Iggy's Steampunk Wedding Gown

I LOVE making clothes for my friends, they are outrageous -- both the clothes and the friends! I have a good understanding of their personal style. Iggy is no different, when she asked me to make her dress I knew it was going to be a work of art. She is always seeking out original and exciting local designers and is not afraid to be the most daring person in the room. She has a confidence that people notice and respect.



In our initial conversation Iggy had a folder of pictures torn from magazines and a record cover with a woman in a peacock feather showgirl train and the specific instructions "Girlfriend, I want a SHELF in back!" I had sent her to the fabric store to get swatches of fabrics she likes and we talked about other ideas that interested her. I then took a trip to the fabric store and looked at what was available, did some drawings and we got back together for another round of design which I detail in the blog here.

This was a really challenging project and a continuation of "The Most Amazing Things I Have Ever Made". During this project I took Susan Khaljie's Couture Sewing School and learned fantastic new techniques for corsets in delicate gowns, which allowed me to find great success with this corset, made from silk taffeta, lined with organza and flannel. Also a unique challenge is the way the pants are cut, with a side panel that is on the bias. I chose to cut the side panel on the bias because I thought it would give me the ability to fit the pants with less ease as well as support the pleating at the knee.

The cake walk of the gown was the shrunken jacket, it slid on with perfection at the first fitting. It took two tries to get the sleeves just right, but it really paid off because I think they are fabulous and 'hug friendly'. I really like the choice to line everything with the royal purple china silk and the sleeves are the only place where we can peep it.

Finally, the bustle, in two lengths! Feathers were the design ideal but also a budget constraint. It was important to Iggy that she have a train to walk down the isle as well as a danceable "shelf" train. She had originally requested two trains, but I encouraged her to integrate them to save money on both materials and labor. I chose changeable silk taffeta as the main material because of it's crisp hand and double face. I built up bulk with two colors of netting to create texture without weight and we built the florets from trim and silk flowers. To integrate them I built a short "party bustle" where I focused the embellishments and then build a removable long train extension that fit smoothly under the party bustle, to be taken off for the reception.

Thank you Iggy and Bram -- for falling in love and making this happen.

Working with Guidworks

We share our work space with Mar Ricketts of Guildworks, an architectural fabric and kite company. We met in early spring via Craigslist, where Mar was searching for someone to share his space with. We got along well and he was really interested in having us here because of our sewing skills and his occasional need for a sub contractor.

Mar does the huge fabric installations that you see at festivals like Rothbury, Pick-a-Thon and Beloved as well as installations at businesses around town. The first project we picked up for him was a day light reflector for a sky light in the music room at the Da Vinci Arts Middle School, which built an eco classroom you can read about in the New York Times.

The music room is part of a program at the University of Oregon that studies energy efficiency in buildings. You can read about the design of the daylight reflector on their website, this is the picture of the first one they tested:

This is the sectional view of the one I worked on, the reflector is the trapezoid suspended in the center below the skylight:

 

 The reflector is made out of panels of Gore Tenara an architectural fabric that is durable, UV resistant and recyclable!

Paul's custom pinstripe bamboo suit

Photo by Sean Morrison

I met Paul and his wife Moira last summer at a music festival outside of Salem, OR. They were visiting one of Paul's childhood friends, a friend of my partner Jim. Paul had recently proposed marriage, and they came out west to make the decision to move from Brooklyn to Portland. Paul told me that he was looking to have a suit custom made for their wedding and was having a hard time finding an eco fabric in charcoal with a narrow pin stripe that he wanted. After months of searching online and in stores I went to Paul and suggested that we consider making our own fabric for the suit; my experience in theater has exposed me to no end of detail work to get just the right fabric and I was sure this was the only option. First we discussed screen printing the stripes and having them bend into geometric patterns, similar to this picture I tore out of a magazine:

After more thought I felt that screen printing may look cheap and have spotty results and decided that sewing the pin stripes would give the most controlled results. Paul had a graphic designer friend of his work up some sample stripe patterns that we picked a few from and I made some samples of the patterns. We had multiple fittings for the muslin of the suit and did more rounds of samples, fine tuning the size of the stripe as well as the the thread color and placement of the accent colors in the stripes, this is our final sample:

All in all the suit is a great success and a continuation of the best work I have done to date.

Sarah's Techno Wedding Dress

It really is true that time flies when you're having fun! The summer has been a whirl-wind of weddings, sewing projects, construction and gardening. Some fantastic projects have wrapped up and here are some pictures and a video from the first wedding of the summer, Jeff and Sarah O'Donnell.

If you want to know what it's like to have a a dress custom made for you, this is the post to read!


Sarah's techno wedding dress, walking down the isle with her dad in a stunning rooftop ceremony over Puget Sound in downtown Seattle.

"The dress is amazingly perfect! I could have never envisioned such a beautiful finished piece. You are my fairy godmother of wedding dress wishes! Your unbelievable talent, great taste, fantastic work ethic is going to take this world by storm."

Sarah Jones
www.productionbysarah.com

Sarah had tried on dresses for over a year before contacting me about making a custom gown. We got together, looked at pictures and talked about what she was looking for. She put together a great presentation showing the full range of what she wanted both for the dress and the ceremony, which you can find here. You can also check out sketches and swatches from previous entries on my blog. It was important to Sarah that the dress be modern, sexy and bridal without being overwhelming or heavy. In addition the grooms mother is a dress maker and it was important to both of us that she appreciate and respect the gown.

We went through a few rounds of sketches while drafting and fitting her moulage. Because the dress had so much detail in the patterns and a lot of little pieces cut on "random" grain lines I made two muslin mock ups of the pattern before cutting into the fashion fabric. This allowed me to make subtle adjustments to the style lines and shaping of the bodice that I knew I had to nail down in advance. You can see the first fitting in the fashion fabric here.

And finally, a video tribute to the dress!


Such a beautiful and fun wedding!

Road Test Spain

My good friend Marcus and his fiancee Sandy just got back from a three week bicycle tour of Spain and were nice enough to take along some M-Horton original garments and give them a rugged road test. Marcus reports:

"The pants were awesome, really comfortable
and good to wear out at night, too."

Marcus tested the Men's Cycling Trouser in cotton twill through the hills of Basque Country as well as the streets of Bilbao and Barcelona, they were the main pair of pants he packed.

Rose Festival Wrap-up, Lion booties on parade

I don't think that I had been to a Rose Festival Grand Floral Parade since the dawn of the 1990's! I'm always a sucker for a Marching Band or a Rodeo Queen on a fantastic horse, mostly for the costumes I'm sure. As I mentioned in a previous post, I had the opportunity to make foot covers for the Lee Family Association Lion Dance Team (http://leeondong.org) and I wanted to be there to see them in action.

We woke early in the morning, first to catch the Dragon Boat Races (another long time obsession of mine) and then made our way over to the parade route. The booties were fantastic, as you can tell the foot covers really completed the lion costumes. Later in the day we found the Lion Dance Team performing outside the Portland Classical Chinese Garden on 3rd St. where we were able to snap some close ups of the dancers after the performance. I'm really happy with the way the feet turned out!





Also, as promised, the photo of SuperAlisa, the mastermind behind Snarky Cards (http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5233435), in her fantastic re-newed skirt. Alisa brought me the skirt fabric and a fur vest one morning when we were vending together at the Handmade NW pavilion at the Rose Festival Waterfront Marketplace and by the end of the day, voila, this fantastic fur trimmed skirt:



What a great festival! Thank you to The Lee Association, Handmade Northwest and Jim, for helping me pull it all off and learning how to sew to boot!

Real-Time Rad-ical Re-Fashioning at the Portland Rose Festival

What a fantastic time we had with HandmadeNW.com at the 102nd annual Portland Rose Festival Waterfront! The sun, the people, the sewing barefoot in the grass, the total creativity as we recycled clothing and textiles into their next life! Here are some shots from the last two weeks, to be updated as more pictures are found in the chaotic mess that is out "post festival" lives.


We got some great local news time with "On The Go With Joe" at Fox KPTV 12 here in Portland. He was super-fantastic high energy fun at 8:30am! Really, what a nice and fun guy! The video is up at the local FOX station here: http://www.kptv.com/video/19601229/index.html We also had some media time with KOIN on their morning show, but I couldn't find the video on their website.


The ladies at "Sparrow Tracks, Up-Cycled book binding" commissioned me for a couple of pieces: This is the 'lingerie apron', a wedding shower gift for her sister, a vintage apron collector here in Portland. It was an excellent impromptu project and a ton of fun using scraps from current custom projects.


Also in the news, our new website and mascot! Jim and I have decided to give the sewing lessons their own home over on PDXseamsters.com, check it out! This adorable bear is Jim's first machine sewing project and our new mascot, the "learn to sew" bear. This all coincides with our move into a new workspace/warehouse on 9th and Washington in SE Portland, we will be moving in with Guildworks, an architectural soft goods installation artist here in Portland. We are dedicating 1000 SQFT to sewing and fitting rooms and opening up the Portland Metro areas FIRST drop in sewing studio where you can make what you what! With this move we are also expanding our private lessons and class schedule. More info on the new space to come!

American Buffalo at Third Rail Rep

I'm thrilled to announce that I will be designing costumes for the production of David Mamet's American Buffalo at Third Rail Rep in Portland, OR! The show opens February 12 and runs until March 7th. I'm really looking forward to this project, I really like the work the Company does. I'll post pictures and drawings as they happen.

Wedding Dress updates!

I've just had the first round of fittings with both of my brides in their final fabrics! It is really exciting to see the designs coming together and all of the color depth. Here are some pictures:


Sarah and her Techno wedding dress (with details obscured for surprise!):

I have been waiting four years to get into Susan Khalje's "Couture Sewing School" http://www.susankhalje.com/realindex.htm but could never get the time off and the tuition together until just recently and I have to say, this dress would be nothing without what Susan taught me!


Iggy and her Steam Punk wedding:


Here is a shot of the train in development. I crated a huge "blank canvas" from silk taffeta and sparkle tulle and then with Charles James in mind and a handful of safety pins went to sculpting some deep folds and layers to create an "avant-garde Victorian bustle". Iggy told me "Homegirl, I want a shelf back there", and I think we created it!


To back view of the corset and blouse, the pants here are still in muslin. The corset is being remade with new skills I just learned in Susan Khalje's "Couture Sewing School" at Apparel Arts in San Francisco and will lace up the back with large gold grommets!


The front shot: we went back to the drawing board and decided to go with a more Victorian style blouse rather than the camisol I had originally designed. It was the best decision we made and we both feel like the new blouse really ties the entire outfit together!

I'm really thrilled with the way these dresses are turning out! I couldn't be happier with the designs, fabrics and entire process. These are the most challenging garments I've ever made and the years of practice and education I put in are really paying off!

Lee Family Association Lion Dance Team

I have always LOVED the lion dancers and I am thrilled to announce that the Lee Family Association has asked me to make new feet for the lions to be worn in this years Grand Floral Parade. If you notice in the picture above the lions are wearing white sneakers, which seems to be common if you do a Google image search. What I'm making is a shoe cover that attaches with velcro on over top of the shoe, each foot has four golden claws (96 claws for the whole team!) with fur and will really make the costumes complete! I'm photographing the whole process, so check back for more details.

I was fortunate enough to be given a tour of the inside of the lion heads and costumes and I have to tell you that it really is a phenomenally intricate bamboo structure lashed together and then hand covered in paper mache and elaborately painted, again by hand. Even the pants, which seem simple are still fringed satin, and the fringe generally zigzags up and down around the legs. Look for these amazing costumes around town, they team is always performing!

Sarah's techno wedding dress

Another wedding dress for a dear friend from back in the day! I met Sarah and Jeff their freshman year of college when living in the dorms at Webster University in St Louis MO and they have since moved to Seattle. After about a year of looking for wedding dresses Sarah was confident that she couldn't find the dress she wanted within her budget. Her ideal dress was modern, sexy and sparkly without being clingy, shiny or traditional AND it has to look good on her very petite frame.

Sarah and I met up and went over her collection of pictures, both from magazines and designers and of her in the dresses she had tried in stores. First I focused on finding the right bridal fabrics but found them all to be too traditional and a little expensive for the budget. A trip to Britex in San Francisco gave me some phenomenal cotton and synthetic blends with a subtle tone on tone sparkle that gives a very modern techno feel in a bridal color palate at a price point we could work with. It was the first time I had ever bought the fabric without the client seeing it but I was SO sure this was it I took the risk after emailing photos. Fortunately Sarah loved the fabrics I found and we nailed down a design. Here are the fabrics:

NW Textile show

Last week in Portland we had the NW Textile Show at the Portland convention center. I have to say that I was totally amazed! Most of it was way over our heads bling crazy Addidas and Nike oriented stuff, but the materials were amazing and some of the vendors had low or no minimums on their stock materials. There were crazy hologram materials for shoe insets, amazing webbings and laces, 3D laminated printing technology AND the whole reason we went, Schoeller Fabrics.

Schoeller Fabrics is the cutting edge in fabric technology, making textiles for gear, shoes, equestrian and what we're particularly interested in, stylish rain gear. I dream of a day when I can wear a cure retro looking jacket in a bitter winter rain and keep warm and dry. The samples are on their way to us and the designs are flying for the "Cycling Jacket" that all my guy friends keep requesting. What we've found is a wool stretch blend, laminated with a waterproof layer that stretches too! Drop in a cozy bamboo, wool, silk knit or fleece lining and oohhhh boy! Men's, Women's and Children's lightweight waterproof wool with classic styling.

Drop me a line with thoughts and ideas on what you like most in your favorite clothes!

EM

Iggy's Wedding Dress

My good friend Iggy is getting married (http://erinandabraham.com) and she commissioned me to make her wedding ensemble. I'm really excited about this because it's not going to be your average gown! After looking over her scrap book of ideas we came up with a 5 piece outfit. The basic outfit is going to be a camisole, matador pants, corset and short sleeve bolero but then to top it off there is going to be a huge show girl bustle made from layers of silk taffeta and sparkle netting!

We're well under way with the project, I started by drafting a moulage from her measurements and then drafted a custom pattern for all of the pieces. We've had our first fitting and I have to say that I was totally spot on with the corset and bolero! I decided to go back to the drawing board on the camisole, I just didn't like where I had gone. The pants we're re-fitting in muslin to guarantee the sexiest pink satin matador pants we've ever seen. I worked up a little sample of the bustle to check the interaction between the corset, pants, bustle and jacket back and the shape is great! We both really liked the texture and the way the colors worked together.

Here is a sketch of what we're working on and a picture of her fabrics: