Malotke Sews

In "She Kills Monsters" there are two evil cheerleader characters, Evil Gabi & Evil Tina. For this show I wanted them to have almost identical outfits for when they played the evil versions. Their look included matching cheerleader outfits, shoes, little black horns, and wings. Then one girl would wear black contacts and the other would wear sunglasses (she couldn't do contacts). This post is about the wings. For the wings I purchased two sets of two sizes of black wings. Then I removed the black glitter elastic straps from all the pairs of wings. Next was placing the small set on the "top" of the larger set. I had to hand sew them together due to the wiring in the wings & the thickness of the wing material.  See above for a photo on sewing the wings together. After sewing the two sizes together I cut and sewed new, white elastic straps to the wings. The cheer tops are white so I was hoping to hide the elastic as much as possible. After that the wings we...

  Halloween catnip bags were made! Basic instructions: 1. Cut out rectangles (9 inches long & 5 inches wide) 2. Fold in half with fabric facing inside then iron 3. Sew two sides shut (1/5 inch seam allowance) & leave top unsewn 4. Turn inside out 5. Fill with desired amount of catnip 6. Turn top down, stitch top shut - machine "top stitch" or by hand  

I will be the Costume Designer for the upcoming production of She Kills Monsters at the Second Stage Theatre at Parkland College. The show is written by Qui Nguyen and directed by Michael O'Brien.  Some Insight into the Show from Parkland : Revised 2016 edition. She Kills Monsters tells the story of Agnes Evans as she leaves her childhood home in Ohio following the death of her teenage sister, Tilly. When Agnes finds Tilly’s Dungeons and Dragons notebook, however, she finds herself catapulted into a journey of discovery and action-packed adventure in the imaginary world that was her sister’s refuge. In this high-octane dramatic comedy laden with homicidal fairies, nasty ogres, and ‘90s pop culture, acclaimed playwright Qui Nguyen offers a heart-pounding homage to the geek and warrior within us all.

Currently a work in progress , this is one image of the fire gloves for the Witch in "The Kingdom of Dreams: A Tale of Oz." Using conductive thread I was able to hand sew a controller, 9 LEDs, and a mini on/off button to each glove. The actress will be able to use the on/off switches on the thumbs on the gloves to control the lights. My husband, who is a software engineer, is programming the LEDs to create a fire effect in red. There will be a thin glove worn over these so that the LEDs and controller will be hidden. The LEDs are very bright and will be able to be seen through the second layer. Once the programming is in place I will share a video of the gloves in action. Stay tuned for more special effects!

This week's book review is on a book that one of my good friend's just surprised me with recently! It's "The Complete Book of Sewing: Dressmaking and Sewing for the Home Made Easy" by Constance Talbot, edited by Isabelle Stevenson, and published in 1949. I have a small assortment of vintage sewing books that I started collecting in college. I knew that for our senior year we would have a table to display our portfolios, other work, and decorate however we pleased, in addition to our senior collections. Pretty much from my freshman year on I had a general idea of the theme and color scheme for my senior collection. One of my ideas for my table was to use vintage books as props to add varying heights to display photos and other apparel works (such as the corset I made while attending the London College of Fashion).  This lovely book has loads of chapters with everything from picking the right fabrics to how to baste to time-saving details and pockets. Each chapter h...

Today's book review is on Valerie Steele's " The Corset: A Cultural History ." When I studied abroad my Junior year of college I attended the London College of Fashion (LCF) for a semester. How they operate their study abroad semesters is that you take 3 required classes and then you get x amount of hours to choose other classes. For my three classes I elected to take Shoe Design, Millinery, and Corsetry. A big part of my corsetry class was keeping a sketch book / research book. Well, if there's one thing I love it's research. My corsetry book was full of notes and images (See image below)! My sketching isn't the best but man oh man can I research. I loved LCF's library, Purdue had basically no fashion books available and LCF was filled with any topic you could want to look into. I spent a lot of my free time in the library reading books, collecting images, typing notes, and making wish lists of books I would want to purchase for my own home library. I...

This week's book review is a pattern making book focused solely on menswear! Gareth Kershaw's " Patternmaking for Menswear " is one of my favorite menswear patterning books. It's made for with professionals and students in mind, and provides an excellent step by step guide for different classic menswear patterns. I thoroughly enjoy the layout of the book. First it starts with short introduction to patternmaking for contemporary menswear. It describes how "working on these garment silhouettes you will learn the basic principles of patternmaking" and can then use those as your building blocks to alter and create your own patterns (Kershaw). I like how the introduction walks you through menswear over the years and how silhouettes have changed. After this you're given five chapters that encompasses the entire process for you. Chapter One focuses on the prep work for patternmaking - what you should have, what the different terms mean, how to take measurem...