Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Chip!

Yesterday was Mother's Day.  Some mom's spend their day resting, some playing with the family, some reading a book but me?  I spent the day making Chip.  I also spent time with the family, but I'm pretty sure you'd rather hear about Chip.  So here's the skinny... First I"ll show you the finished product.
Nice, huh?  Well, he didn't start off this way.  Here's how it happened:
Chip started out as a small, round laundry basket.  First I cut out a space for the face opening, and then I cut out the bottom circle as shown.


Next I cut out some fabric in strips that were smaller at the bottom and larger at the top.  (I measured the basket first to know how big to make the strips.) I made strips for the outside and for the lining. 
Then I rolled some bubble wrap into a long roll and taped it so it wouldn't open while I was working on it.  I glueed it with a glue gun around the face opening, so it wouldn't hurt the kids face. 


Then I covered the whole thing with batting. I put thicker pieces of batting (layers) at the bottom of the face part so it wouldn't be hard to put their head in. 

Then I sewed gold ribbon on the seams so it wasn't all white. 

And then sewed the outside to the lining. 

Next I sewed some thicker gold around the top over the seam.  

 
Then I glued the top gold part onto the top rim of the basket to help it stay in place. At this point there wasn't a hole cut for the face.  I was just covering it with the whole fabric piece.


Next I pinned the lining to the front at the bottom and hand sewed it all together. 


Here's what it lookedl like then.  


To finish little Chip I cut a whole for the face and sewed the front and the back together by hand to make the circle.  This was a little tricky as it kept wanting to be too small, and I worried to cut too much and have it not work. Finally, there was a face opening. Then I took a strip of white and sewed some gold trim onto it and made a tube.  Turned the tube right side out, wrapped a bendable piece of wire with batting and put it through the tube.  I then hand sewed the top and bottom ends to the cup, and bent the wire to look like a handle on a tea cup.  The only thing missing was a chip!  So I cut some grey suede and glued it down.  Then I trimmed it with thin black ric-rak to add some definition. And there you go!  Chip!  Once Chip was done I cut out Babette and sewed the basic body shape together.  I added some trim to it.  This morning I added the feathers and some lace at the top, but I didn't get a picture of that.  This whole front bodice will be bedazzeled with gems and sequins.  It really looks super cute!! 
This morning I went early to drop off dry cleaning from How to Succeed. Here's the pile.  It might look like a lot, but usually I have 2-3 times this much dry cleaning.  (or more) And I use the washing machine for lots of dry clean only things.  I did get all of the How to Succeed laundry washed, but it's curently acting as Mt. Everest on my kitchen table.  


Today was a whole day of rushing to get costumes done, and still there's SO (sew?) much to do!!  But I did go here to drop off what I had, and check the fit on some of the costumes.  


Tomorrow has so much instore!  We'll be working on Hairspray and finishing up Beast.  Fun times!  And the big enchanted costumes are at the theatre, so we'll be able to move in the studio.  Yay!  Now, go ahead and make your own little Chip costume - now that all the theatre magic has been sucked out of you.  :)  

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