Men's Corduroy Jacket turned Vest

This vest was made from a corduroy jacket found at a local goodwill for 99 cents.  The first thing I did was un-attach the sleeves, making it a vest.  Next I altered the bottom of the jacket to fall to a point.  I trimmed the arm holes and pockets in a dark brown leather like materials.  Unfortunately, I did not secure this brown material well enough the first time and I cut the back a little too short for it's owner.  To fix this I bought new material to line the pockets and added a strip of the new material to the back to elongate it.

   

Outfit Number 1 for Wild Wild West Con IV

I am in the process of gearing up for Wild Wild West Con IV (www.wildwestcon.com), coming up the first full weekend in March.  This is the outfit I plan on wearing on Saturday night.  I am planning on wearing a utility belt, head gear and black lace gloves to finish the look.  This outfit is using petticoats and a 4 Gore skirt that I had made almost two years ago.  The new pieces are the front apron/bustle and the peasant shirt.  The corset is one I bought online a while ago.

For the shirt I used the Simplicity Pirates of the Caribbean pattern number 3677 as the base.  I found the fabric for the shirt in the remnant section at a local fabric store.  Unfortunately, I ran out of material to do the long sleeves, so I altered it to make puffy sleeves and added a gold trimmed white lace around the neck line.  For having to work with the scraps of fabric to make the sleeves I am super happy for how it came out.

For the over-skirt, I asked for help from my friend Dalbeth (Diary of a Wandering Costumer).  I had never made a bustle on my own without a pattern and she was a great help! The front apron has 3 bunched areas down the middle, which ended up creating unexpected pockets to store stuff in!  To decorate the back of the skirt I added black bows and some cool copper buttons, to where the fabric was bunched.  

Here is the whole outfit together:

              

Steampunk Pajamas, pair number 2!

I wish I had a good reason for why I decided to make a second pair of pajamas, versus working on bits to finish up costumes for the upcoming convention I am going to.  The best excuse I have is that I shrunk a t-shirt, which I bought at said convention a couple of years ago, and this allowed me to refashion it into pajamas.

Here is the above mentioned shirt from Wild Wild West Convention 2 in 2013.  Many consider Tesla as the leading inventor whose works would be used in the alternate universe of Steampunk.  I loved this play on words for the shirt and was super sad that I shrunk it, in the wash.

To make the shirt fit through the arms and lower torso, I cut slits in the sleeves and bottom sides of the shirt.  I added an eyelet lace and laces ribbon through the eyelets, mimicking corset lacing.  I also cut the neck of the shirt into a more boatneck like style.  Overall, I am pretty happy with how it came out!

  

For the bottoms, I made shorts using the pajama bottoms pattern for Simplicity 9871.  I only modified it by cutting the fabric off at 18 inches to make the shorts, versus pants.  Then I added black eyelet trim and threaded it with a tan ribbon.
This pj pair definitely has more of the steampunk theme I was originally had in mind when envisioning steampunk loungewear.

Steampunk pajamas, sorta...

I love my corsets, petticoats, bloomers and bustles as much as the next girl, but occasionally I need some quick and easy outfits to wear around the hotel when I go to conventions.  My friend has been wanting to do a steampunk movie night where we wear steampunk themed pajamas.  Unfortunately we never got this project/night past the idea stage.  We are both heading to Wild Wild West Con next month and it was decided that we needed steampunk lounge wear for when we were not at the con. 

 I originally was planning on using some Steampunk themed cotton fabric that I had bought a while ago, but I went to the fabric store for some other project and I came home with some floral, vine, owl flannel.....

This was not exactly the color scheme I had in mind and it isn't exactly what I would call steampunk, but I went with it!

I used the simplicity pajama bottom pattern 9871 and I drafted my own pattern for the top.  I was going for a chemise and bloomer style for my lounge wear, to give it a Victorian feel/aesthetic to it.  

I altered the bottoms by adding ruching channels on the lower bottoms of the legs. By doing this, I can adjust the length from ankle to mid calf by tying the strings in the channels.  With the lacing in the bottom of the leg, I can tie the bottoms at the knee.  

Here is the final product: