The Rocket-Pack is here!

At a time when girls are being reminded of the dismissibility of our burdens, this pocket-belt / rocket-pack (Can we please lay to rest that other awful name for bags worn around the hips?) makes things a little easier to carry :

This version has pen/pencil/paint brush holders, a deployable water bottle holder, a retractable key ring so you can unlock you door and just let it go, easy access card slots in front, and a big back picket for sketchbook/iPad, extra shopping bag, fork/knife set, or as of recently, cloth diaper inserts.  The best part is, I can run with this on my hips, even with a full water bottle! It has been tried on by women of all sizes and shapes and so far I still haven't found a female it doesn't fit well. We all seem to be conical in the upper hips so far.

 I started thinking that bags for women are designed all wrong - there's an 11 inch difference in circumference from my waist to hips - with a structure like this, why hang weights every day off one sloping shoulder, twisting and flexing to keep it on and ending up with scholeosis in the process? After making this I realized it is also incredibly comfortable to carry a load on your hipbones - your arms are free, you hardly notice a surprisingly heavy burden. 

Arashi Shibori Cloak

Initial sketch for fabric dye intention

PVC poles wrapped with fabric and twine - finger bleed bigtime! I learned this technique from Adrienne Sack, my Shibori mentor!

After a boiling bath in purplish navy dye, the beast comes out:

this material has its own intent. So I flexed to it.

Winning the argument with my sewing machine

A couple of simple silk covered hooks under the arms for sleeves

And finally... modeled by Anita Ragusa at the Cooper Union Donor dinner:

Made from Missoni remnant Fabric

Summer night rider outfit

Pattern for Missoni fabric

Pattern organized so it could be assembled from a single cut piece

Form!

After what feels like eons, I finished my form ~
I can finally design clothes without pinning things over my actual self.

This is going to be a whole new era!

Here's the final product and how it came to be:


In full -

I deduced this method dating to the 1800s from an article in a sewing magazine on how Wolf Forms are made.

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Taking it from the beginning:
I cast my body in Plaster-Gauze, going around to make sure all the important circumferences stayed true:

Then I cut the sections straight down the sides
So the whole thing is in back/front halves. Looks like carnage, except it's coming together instead of falling apart: Next the front pieces are all fused into a single front and the back pieces are fused into a single back half, making the whole thing into a sort of clamshell. This is done with more plaster gauze, which will stick to already-cured plaster as long as you re-moisten it. The new connections should be made on the outside so the interior circumferences don't change. The stiffer you can get these the better.

Then a check to make sure it all lines back up. This one needed some cutting and adjusting in my torso. I also cast a hand and a foot for later that will snap on and off of the final form.
Between 1/4 and 1/2 inch of paper mâché goes into the well lubed form. I used vaseline and it was a b!$@# to get out of the paper later. I'd definitely recommend KY jelly or a water-based release agent instead. Wolf uses cardboard for this, but I did it with craft paper.

It occured to me at this point that I needed a way to get this thing to stand up. I wandered into the woods and found a nice tripod like tree, sawed it down and flipped it upside down to make a support. It goes up into a cap made out of more paper mâché. There was a bit of calibrating the way it stands, but it works + even better it looks like something out of Little Otik
The form is taped up and I sealed it shut with paper mâché wherever I could reach on the inside.
The moment of truth - when I pulled off the plaster, the paper form was holding together and felt surprisingly strong, but the seams were a mess because the plaster gauze casts had been too thin and had flexed along the edges as I was layering the paper in. This is a problem Wolf doesn't have, their plaster casts are like 2" thick.
I bought a woodworking blade and a coarse file and cleaned up all the rough spots + strange bulges, then laminated a few layers of paper mâché over any holes. It was looking pretty nice at that point, I just hoped that the fabric cover wouldn't screw it up With the form all smoothed out, I got out a roll of trace paper and started to make a pattern. If you can get paper to hug a curve using darts and precise seams, when you cut the same shapes in fabric they will sculpt the form much more softly. I used blue temporary tape wherever the final seams would go, and clear tape where I needed to splice paper together. In the end the whole form was covered in 17 pieces of paper.

After pulling off all the blue tape, I pinned the paper to my canvas (which I double layered for strength+resilience), cut out the shapes with a half inch extra for seam allowance, and used the paper edges as a guide while sewing it up. I left one side seam open to get it onto the form.

The first fitting looked good, so I went ahead and took off the paper pattern and got out the batting. Without batting I wouldn't be able to stick pins in the form when it's done, so it's worth the additional 1/8" thickness. Plus, I don't plan on having less than 1/8" between my clothes and my skin, so even though it's a little beefier than I really am, it's perfect for designing garments.

I decided not to use any stinky, non-archival adhesive to connect the batting. Instead I cut it out to fit within the seam allowances, pinned it in place from the other side and planned for the friction of the canvas + paper mâché to hold it in place. I hope I won't regret this idea later!

This is pretty much what I would look like skinned:

Oh - In case anyone uses this post to make one of their own, the pins are all on the 'right side,' so when the cover is on the form they can be pulled out. When I first put the canvas/batting combo on, it's extremely snug. I have to use pliars to get it positioned correctly, but it still looks pretty wrinkled. Fortunately I have a trick up my sleeve for this that comes from stretching fabric to paint on.
Before I can pull out all the pins holding the batting in place I need to sew up the last side seam by hand.

Then I mix up some rabbitskin glue from the art store(1:10), heat it up until it totally melts and brush it into the fabric. The fabric tightens up about 10% when hit it with an iron on high. I strategically locate the heat to pull the wrinkles in, and straighten the vertical seams. These are some before-after shots.

And so it was finally done - I love that you can see the grass shifting under my ghost-feet in this one:

Pollen Playsuit

This is my cure for the midwinter bleh - wrap up in summery silk the color of goldenrod.
First I made it out of newspaper:

Then I translated it to fabric (3 layers, inside, interfacing, and outside):

Sewed it up:

Let the Playing begin!

Vogel Boots!

5 Years to save up - Photos of the measuring and leather options photos by Vava:

4 months to make them, and finally they're here!