I Sewed a Snuggie! AND a Body Bag.

Inspiration: The Snuggie, the Forever Lazy, and the modern body bag.

Pattern Description: Large polar-fleece monstrosity has powers to eat you alive, make you cry, snuggle you tenderly.

Pattern Sizing: Fuzzy fleece sadness has no sizing, envelops all people equally.

Did it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope once you were done sewing with it? The very question offends, as this miracle of engineering was the product of months of exquisitely intellectual design.

Were the instructions easy to follow? You mean the ones I made up in my head? Cut hole in middle of giant piece of fleece, insert over head, finish edges, add centered zipper, stand back in horror.

What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern? Like: fuzzy and warm. Dislike: saps will to leave couch.

Fabric Used: 4 yards black stretchy polar fleece from Fulton Fabrics in Brooklyn, $4/yard. Zipper was $2-something.

Pattern alterations or any design changes you made: Left bottom edges unfinished.

Would you sew it again? Would you recommend it to others? In all seriousness, this thing took a surprisingly long time to construct, as the seams were so long and my toddler kept trying to pull it off the sewing machine by the ends.

Conclusion: I'm a costume designing STAR. Time to sit here by my cell phone, waiting for Hollywood to call...

Video background details:

"Just Give Up." Because Snuggies and Forever Lazys are for Liars.

Written and Directed by Stephanie Bencin (pictured above with Z, who was totally fascinated by all this.)
Starring The Prom.
Siobahn Thompson
John Milhiser (shown in first photo)
Sasheer Zamata (shown in above photos--her love of vintage and thrift styles recently featured in Time Out New York)
Stephen Soroka
Justin Brown
Amber Nelson

Costume Designed by Mikhaela Reid

P.S. In case you're jealous, but don't have my amazing advanced skills of "designing" large terrifying fleece rectangles with centered zippers and neckholes...

Source: simplicity.com via Mikhaela on Pinterest

Seriously, where do you think I can get some of that crossword puzzle fleece?

Friday Funny: "The Scarf" (How NOT To Tie One) + Costume Preview

Yeah, so, you know that feeling you get when you're trying to tie a scarf just right... or you keep putting on different skirts and yet somehow NONE of them work with the top you're wearing, but when you change your top, the new top doesn't work, and you start to leave the house, but then you stop and look in the mirror and you're just like. WAIT. NO. And you're late for something, but ...

Then you may get a little deja vu while watching this comedy video short by my friend Stephanie Bencin (no blog, but she's on Tumblr and Twitter), a fabulous up-and-coming comedy writer/filmmaker. Stephanie is a documentary film researcher by day, and by night writes for The Prom, a sketch comedy team that performs at New York's Upright Citizen's Brigade Theatre (founded by the awesome Amy Pohler, among others).

Anyway, Stephanie recently drafted me to do what could very generously be called costume design (to say I am not on a Dreamstress level would be an understatement) for another upcoming video... the same comedy costuming project I mentioned before that required I buy copious amounts of (shudder) fleece. Here's a sneak peek--Z was really sad she couldn't keep the costume when it was done.

And the above video details:

"The Scarf"

• Written by Stephanie Bencin
• Directed and Edited by Adam Sacks
• Shot by Andy Bond
• Starring Moujan Zolfaghari
• Featuring Lauren Adams, Sasheer Zamata and Matt Cutler
• Music by Lawrence Kim

If you enjoy the video, please do your part for female comedians and leave comments here or on YouTube, share it on Facebook, Twitter and so on--Stephanie is just starting to do more of these comedy shorts and any feedback and exposure would have a super big impact! (AND would likely mean you will get to see more entertaining costuming projects here in future).

P.S. Sorry to those of you reading on non-video-friendly devices, but it's worth emailing or bookmarking and watching later!

P.P.S. Speaking of scarves, how beautiful (if super large) is Sarai's scarf collection? I only own 6 or 7 and I really need to start wearing them more often. Honestly, I am terrified of my poor scarf manipulation skills, and in a fit of anxiety a few years ago actually purchased two books on scarf tying.

P.P.P.S. Here I am in 2009 on a rare scarf-wearing occasion in Paris with a turquoise Diane Von Furstenberg silk scarf I bought on deep sale ages back. I definitely didn't have it on right, but cliché or no, I was more scared of NOT wearing a scarf in Paris than wearing it wrong, if that makes sense:

Video Tutorial: Try On Patterns Before You Sew With a Digital Dress Form (Croquis)

Here it is, folks—my long-promised video tutorial on how I dress my digital croquis, based on my Colette Pastille vs. Colette Macaron sheath dress showdown! It's just three minutes long, so please take a look and share with your friends, embed on your own blog, whatever!

If you have any questions about a specific part of the video, leave them in the comments and I'll answer them in annotations directly on the video.

Now that I watch it critically, perhaps it's more of a "demo" than a tutorial, as it doesn't really go into the real nitty-gritty—what size paintbrushes to use, how to do a proper selection for filling, how to use layers, or how to create repeat fabric patterns, etc. Do you need to know that stuff too?

So I'd really love your feedback:

• How's my genereal script/approach/use of images/video?
• Is it too long/too short?
• Is my narration understandable, or too fast/mumbly?
• Are there some bits you're more interested in than others?
• Should I do more of these? The other tutorial I've been promising to do for about two years now is how to create a really robust digital croquis in the first place using a variety of methods—digital, hand, etc.
• Would it be better as a series of printable photos and text than a video?

The details: I captured the demo with iShowU, and edited it and recorded the voiceover in iMovie. I found the voiceover the most challenging part—at first I tried to wing it, but I kept stumbling over my words so my film-school-grad husband suggested I script it. Here's my rough script with some notes/links:

Mikhaela Reid here from Polka Dot Overload with a demo of how I “try on” sewing patterns using my customized digital dress form, or croquis.

With a little practice, you can plan your sewing wardrobe, design fun details and play with palettes and fabrics. Best of all, you can preview how a design will look on YOUR awesome shape before you cut—or even buy—your pattern or fabric. This is particularly great for use with vintage patterns with really stylized envelope drawings.

Back when I was super pregnant, I used my croquis to create storyboards and plan extensive modifications to non-maternity patterns.

So let’s talk tools:

• First, you need a croquis. This could be one you traced by hand and scanned or drew directly into the computer. (Tutorial forthcoming, I swear!)
• You’ll need images of your planned fabric, whether you’ve already purchased it or not. I keep all my fabric stash photos catalogued by color and type in Flickr, because I am obsessive.
• A pressure-sensitive graphics tablet is optional—but I can't recommend it highly enough. Drawing with a mouse is clumsy and awkward, like drawing with a bar of soap—a pen tablet lets you draw naturally and create thicks and thins that look brush or pen-drawn just by changing pressure. I use a Wacom Intuos, but you can get a small Wacom Bamboo for $77 new, and I've seen used Bamboos or Graphires go for as little as $20 on eBay—less than the cost of some presser feet. Don't worry about size—even the smallest one can do what you need for this.
• Finally, you’ll need digital image-manipulation software with the ability to paint and use layers and patterns. I use Manga Studio (speciality software for cartoonists—you don't really need it, I just happen to be really comfortable in it) and PhotoShop (just don't have TOO much fun with it) but GIMP is a great open-source PhotoShop alternative that does most of what PhotoShop can do for the excellent price of FREE GRATIS.

So let’s get started. I’m going to speed this up, but the entire process usually takes me from 15 minutes to an hour—drawing and coloring these two dresses took about 20 minutes total.

Here’s a grayed out photo of me in a tank top on which I’d already drawn my croquis on another layer. For reference, I’ve pulled up the pattern flats for the Colette Macaron and a photo of Mena from the Sew Weekly wearing her lovely version.

I usually start with one of the key lines of the design, in this case the mock sweetheart neckline. I keep the fabric in mind—is it stiff? soft? stretchy—and how it will hang from my body in real life. It wouldn’t be realistic to draw lots of soft pleats or folds in a stiff fabric with no drape. I also think carefully about ease. In this case I’m working with a firm cotton stretch woven and I plan to make the dress very fitted, so I draw the outlines very close to my actual contours...

And then I ran out of patience and winged the rest of it. And if you listen, you'll see I had to edit out a lot of the above for time's sake, too.

Recommended reading: If you're interested in a good reference book on how to render garment details...

• Fashion school textbooks like Fashion Sketchbook (which I bought used at the FIT bookstore) or 9 Heads are excellent but extremely expensive.
• Fantastic Fit For Every Body has a great section on drawing your own croquis, whether you're an artist or not!
• Also, remember, that they're teaching you to render the unrealistic and superstylized 9-heads-or-more-tall fashion figure—which is the opposite of what we're trying to do here with our custom-made-for-our-awesome-real-bodies croquis.

  But really, the best thing is just to study real clothing and fabric, and practice, practice, practice. I love these sketches Lladybird has been doing with her croquis by hand, and she claims she's "no artist", just "pretty good at copying stuff."

Enjoy! I'm dying to know what you all think of this—please let me know. And if this tutorial/demo inspires you or helps you in your sewing planning adventures, please leave a comment with a link to your projects so I can see them.