Behind the Seams of Re:Fashion Season 2: Sequin Two Set!

Actual shot of my face when I had to delete this post last month.

If you're experiencing déjà vu, mea culpa! I'm still learning YouTube, and human error meant I had to erase my Re:Fashion Series 2 kickoff posts across multiple platforms. Which is such a 2019 sentence. Then, you know, the whole acting-career-thing meant I had to push my course corrections back even further. SO. If you caught my July glitch, and wanna get straight to watching the first sparkly episode of Season 2 for ab-so-lute-ly free, you can head on over to our new Youtube channel! It's not going away this time, I promise.

Now let's get back to pictures & ramblings!

GOOD LORD THERE'S TWO OF THEM RUN FOR YOUR LIVES

It made perfect sense to me to kick off the new season with a sequined, ombre, off-the-shoulder mermaid gown. SUCH AN EVERYDAY PIECE. But don't we all have that specialty item? The monster that haunts us each time we open the closet door? You know, the kind of beast one is *requested* to buy, in order to complete a bride's wishes...the kind of beast that lurks in the shadows, after its one day in the sun? Yeah. THAT BEAST. 

What, you don't have a horror story in your closet? Want one of your very own to refashion? Who am I to stop you.

RTW beasties aside, you might imagine my technicolor racks are overflowing with sequins of the handmade variety. Nope! Nary an item! I'll tell you the truth, every time I fall in love with some blingy yardage, I dive straight in, sparkle flying everywhere...and when something goes horribly and immediately wrong, I keep stubbornly stitching until I've fitted the thing to within an inch of its life, and several inches smaller than myself. Then into the Time Out Corner it goes. I've got a whole pile of botched bling just waiting to be saved.

Sequins require extra work, extra patience, and extra cleanup. I'm down with two outta three of those. Depending on the fabric, you might need to remove each sequin from the seam allowance, so that you don't have great big galumphing lumps of seams running up the side of your bod. Lining is a necessity, to keep necklines and armscye scratch-free. And sequins. Get. EVERYWHERE. In fact, they are now a permanent part of the ambiance of our apartment. 

With all that in mind, I wanted to choose a project that would end in success, both for myself and for y'all! The gown I refashioned has an allover, scattered pattern of miniature sequins, sewn onto stretch mesh, with a separate poly lining. These guys were so tiny, I could do away with the painstaking removal of each little speck from the SA. And the stretch mesh fabric meant no fraying edges--an even cut was all I needed for my hems. Remove any amputated sequins from those edges, and voila!

Oh--recognize the top? It's the beloved Ogden Cami from True Bias, saving the day! I flipped the script on this gown and used the gold that was once the mermaid hem for the new top.

I went nose-to-tail on this refashion, using every bit of the gown to make my new look. The lining, zipper, and even that great big floofy shoulder tie, were all saved and used. The only new item was a length of petersham for the waistband treatment. It gave me an elegant, easy finish for this little two set.

OH AND SPEAKING OF TWO SETS

I CAN'T I REALLY CAN'T.

We were thrilled to be back on set with our Re:Fashion gang! I'm pretty sure I was in Godzilla Hummingbird Mode the entire week. The nonstop Nitros definitely aided and abetted. SUCH HAPPY RAMPAGE! Watch me tame this blingy beast (the dress and Rob), and cover every surface (the apartment AND Rob) in sequins, in the Season two premiere on our brand spanking new Youtube channel! 

If you're jonesing a binge of all 6 episodes, and get your sewing TV through Bluprint, they are all LIVE now. You can also sign up for a free trial and play around for a full week. More to come on each episode, with loads of pics, my usual ramblings...and a couple of surprises, including a giveaway or two ;) It is my birthday month, after all!

Have you tried your hand at sequins? Maybe you've got a beastie in your closet that has you stumped? Do tell.....  

Re:Fashion on bluprint, Episode 3: Come Join the Cult of Sewing

Let's watch "Wild Wild Country," Rob said. MEH, I said.

I need my TV to take me away from real life, if you know what I mean-- alien races, superheros, out of this world circumstances for ordinary people. A cult in a dusty, faded, early 80s Oregon? Not so much. But I like to pepper my penchant for escapism with something a little more meaty for the Robster, so I resigned myself to an evening of mind-sewing whilst snuggled up on the couch. I can have a lot of fun mind-sewing. Escapism at its finest!

To be fair, I'm stitching in my noggin' no matter what's on the screen-- a seamline catches my eye, and my head is off to the races. This time, I began with a totally off-topic dress, already in progress. But about halfway into episode one of this seemingly drab documentary, the haze lifted, and I realized a trend was happening on the screen in front of me...I was seeing a lot of pink...a little orange...and EVERY SHADE THAT HAD A SPECK OF RED IN IT. I rewound in my brain and realized those warm delicious tones, floating in blurry old footage, were the colors of the cult in question. From that moment on, I was ALL IN.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't want to start a Hell's Kitchen chapter of Rajneeshees, and I'm not going to get into the finer points of the documentary, per se. Nooooooo, my friends, this is not that heady. I JUST LIKE PINK AND RED. And when video footage of the ACTUAL CULT BOUTIQUE was revealed? FORGET ABOUT IT!! My brain went on a merry trip to the land where I was the owner of said boutique, and I began to mind-sew garment after garment for those sunset colored racks. On this journey, the boutique was the main reason for the cult's existence. Not the other way around. Facts! PFFT! Who has the time to pay attention to the TV when there's SEWING TO BE PONDERED?!

(Rob has to hit pause quite a bit on our nightly small screen adventures, dontcha know. Hey babe pause it I need to see that peasant blouse. Hey babe pause it why is the FBI in this scene. HEY BABE PAUSE IT WHY ARE THERE EXPLOSIONS HAPPENING. Et cetera, et cetera.)

So, maybe I was wearing rose colored glasses, ahem, please forgive the cherry-picked inspiration (see what I did there?), but when it came time to think up a garment for episode 3 of Re:Fashion, I decided I needed to make my cult dress a reality. My brilliant friend & colleague, Lainie, dubbed it The Culture Dress ;). 

The actual fashion inspiration, though fabulously hued, was FAR too plain for my tastes. (You can imagine, fashion not being the main priority of the real-life jam.) That's where this beast of a maxi dress came in--she started off floor length, and quite plainly in solid red (that's plain in my book). I got obsessed with some pom trim, some blingy mesh, some embroidery, and went nuts. Along the way, I severely botched it (this happens on just about everything I make) but I think I figured out a save! We show you what I did (and redid) all in the episode.

HI MOLLY! This is Molly. She had about six titles on our shoot...set decorator, stylist, and wardrobe supervisor are the three that come to mind. But again, I'm usually thinking about sewing and missing pertinent facts, so don't quote me on that. I CAN tell you, without a doubt, she's awesome. This was halfway through our fashion shoot day, and it was about 300 degrees outside with no shade, hence the shawl. I have no reason storywise for including this shot, other than it makes me happy!

Hope you're feeling happy, and rocking your colors. I like to think we're all members in the cult of Sewing, where our obsession makes the world a more beautiful place, individual garment by individual garment. I guess the "individual" bit defies the definition of a cult? Facts! PFFT!  

Re:Fashion launched on NBC U's bluprint last July, and for the month of August (my birthday month!) I'll be highlighting each episode with a little behind-the-seams. You can see episode 3: The Culture Dress here on Bluprint!

Re:Fashion on bluprint, Episode 2: Jeans + Auditions

I had an audition. A callback, to be exact. And as Murphy's Law would have it, this callback needed to happen when I was scheduled to be fully engaged elsewheres, and would have to move mountains to make it work. Usually when I get this kind of ask, it's a last-minute, NEED IT YESTERDAY "self-tape," and Rob and I are suddenly wrangling every source of light in our house into a jerry-rigged mini studio in our bedroom at the midnight hour, fifteen lamps blazing us into a sweaty mess while the camera rolls. (Sounds kinky, but we are not that professional.)

This time, the day before we left for our bluprint shoot, we got the ask for a skyped callback, to be scheduled sometime during our first shoot day. ?!!! Pretty much out of the question, I told them, we'll cross our fingers and see if the lunch break jives with it.

It did not. Instead, in the middle of the very first day of a very short week, the crew at bluprint stopped the shoot, set up a quiet, air-conditioned, beautifully lit corner for me, and removed themselves to the blazing outdoor heat while I skyped a callback, in which I improv-ed dialogue that should have lasted twenty seconds into twenty minutes of comedic banter. I WAS COUNTING EVERY MINUTE. I was sick that these beautiful new people had halted production for my ass! WE HAD SHIZZ TO SEW, MAN!!!!

WOMP WOMP, I did not get that part (it happens), but the circumstances, being a regular life occurrence, made it into the second episode of Re:Fashion, Jeans + Tee. A segment of the show is devoted to a last minute callback 😂. Our wonderful-jump-up-and-down-I-love-him-so director was all about bringing our real life into the series, and that first day was full on art imitating life. 

What's unreal about the episode is the fact that I'm wearing jeans and a tee shirt! WHO IS THAT WOMAN?!! I guess I wanted to try my hand at life imitating art? Really, what I wanted to do was give this everyday staple some twists, maybe inspire some fellow sewists into upgrading some basics, and definitely entice some civilians into breaking into what's already in their closet, busting out a needle and thread, and joining the fold! WE WANT ERRRRRRRYBODY SEWING YO!

You can see how I did what I did on episode 2 of the series. I hope it inspires you to add some awesome to your basics...

Re:Fashion launched on NBCU's Bluprint last July, and for the month of August (my birthday month!) I'll be highlighting each episode with a little behind-the-seams. You can see episode 2 on Bluprint!.

Behind the Seams with Re:Fashion, our new series on bluprint!

WELL HELLO DRESSFORM OF MY DREAMS. Y'all, dreams *do* come true in Hollywood!

Though that leggy dressform didn't make it home with me, I really do mean that bit about dreams, because in the past year, sewing and acting have come together for me like fine champagne and dark chocolate; it's a dream come true that I didn't even know I had. Our new series, Re:Fashion, just launched on bluprint, and I am actually beside myself. I am most certainly and ridiculously happy to be beside Rob, who also stars in the show, bringing his special blend of sewing insouciance to the mix. (The looks, people. THE LOOKS.)

Re:Fashion is about, well, refashioning, but it's also about getting into what works for your closet, upcycling, looking past a pattern envelope, trying something new, shifting gears when something goes awol...it's Re(garding) Fashion. We wanted this show to be an extension of the blog, and so over the month of August (my birthday month!) I'll be highlighting each of the five "series 1" episodes in my usual blog style--i.e, a finished garment post, in which I talk very little about actual sewing. If it ain't broke don't fix it, eh? Don't worry, over on the series I do talk actual sewing.

We had an amazing team of stupendously creative people behind this, and hopefully, our efforts will inspire you to bust into your closet, your patterns, your building's recycling center, and wreak some havoc with fabric.

Most importantly, we hope to give you a break from the world, and make you smile.

(The detail type stuff: for those who don't know, Craftsy is now Bluprint, an extension of NBCU, the network that is also giving us the gift of Amy Poehler & Nick Offerman in Making It *YES IT HAPPENS TOMORROW NIGHT AND I DON'T CARE IF I SOUND LIKE AN AD, I AM DANCING WITH UNABASHED JOY OVER HERE*. Details over! See you August 1st with the first behind the seams ;)