TwirlGirl will be doing solo events this year as well as Pairs Events .. so that translates into 6 costumes for this year.

And now looking back at some of the other things i have done sence the last years “time crunched” Solo-pairs costumes i know i have grown in my skill set and i know i can do a lot better than that

I think it was Tim Gunn who said an analogy about the monkey house at the zoo,  when you first walk in your first impression is whew it stinks but after you have been in there for a while the smell grows on you and you don’t notice how bad it is any more … I think thats how last years costume was for me .. I could have done so much better I just didn’t realize it

an example is this dress I did for a Halloween costume very simple design but came out beautiful

More to come Soon…

Labels

Then I stumbled across Allyson Hill’s Blog who has a section on how to make your own labels.

Now for the Sparkle =)

Being a complete newbie to this part I went back to the computer to do the research, and I’m glad I did.

I found IceMom’s Blog and it was super helpful for the Embellishments part. She has reviews of some of the tools involved and links to a number of different Rhinestone Suppliers on the web, as well as she goes into detail about the difference between the more expensive Swarovski stones compared to the slightly cheaper Preciosa stones.

From her information I chose Dreamtime Creations as my stone supplier and I’m very happy with them… Easy ordering fast shipping no complaints at all

So first I printed out the rhinestone pattern I made in Illustrator. Then i took a garment marking pen that i got from Joann Fabrics which disappears over time. Or if you want the marks gone faster just rub with a damp cloth and poof there gone, and used it to transfer the pattern to the garment.

I chose hotfix stones for these Costumes and have had good success with them although … on both the hotfix tools I purchased I had problems with the stones falling out of the tip before I had them inplace. So my answer to this was the hot spot tip which is just a flat tip. I placed the stones on the marked pattern on the garment with a set of long tweezers and pressed the tool on them inplace, held for 20 seconds each stone and poof rhinestone done.

yes it takes forever, but I think it’s well worth the time as it defiantly “completed” the costumes

Notes on this;
The garment should be stretched a little when applying the stones since it will be stretched on the wearer, so i took my jig saw and cut out a thin piece of wood in the shape of my dress form, but its perfectly flat, and put the garments on that board to do the stoning
It gave me a nice easy to use work surface and protected whatever I was working on from the heat.

Complete

First let’s make sure we have the tools we need.
Things I recommend you purchase even if you’re new to sewing

• Rotary Cutter
• Self Healing Rotary Cutting Mat

These Items will make cutting so much easier and are well worth the investment .. As if you give up sewing they can be used for a number of different things.

Cut Fabric On cutting mat

Now for the sewing machine.

You don’t need a $500.00 electronic machine nor do you need a specialty machine like a Surger, do they make life easier? ABSOULTLY! But you can still complete this project without any issues without them.

The two most important factors in the machine are

1. ZigZag Stitch … this is a must as it is a stitch that will stretch with the fabric when its being worn
2. Adjustable Pressure Foot tension … another must because sewing stretch fabrics is very difficult if the top layer of fabric is stretching due to the foot pressure and not moving as one with the bottom layer

Now a word of caution some of the more expensive electronic machines available don’t have the adjustable pressure option,

An example I have a nice Electronic Singer machine with 130 different stitches programmed in it that I paid about $350 for… I can’t sew stretch fabric on this machine to save my life, so I had to buy a cheep $110 Mechanical Machine that just does what I want basically the only thing this unit is good for is the 2 items up top, zigzag stitch and adjustable pressure.

Practice

That being said I also have a 4 thread Surger which makes quick work of seam sand elastic work. These things can also be accomplished with a zigzag stitch on a regular machine it just takes a couple minutes more.
Now I have all my fabric cut and I’m ready to attach it to the main front leotard piece, I highly suggest you assemble the design on the front and back before you join the 2 together. Since I had never done anything with such curved stitching before I decided to practice with some scrap fabric I had lying around. This helped me get a bit more comfortable with how things were going to work and let me fine tune the foot pressure, and yes I have a dressform, I am a tool nut and it’s just another tool in my sewing toolbox. Really it saves a lot of stress from trying to get the girls to try on things 30 times while I’m making them and was worth the money in stress relief alone.

This Practice one went very well so on to the real ones =)

One Done

One thing that is very important whether your doing overlays or sewn in designs … Pinning … pin everything you don’t want things moving while it’s in the sewing machine.

The only thing left is elastic and Rhinestones.

The elastic is super easy with the surger, I have a special foot that holds the elastic in place and puts a bit of tension on it as it sews leaving me with perfect leg, arm, and neck holes every time. Once the elastic is in just flip it to the inside of the garment and zigzag stitch it to produce a professionally finished seam.

Two Done

Posted in Costumes Tagged: Costume Making, Gymnastics Leotards, Leotard making, Twirling Costumes ]]> http://twirldad.wordpress.com/2009/05/01/costume-making-part-4-cutting-and-sewing/feed/ 0 twirldad img000301 img000291 img000321 img000332 http://twirldad.wordpress.com/2009/05/01/costume-making-part-3-the-design/ http://twirldad.wordpress.com/2009/05/01/costume-making-part-3-the-design/#comments Fri, 01 May 2009 16:14:30 +0000 twirldad http://twirldad.wordpress.com/?p=127 ]]> Any normal person would have been done, but I had great patterns but no idea how to make this thing really pop from a design aspect … these performance costumes usually are very loud and sparkly

So I did some more searching to try and figure out a design to put on the basic leotard pattern and I came across these websites

First Pattern School.com this site was enlightening
This person goes into all the detail of stretch patterns and how to make them yourself… as well as why things are they way they are
… Now I love knowing why I’m doing something over just doing it because some one said so

Pattern imported into Illustrator

As well as import the pattern into Adobe Illustrator.

In Illustrator I was able to draw multiple designs and get a feel of how they would actually look on a completed leotard. The end result would be a pattern that I could print out and tape together that was the correct size for cutting.

So eventually I had a couple designs that I thought were good. I was then able to color them right on the computer and change color combinations around quickly until I was happy with the Final Look. Also this enabled me to print out my multiple Designs in a small proof sheet so to say for the girls to look at and see which they liked the best.

First Draft of Leotard in Illustrator

This was the Design they liked but they didn’t like the colors very much.

So like I said 30 seconds on the computer and I had multiple color combinations for them to choose from.

I don’t know if it’s just me but it’s so much easier to see the design in the color it’s going to be rather than try and visualize it.

Now I also had a chance to really look at my design and think about how easy/hard it would be to actually sew. This thought process prompted a couple more changes in the design. As the upper and lower sections didn’t meet well and didn’t look just right.

Final Design with rhinestone pattern

Also the thought came to me that it would be easier to sew larger pieces of overlay fabric to achieve the result i wanted due to my experience level.

Now we still needed “Bling” or sparkle so to say. This part was the toughest for me I think, because i didn’t have a clue where to start. But I designed the Rhinestone Pattern right on top of it in Illustrator as well which gave me the ability to change and scrap many designs along the way … and the ability to see the colors of the stones against the rest of the leotard was very helpful as well.

Now this might be a bit much for the non computer savvy but as I do computers for a living so it was a logical progression for me.

But for those of you that are more draw by hand artists, or just not so computer Savvy, there is this site Kissifrottsipk which is from a French Gymnast / Artist
the above link has her templates which you can download and print and sketch out your design on

She also has this section Leotard Drawings which is a gallery of her drawings that are free to use for non commercial use … so as long as your not going to sell it you can use her designs for free

First things first … a pattern … that fits them (so in my case its 2 patterns)
Patterns
There are multiple options here and it will depend on budget and skill level to start with

In my research i found a couple options for purchasing a pattern
Jalie Patterns Very good patterns and highly recommended

Kwik Sew Swim & Actionwear Book Excellent resource… It’s a full book with master patterns included and design ideas also … gives you the basics of sewing stretch materials

Kwick Sew Pattern 3661 Good Starting Pattern… site also has many others just search on “leotard” on the site

if you see a pattern that you like but are unsure of the complexity or quality i would suggest going to PatternReview.com and looking it up there … there are usually reviews on most patterns that may help you gauge your success with a specific pattern

What I did was, first I bought the Swim and action wear Book, Read it cover to cover and practiced with the master patterns on cheep stretch fabric. Then I bought the Jalie 2105 Pattern and the Jalie 2792 Pattern to give myself a wider Varity of design ideas… the 2nd of the Jalie patterns “2792″ was mainly to learn how to make the keyhole back on the leotard.

i realized that the only cost in adding another routine was the costumes

so i started looking around at some of the top sites like Kenerly Kreations And Show off Costumes
to realize that we were looking at almost $600 for the 2 costumes

i just couldnt swallow that … especially after getting there Dance Twirl Costumes used from the twirling orgisination for $10 each, which with a wash and some alterations are very stunning costumes

so heres where i need to segway into a little backround
i’m the type of person that loves doing stuff with my hands .. and i have been into hobbies sence i was about 8 years old
now my absoulte favorite hobby is Woodworking .. building furnature and the like and not to brag but i’m good at it
so before LittleTwirlGirl was Born i set up a full woodshop in my basement and loved it

then LittleTwirlGirl was born and i came to the realization that my woodshop was right under her room … and my tools made too much noise for her to sleep. So i needed to find a quiter hobby for my free time (which seems to be only when the kids are sleeping)

then TwirlGirl comes to me after spending a day with Nana saying she needs a Indian costume for the next day at school
… i go through the normal complaining that thats not enough time to buy one, yadda yadda … she says no problem Nana and her self started makeing one (but Nana got frustrated and gave up) and she hands me this package of partially cut fabric and a pattern.

to make a long story short .. i ran to my fathers house borrowed my mothers old sewing machine and produced a pair of costumes that looked good, for her and her friend for world cultures day at school

so thats how i started sewing .. i guess it was also in my blood somewhere .. my grandmother on my fathers side was a Seamstress/Dressmaker during the great depression and tought me what ever i would listen to while i spent my summers there as a kid, i made a killer sleeping bag for my GI Joe guys =)
and my mother also Sewed wether it was for clothing upkeep or hobby i’m unsure but i know she enjoyed it

i have her first sewing machine an antique singer unit made out of cast iron with goldleaf on it as decorations
it amazes me what people did with that kind of equiptment back then … compaired to my 150 stich eletronic model

so needless to say i found my new hobby … and started out makeing some stuff for the kids shirts skirts and bathing suits mostly

now the idea of costume making was very intimidating at the start but after doing the math i figured dumping $100 into an attempt at 2 costumes was worth the risk over droping $600 right off the bat on purchased ones .. espcally sence there still growing and they will only wear them a couple times this year

Pre-States Competition is this coming weekend so let’s hope she is ok by then

this did cause other issues too though I had entered them in Solo-Pairs for the first time for this contest but due to the injury the routine won’t be finished in time to perform it at this competition so I had to switch that around

But LittleTwirlGirls tiny tots team is performing at this one so that will be a nice treat to watch

LittleTwirlgirl took 4th and 5th in beginner and intermediate
This was huge though because her coach wasn’t at the competition and she had never performed before without being able to look back and get a little help from her coach
She defiantly forgot her routine both times but she improved beautifully … no one that we were sitting with could tell she forgot it
That’s a huge achievement for a 5 year old i think

TwirlGirl and TwirlGal took 3rd in beginner and 1st in intermediate
Personally i think they should have taken first in both but #1 I’m biased #2 the others around me thought the same
They seemed to outperform the other teams but i guess the judge was looking for something that I wasn’t

But I hated the location of this event.. The gym was just too small
Yes the floor was standard size but there was no buffer area and the bleachers were insufficient
I guess thats just a Middle School … the High School Gyms are bigger

now my girls have been performing in some form of baton for years so i could imagine how much work went into this.  these are the Kings Firecrackers there a performance Jump rope team from ohio that does performances all over the team is composed of 4th to 8th graders and let me tell you they rock .. check it out for yourself

http://kingsfirecrackers.blogspot.com/