TARDIS Archives • Page 2 of 3 • Jessica Smith Creates

March 29, 2016August 19, 2018

Fluffybutt

Welcome to the reboot of TARDIS Tuesday! And Thursday, at least until all the pieces have been blogged!

I might have mentioned that I am insane and planning to make a ballgown, but that means that I need to clean out some of my lingering costume projects to make mental, and actual room for said insanity.

So it was off to the TARDIS races. Especially because a weekend with my study abroad musketeers was fast approaching, which would be the best time to get some pictures of this.

For nearly three years I was procrastinating on choosing a type of bustle for the skirts of the TARDIS, but I was waffling. I wanted to make a fishtail bustle. but I also thought a bum pad would be nice. I wanted Natural Form, and also the big poufy bustle look.

But for time’s sake, I went with a bum pad.

I measured my back waist, subtracted an inch, and then drew a half circle that looked large enough, which also had a radius a bit shorter than half the back waist, since I didn’t really want a full half circle.

The fabric reminds me of couch cushion fabric that my family had when I was growing up, but realistically it’s an upholstery weight loosely woven floral. It’s probably cotton, and it presses rather well.

The ruffles were all the same length of fabric, and were just gathered to the different necessary widths. I used the rest of the width of the fabric to get the ruffles, after cutting out the two semicircles.

I sewed on the hemmed ruffles, and then sewed up the circumference, but left the top open. I used a bright blue grosgrain ribbon for a waistband, so I sewed the top of the bum pad to the ribbon before stuffing it.

There’s been a pound of stuffing in my belongings for over 4 years now. Every time I use it I feel like I’m putting a dent into it, but it’s always there patiently waiting. By now, I still have 2/3 left… And this is the second thing resembling a pillow.

When trying it on with the stuffing, I made sure that it stuck out parallel to the floor, knowing that it would flatten a bit with the weight of skirts. Then I whipstitched the opening of the pad closed.

The pad sits nicely on top of my butt, which unfortunately does not given me extra padding when sitting, but is a lovely way to increase my butt-profile.

Also, as an explanation for the title… My neighbor has many cats, most of which are outside cats, since we have tiny apartments, and there’s only so many cats you can keep indoors. One has taken a liking to sitting on my windowsill. He (or she… I have no clue) is a long haired black cat with a white belly. And he’ll sit on my windowsill for hours. So I affectionately call him Fluffybutt. And I named my bum pad after him. That makes sense, right?

Stay tuned for the petticoat post on Thursday!

February 10, 2015August 19, 2018

Tardis Corset Belt

I had already told you a few months ago now that I wanted to work on something new with leather, which is why I needed to finish the quiver so desperately.

It really was the need to make my Tardis belt.

As I’ve told you before, I wanted to wear at least part of my costume for Halloween, and a big part of the costume for me at least was the corset-belt, since it was supposed to represent a good portion of the Tardis. Before starting it, I had planned for it to represent the console, but upon further reflection (and me forgetting that was my plan) it all changed.

First up was the “muslin”, in order to see if my design would even work. I used the same cardboard from my quiver, and cut out a pattern that would fit around my hips, go up a bit in the back, and not impede any future bustle arrangements. It took some wiggling and some cutting down before I hit the right shape, but it was worth it.

I took a leather belly and lined up my pattern pieces to fit on it efficiently. My goal with leather is to always keep as much as possible, and since there isn’t exactly a grain this is totally possible, unlike fabric.

I used this funky tool that I had found in a scrap drawer to draw my pattern, and cut it out with a swivel knife very carefully to keep the circles as circular as possible.

I then got to the tooling, which ended up being more strenuous than I thought. I had run into the quandary of how much of this should be in relief, and how much raised. I ended up deciding that the round things should be raised, so I had to tamp down the entire background. Love the round things! A sore wrist later, the tooling was done.

Lacing was kind of required, though, since this was destined to be a corset. But how? I tested a few methods and lacing cords, but punching holes ended up being the best option.

At that point I considered it done… until Halloween morning. Then I decided that sparkles were necessary, and I painted the borders gold and glued on sequins to the round things.

And finally it was truly done, at least enough for Halloween! I may end up painting some more, but I’m pretty pleased with it!

February 3, 2015August 19, 2018

TARDIS Cape

My homage to the phone box. The only part of my costume that screams Tardis…

This was the next thing I made after the jacket, since I knew that I would just be able to hook into the jacket and not need to worry about it afterward.

I bought this satin backed with twill, I think, last year with the side purpose of using it for this cape.

I had also bought a roll of the really wide black ribbon.

But I just couldn’t get myself to put it together. After my issues of the Belle cape not really fitting over my head, I had just started procrastinating.

So once I had the jacket made up, I finally decided that it was time. I cut out a half circle, I believe, and a hood from my royal blue fabric. I made sure that the hood was larger than the last time.

Then I took the ribbon and attached it to the edge of the hood. I had thought about adding it to the edge of the cape, but it wouldn’t have worked out with the circular edge.

I sewed it all up, included a gold lining to the hood, but not the length, and used a rolled hem for the length of the hem. It all sewed up smoothly.

But of course I didn’t work on the lettering until the morning of Halloween. One of my classes had been canceled on the fateful Friday, but I still had to go in for the second, where I was leading a discussion. So I decked myself out in a light version of Belle, and got to work on lettering and sparklies on other costume parts. I used puffy paint to write out the letters, but I tried to get them as block-y as possible, as well as even, which I may have sacrificed a bit. I centered the Public Call segment, but then Police and Box weren’t even.

When I got back from class, though, the puffy paint was still wet! I ended up carrying the cape very carefully and separately from the rest of my costume until we were almost ready to leave for the festivities.

It worked out, though, for the most part.

The hood is not comfortable to wear when attached to the jacket, so I’m considering added a thread loop, so I can wear the cape on the jacket or around my neck.

Decisions, decisions.

See you next week!

January 27, 2015August 19, 2018

TARDIS Tuesday – Cropped Jacket

I’ve determined that Tuesdays are going to be TARDIS themed here in my little corner of the internet.

You see, I decided the week before Halloween that I wanted to wear my Tardis costume, if I finished it in time. But at that point I had completed less than half of it.

It’s time to share my trials in completing these four pieces of my costume, and maybe by then I’ll have worked a bit on the skirt!

The first part of the total costume I made was a bolero jacket. I had just completed my Sorbetto and figured that would be a good pattern to build off of for this jacket. It was actually almost a month before Halloween, but my momentum stalled after I finished it… that does seem to happen a bit.

I knew it was going to end up over a button up shirt, so it couldn’t be skintight, and it had to be comfortable as well. Remember me telling you about this weird shirting fabric that I used to line my graduation dress? It made another appearance as a muslin and subsequent underlining here! It provides a good amount of weight to the jacket which really makes it lay beautifully.

For the pattern, I just folded the pattern at the pleat and traced the shape off. I rounded the front up to the center and added some darts at the back. Then I realized that in order to use the button that I’ve been saving for over a year I would either need to overlap the front or create a button tab. My buttonhole ended up a bit screwy, and I don’t have matching thread, so I’ll probably redo it, but it worked in a pinch.

Some bars were added on in order to attach the cape, and some beads… the beads. I wanted to incorporate these lovely pendants that I repurposed from vintage earrings, and when I saw Journey to the Center of the Tardis I thought they would be perfect in that context, but I still wanted to use gold fake pearls… until I ran out of them. So I added some silver ones. And then a strand of them fell off during Halloween night. So I need to do some fixing.

The strand that fell off is discreetly on the other side of the jacket in these pictures. Because I was feeling a bit shameful.

But there’s my jacket!

(When I can get pictures of me actually wearing it, I’ll update the post!)

November 11, 2013August 22, 2022

There’s a swimming pool in my library!

So the leather dying didn’t work out as well as I had hoped, so I got out my acrylic paints and went at it.

See? Not lovely, but for the first time working with leather dye, I think I made out well!

I washed it with some blue, but then it was a little too bright.

Then I washed it with a bit of black, forgetting that I still didn’t have any white to soften it to a dull grey.

So I then washed the entire bit in water, and wiped off most of the black. It left a nice marbled appearance to the leather.

Like an aged River Song journal.

This left me in a good mood about the state of the project.

Then I got busy, so I ended up waiting to sand the altoids tin for a while.

Note to self. Don’t sand indoors. Perhaps wait to do it outside with a slight wind. Breathing in aluminum dust fumes was not my best decision.

By the way, I’m beginning to think that Sharpie products are little bits of miracle.

All summer I’ve been loving the Sharpies with the super fine tips, as I’ve been using them for sketching and stuff.

But my new favorite is this metallic copper one. It adheres rather well to the sanded aluminum, and even looks nice!

Not a whole lot sticks well to this aluminum. I tried to use the gold paint pen I made my Farnsworth with, but it didn’t adhere well. It might have been the pen, or that I was using it over the original altoids paint, but nevertheless.

This looks so much better. But it may need another coat.

Especially after I sanded down the altoids tin. In hindsight, this probably should have been done before the clay “water” was put in, but oh well.

A couple weeks later, meaning this past weekend, I bought some E600, and glued the tin to my leather cover. It took two tries on one of the sides, since the tin was in at an angle, making the leather sides look wonky.

So then I remembered that I still hadn’t painted the inside, so I set to work doing that.

Got it painted with the handy acrylic paints, then I covered it in modge podge to seal.

And here it is:

My swimming pool in the TARDIS journal!

Now off to finish my Belle dress…

October 11, 2013August 19, 2018

Spoilers!

I got the River Song journal on the brain.

Altoids have been a favorite for me, even before I had uses for the tins. I think I’ve had this one for years.

And now I have a reason to use it!

Isn’t the swimming pool cute?

I’ve also been working on the leather outer.

Here it is just cut from the hide, before I “squared” it off.

It got less square after tooling.

I skived off some of the back of the leather, and shaved some beveling into the edges.

Then I got to work dyeing it.

I’ll let you know how it went next time!

October 5, 2013

Heigh Ho

It’s been over a week since I last posted.

But I promise I’m still here.

I’ve been working at my student job quite a lot this last week.

And I’m taking the GREs next week. Which means studying this week.

I’ve gotten quite a lot done in the past few days, and I’ve been procrastinating on picture taking from some projects in the past weeks.

The sun has been too bright, or it’s been too late at night. I’ve been unwilling to do my hair, and put on makeup, and I hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep. Tests and such.

So all in all, I’m happy to have done what I’ve done in the past few days.

But knowing that I won’t be posting for another long time, since I’ll be studying for my future and all, I’ve got some posts prepared for the upcoming week that I’ll have scheduled.

Each of the pictures I’ve got in this post represents a post that I will have up at some point this week. Not necessarily in the order they appear. I’m not that organized.

Now it’s off to work I go!

September 10, 2013

Doo Dwee Doooooo Dah Do Dwooo

Ah, the Doctor Who theme song. It would be easier to title posts if it had words to it.

Well, after working on it off and on for the past six months or so… (mostly off, I should mention to clear up any confusion. I am capable of attaching more than an average of one bead per day. I’m just too lazy to.) … I have finally finished my time rotor necklace!

As a reminder for those of you who are just tuning in, I’m working on costumes for SDCC 2014, and one of them is a anthropomorphic version of the Eleventh Doctor’s first TARDIS.

Yes.

And for this costume, I still wanted to pay homage to many of the mechanical aspects of this TARDIS that can’t be easily incorporated into a human being costume… Like the awesome TV screen, and the gorgeous time rotor.

This is the time rotor in question.

And here is my finished necklace!

I created this necklace by covering round and oval beads with the clear ones visible. I used brick stitch, which is slowly becoming my favorite stitch to design with. It’s so convenient and visual both in its flat and 3D form.

The beads in question were two fake gold pearls, a hematite oval, and a large goldstone round bead, which was slightly larger than the gold pearls, but not really once it had been covered up.

Because this difference was negligible in the end, as I showed in the last post, I re-brick stitched over the second bauble.

It looks so much better now, and I’m happy with it. Yayayayayayayayay! One project done, five million left to work on!

September 8, 2013

Happily Beading Away!

So… It’s time for an update.

Since the last one, I’ve finished moving into school, gone to a wedding, and went through my first week of classes. Which is why it’s been a while.

But the show must go on!

I’ve been working on my necklace projects at the moment, as I work on getting my serger up and running.

Remember how I was working on my Belle necklace, getting the swoosh bits finished? The ones that look like question marks, without the dot?

Well I’ve got one of the two mostly done! Some strings to handle, of course, but its pretty much finished! Only one more to go, which I’ll likely be working on over the next week.

After finishing these swooshes, I’ll be then designing and creating the smaller versions, which will then allow for the real creation of the necklace!

Then I decided to work on the TARDIS time rotor. I finished making all the baubles, and made the loop to thread it onto a chain.

There’s still something missing from it, and I’m pretty sure that I have figured it out.

The second bauble from the bottom is a bit too small. On the time rotor in the show, one of the spheres is significantly bigger than the rest. I tried to emulate that by encapsulating a slightly bigger round bead, but it doesn’t show nearly enough. I’m going to put another layer of the clear beads on top, which should increase the outward appearance of the bauble, making it more like the actual time rotor.

Should be done shortly, so look out for a final post for the necklace this week!

Also, I finally got a picture of this nice leather purse I purchased before I got home from abroad.

Nice and sweet little cross body bag. If I don’t make another purse option for my Susan costume, this will be the purse for it.

It’s small enough to not detract from the awesomeness of what the costume will be, but large enough that I’ll be able to keep some money and small souvenirs or papers and stuff. It’s even something I’ve been using in real life, because it’s cute, and just enough space to for wallets and such.

I’ll see you soon when I finish the time rotor!

August 4, 2013