Julie Feeney's Clocks Dress

Julie Feeney is a singer, songwriter, composer, orchestrator, entertainer, performer, musician... from Ireland.

She's very supportive of fellow creative Irish people. She's familiar to people as "the singer who wore the hat on her head on the Late Late" but she's becoming a household name what with appearance on TV shows like The Hit and sell-out concerts in the National Concert Hall, in lovely sometimes remote, varied locations all over Ireland as well as New York and other places in USA and who knows where else... I digress...

I contacted Julie Feeney because I was interested in her forthcoming opera, BIRD. Maybe I could be somehow involved, especially with the costumes.
But at the time of my phonecall, she discussed with me a dress that she'd like made to go with her latest album, Clocks. She's had a "pages" dress designed and made for her pages album. Here's a pic of it that I stole from her website www.juliefeeney.com

So I took on the challenge. Here's my sketch drawing and finished product #1

See the beautiful buttons I used on the back of the blouse and at the cuffs. It goes with my 'design philosophy' of scale. A garment needs to be appreciated by the wearer, the fit, the comfort, small details, usefulness of pockets, warmth etc. Then the garment is to have an effect on other people: what they see, what it communicates about the wearer, the colour, the shape and style. And in the case of costumes, what does it look like from the stage, what does the audience see.

Here I am, leaving my apartment before Christmas with the dress, petticoat and shoes to drop them over to Julie Feeney. It was bad timing because it was such a busy period, we didn't have time to fit it and take a picture of her in it with me so this one will have to make do ;)

I added the gold cummerbund. And gathered the hemline to give it a ruched effect. These were design changes which consider the view of the audience member. The wonderful clockwork patterns on the fabric of the blouse and hem was ordered from Spoonflower.com.

The petticoat pokes out from under this ruched hem. Kind of like the clockwork of a dress. A little peep into the inner workings of a skirt! Just like you'd take a look at the inner workings of a clock. (Me and my notions!)
And the shoes... I blogged about the process of making them previously.

I chose them for the solid chunky heel but they aren't platforms. There's bits of clocks glued on to them. They do sparkle. But silly me, Julie doesn't ordinarily wear peeptoe.
The whole project has been such a steep learning curve. Julie hired me as her PA for a while because of the relationship we were building up around the dress. That was hugely fun and challenging. Other projects have come my way and I feel better equipped to tackle them because of this experience.
I hope to post a picture of Julie in the dress soon; of the two of us; or of Julie at a concert, performing and wearing my... nay, HER Clocks dress!

Sewing against the Clock

Dinner at my friend's last night... in exchange (teasing!) for setting up her sewing machine. The Ikea SY, I was very impressed with it.

And then a mini hot-water-bottle and fur-like fabric was produced; the grand plan was to make a furry cover for the hot-water-bottle.
Quick look at the train timetable. 35 minutes.

Train station is 18 minutes walk away. Can it be done? Sew a furry cover in 17 minutes?!

It felt like the last moments of an episode of the Sewing Bee. The pressure! Was quite fun. And I made the train.

My Personal Blocks

What are those multi-coloured pieces of cardboard on that hanger?!

I've been doing a pattern-drafting course at Róisín Cross Silks in Dún Laoghaire with Sarah Foy. It's a brilliant class. I'm learning so much, flying along.
Have done skirt and bodice blocks. The green peeping out from the back is my skirt block:

Could be better curved I guess between hip and waistline. And sorry you can't see the darts very well.
I went with shades of red/orange/yellow for my bodice blocks, it was especially important to differentiate between the skirt block of it and the stand-alone skirt block.

 And the sleeve is cut from red cardboard.

I'm enjoying it sooo much. I'm also doing an art class in NCAD "Drawing Approaches" on the same day. There is no doubt about the class I prefer, although the art class is excellent - I have a natural draw to the pattern-drafting, problem-solving, practical, tangible aspect of the design-work as opposed to the artistic expressive drawing output!

New Colette patterns make me stop and look

Ordinarily when an email comes in from a sewing supply shop or a pattern-maker, I glance at the images and say I'll "come back later... check it out in detail again..." but this morning, an email from Colette patterns caused me to stop in my tracks.

Ok, so the model is quite cute! I'm actually starting (or I should be starting) sewing a Minoru jacket this morning so I was really interested in this other coat pattern. It's unisex. My mother wouldn't be impressed though, she thinks I should wear more feminine coats... nevertheless, this coat could be one for the brothers.
The other pattern is for a bag - looks great in the photographs but I chose to show this image cos the drawings of the three bag options are so pretty-yet-sturdy!

I think "Walden" is the name of the collection. Cooper is the bag and Albion the duffle coat. Nice to meet you!

Great Gatsby trousers

My brother's friend is organising a Great Gatsby party. He wanted plus fours to wear to it. Now, I didn't research plus fours or plus twos or any of that jazz, although I know I should have.
We took an old pair of my mother's tweedy pants.

Took in the waist, cut off the legs, and added a band below the knee.

My brother's under-knee is 32cm in diameter.

I found very appropriate buttons (I think!)

Can't wait til he tries them on.
And I hope to be roped in to dress some of his friends too :)
... I have a feeling I overlapped the button part towards the front when it should be towards the back. So now, with that in mind, I'll undertake some historical research; check if those buttons are as appropriate as I like to think. It was nice to know I could pull it off sewing-wise.

Decorating Julie Feeney's Shoes

I've designed a Clocks Dress for the singer Julie Feeney - to go with her latest album Clocks - she'll wear it on the 9th August at a concert with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra in the National Concert Hall.

The dress is one thing... but shoes... I picked up these leopard-print shoes. I really think the weight of the heel is appropriate for the dress I've designed. 

 Leopardskin is NOT the look I wanted, so out comes the spray paint...

And now for the fun part. The embellishment! I bought these old clock parts from a shop on Etsy. I sorted through them, arranging them into circular cog parts, clock-hands, and "other".

 

But the problem now is how to attach these embellishments to the shoes. I'm thinking in cog-shapes to emphasise them.

Hot glue is too messy methinks. I'm wondering about sewing them on to a fabric and then gluing that fabric to the shoe... luckily my bastel-crazy sister-in-law is on hand to help. And I still have more than a week to get the shoes done.

Fitting Form just for me

Dressmaker's Mannequin. Tailor's Dummy. Torso. Dressform. Body Double. Cast. Bust. Mannikin. Mannekin. Moulange.
It's hard to fit clothes on yourself! I heard about "duct-tape-dummies" and thought it might be the exact solution I needed for making better-fitting clothes.

And so my wonderful friend came over - she'd done one before - and helped to tape me up and and then cut me back out of the mould!

It's a funny looking thing. A bit freaky sitting on the couch next to me.
I think there's how-to videos on you-tube or other blogs.