beret:
Or you can end up at Lacis in Berkeley taking a class with Kim Van Antwerp on how to make a bendy flying goldfish bracelet:
Evil Mutant Fairy Plastics 1: Breaking all the Rules, PowerPoint Slide Show:
Evil Mutant Fairy Plastics 2: Torquing Tyvek
Evil Mutant Fairy Plastics3: Warped Wings
Assignment: First watch the video at Pool Noodle “Wig” Tutorial by Tara
The Tutorial: Steps for making an 1770s Marie Antoinette “Pouf” wig from a $1 baseball cap, 3 pool noodles, some foam curlers and hot melt glue (on a cool setting).
You will need:
2. Lo-temp hot glue the bill down the back of the cap by either side of the back adjustment flap to make an adjustable “wig cap” base. NOTE: Hi Temp Glue will slow down this entire process, make it extra difficult and make for less satisfactory results. If you only have a Hi temp gun, try plugging in, and unplugging repeatedly to get a lower temperature, or stick your gun into a lamp dimmer and turn down the heat that way.
3. Slice half a noodle into lengthwise thirds with a thin utility knife, extended out 2″. Do remember to wear your non-dominant hand glove for all this.
4. Shave the ends down (with the knife extended 3″) as shown.
5. Low temp glue the shaved ends of the 1/3 noodle pieces to the center front of the de-billed cap. Do remember to wear your non-dominant hand glove for all this so you are less likely to get burns.
6. Check the back of the “wig” and see where you can taper the noodles towards the center back. Here the center noodle strip is shaved to the length needed to make the height of the “pouf” curve.
7. Then the two side 1/3rd noodles are glued together on their edges to form a wide strip. (Links to an external site.)Then the strip is shaved and glued to the former “bill” that has previously been made into a back piece. (Don’t glue the piece to the little adjuster strip that is in the back gap as this prevents adjusting the wig for comfort, and makes the back of the wig dimple, and be even warmer than it is normally.) Then the center strip is glued on top of the broad strip.
8. Begin adding the remaining parts of the 1/3 strips and the 1/4 strips to the sides of the wig to complete the “pouf”. Tuck ends to the inside of the original band of strips as you go from the top down.
9. After you get 1/2 way down, roughing out the basic shape of the pouf, you will need to add smaller shaved bits to the sides to bridge the gap from the edge of the cap to the middle of the pouf. This is where it really helps to have an historical reference to help you decide the way to sub-slice those pieces and place them into the design. This is really just a matter of eyeballing the gaps, slicing, gluing and filling in as best you can. Each wig is a little different around here depending on height and overall design, so I can’t run you through the “steps” since they are just random, go as looks best, filler. Remember also, if you know your design is going to have curls covering a section, this is where you can fill in with the ugly little leftovers of the noodle for putting in structure that lies beneath like lathe in a plaster wall.
10. Here I add bits that go down over the “sideburn” area of the face. If you ever want to make one of these with a more realistic look on the hairline, after completing the wig to the level I have done, then slice lots of tiny strips of the foam, and carefully glue (with Ultra-Cool melt glue & Gun) them to the edge of the wig while it is sitting on the actor’s head, covering and blending over the natural hairline. DO NOT get glue in the actor’s hair. While Ultra-cool glue wont burn them, pulling off the wig if it is glued into their hair will please them less than a bikini-wax.
Note: You are not hallucinating by the way, there are two different colored yellow pool noodles in this wig. It keeps the look more interesting, but you must be careful to use your noodle colors symmetrically so you won’t have a wig that is mainly one color, with a clot of a different color in just one area. Blend the different color throughout in symmetrical streaks for best results, or use the lighter color for the outer most “high” points like a highlight.
11: Now for the really fun part. (Not a joke, this is fun and easy unless your blade is dull.) Do remember to wear your non-dominant hand glove for all this. Set your knife at 1.5″-2″ depending on noodle thickness, then spiral cut a curl into a section of noodle. Do this by holding the knfe steady, and twirling the noodle into it. This is not only safer, but easier. If you are having trouble doing this, the blade has got dull. Snap off 2″ of blade and move down to a section of fresh blade and it should cut easier.
12: Stick on some curls:
13: Put in more filler where the bigger curls will hide the rough “lathe” structure:
14. Spiral cut your big curls:
16. OK, weirdly this is the tough part: Pull out your bag of little foam curlers. Remove them from the plastic bits, and carefully snip them into spiral ringlets with your craft scissors. They will fight you, but don’t try the utility knife unless you want lots of cuts in you, and really nasty ones in the curlers. Just slowly snip them into a spiral with the scissors.
17. Now you can use them as filler in between gaps in the big curls where needed, where your design requires small curls, and in places that are looking a bit “off” where a curl would effectively hide a flaw.
18. Inevitably, some place will visually need either disguise because of some minor visual “ooops!”, or simply need visual punctuation with flowers, ribbons or other decorations. Glue them on as your final step.
Optional Step on The Finished Wig. Note you also see on here a whiff of colored hair spray which I used in my CoCo 2014 demo on Dollar Store Costume Accessories in order to not poison my class with using real Spray Paint indoors. Using a little bit of carefully applied spray paint “shadows” in orange or pink to a foam wig gives it that extra dimension on stage, and can stop the color of the noodles looking so flat.
Steps for an Ethafoam wig on a buckram base for a Reagan impersonator in The Wedding Singer:
Cyndi Lauper Ethafoam Wig from DVC’s Wedding Singer by Eden
Feel free to print and use or adapt for your own costume or sewing classes!
Detachable starched collars were also popular for women in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries. Typically they were more expensive than men’s models, had embroidered or lace decoration, were lighter weight, and were more varied in style. This one has hand fagoting insertion. The name of the collar seems to refer to the Sorosis Club of NYC, the first club in the US for professional women.
You need:
Instructions continued below
Click here for a printable 4 page PDF of these instructions for an “Easy Gathered Rehearsal Skirt with Pictures” as shown above
2.Press open the seam, then press it into a fold with the raw edge inside, and the seam stitching on the edge.
3. Sew the seam again, this time right side together with a line of stitching 5/8″ parallel to the first seam. You have just made a French Seam which is very strong, even if you sewed it by hand with 3/16″ stitches!
4. Press the little 2.5″ bit of fabric at top of the seam open, and tuck the seam allowance under itself and stitch the seam allowances so they will stay open.
5. Fold the top selvedge over by 1.5″ with wrong sides together, and press flat. Sew this flap into a 1″ waistband tube for elastic and ribbon.
6. Measure the distance from your natural waist to the floor and subtract the amount you want it raised from the floor (like 2” or 4″) this is your Waist to Hem
Waist to Floor – Distance off floor = Waist to Hem
7. Apply the Waist to Hem measure number to the skirt. Measure from the bottom of the waistband casing down towards the selvedge, mark with chalk or pencil every 6 inches or so. Fold the hem in on that line and press.
8. Sew this hem up by hand or machine with a large (and easy to remove) stitch that can be altered for future wearers
9. Cut the two yards of ribbon into two 1-yard sections. Depending on desired size, cut 24″ of the elastic for a small woman, 30″ for a medium woman, or 36 for a large woman, you can use larger amounts for XXL folks, and smaller ones for children, generally 3-5″ less than the waist measure is a good amount.
10. Sew the two pieces of ribbon to the two ends of the elastic.
11. Attach the two safety pins to the two far ends of ribbon. Fasten one pin to the French seam allowance at top, and push the other end through the waistband tube at the top of the skirt till you have ribbon coming out at both sides of the tube.
12. Get the center of the elastic to stick in the center of the waistband tube, and do a little bit of hand stitching to fix it there at the center. Pull more of the ribbon out at both ends and try it on.
13. Remove the safety pins and cut the ends of the ribbon at a sharp pointed angle to reduce unraveling. Tie the ribbons into a bow to adjust the snugness of the waist.
That’s it. It’s done!
