Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Steampunk Belt - Stage 1; Belt and pouch

Step One) Lay out the hide
Last time we posted about the idea's and the goals of the steampunk scribe/apothecary belt. This post is construction and creation.

We started out with a LARGE thin hide. Measured the waist and added a few inches to make it overlap nicely.


Cut it out and dyed it, making a specialty dye of red and brown that resulted in a remarkably pretty treelike pattern.


Patterns are a good idea
And started designing the pouches for the scribe kit.
Step Two) Dye it

And the tea cup holders.
And the alchemist pouch too.

Then, we spent some time (and money) on amazon picking up different vials that will be for tea, sugar, ink and powders. We picked up a blowtorch to heat water for tea. We already had an awesome metal tea set (though there are concerns that it's double walls with limit ability to heat the tea in the cup and will force me to either use something else or remove the walls).

So is testing things
Step Three) World Domination?


Sadly, we ended up in a rush due to first weekend of Faire. I needed a belt and pouch so we had to produce something as soon as possible.  Due to the lack of time and more importantly, lack of rivets, we just did one pouch, the alchemist pouch.

Designed to fit nicely on my right hip, it is decorated with an alchemists beaker and closes with a crystal and wrap setting.

It fit in very well with my new orange/red/brown costume - and worked very well.

I am looking forward to the next steps where we polish up the closure, create the vial pockets, finish the scribe pouch, and work out any finicky bits.

Thursday, July 14, 2016

Tea Time Hatband

You may have noted there is a certain amount of impulsiveness that happens in my house? And that it is a spreading thing? Well, since the beloved hubby has been on a steampunk kick, I had to join in at least a bit.  Now, he is working on an absolutely AWESOME belt for me. It will have a tea cup, and a saucer, and a blowtorch, and a scribes kit for me.  I am so excited for it!

But...I needed something more to go with it. And I have this awesome new hat. I love my hat. See my awesome hat?

It is awesome isn't it?

I had even just gotten myself set up with an orange and brown and rust colored garb set for fair. And this beautiful set up would not be hard to convert into a steampunky dress and outfit without too much work. Especially since I am aiming for punk/madmax/renfair style instead of Victorian.

But the hat needed more! MORE!!!! and needed to not clash terribly with the red/orange/brown I was doing.

A friend of mine had a whole passel of unwanted fake brown leather hat bands. I had a need. I figured I could make something kludged together that would work...and I was right!

It started by putting one band flat and realizing that O'hell no way that was going to work. It was too thin, too wimpy all by itself. It needed friends. So...I sewed a second one to it. It was still a little 'eh', so a sewed a third on - and it was juuuuuuust right.


Add in a 4th band, some vials filled with tea, tea, tea and sugar - a handful of pop rivets (these things suck, why didn't I believe the people who told me so before) and I ended up with this! It's gorgeous! I set it up so the blue can also come off and be replaced with a gorgeous golden orange colored scarf...

Who thinks we are awesome? I do!