Pavophobia and Trampoline Punk: A Senior Year Trashion/Refashion Show

Once upon a time, there was a four-year-old who was super into drawing pictures of pretty outfits she'd thought up. She also like to take her mom's fabric scraps and cut and tape them into fancy clothes for her Barbies. 

One day her mom, who still got the local newspaper because it hadn't yet been sold to a conglomerate whose sole goal was to bleed its assets, saw a call for entries for the town's second annual Trashion/Refashion Show. It invited people to design their own outfits from trash and repurposed materials, and if they were accepted they'd get to model them in a runway show benefiting the local sustainable living center. It seemed like a good project for a homeschooling preschooler and her crafty mom, so the mom asked her kid if she wanted to design an outfit and help sew it and be in a real fashion show.

The kid did.

This was her design:

This is what her mom sewed:

And this is the kid getting her photo taken right before she walked the runway:

That was fourteen years ago, y'all. I don't even know how this didn't go the way of gymnastics and aerial silks and Animal Jam and horseback riding and My Little Pony and Girl Scout summer camp. But every year, leaving the theatre at the end of the Trashion/Refashion Show, the kid would be talking about what she wanted to design the next year, and then every next year when the call for entries came out, there she'd be drawing her design for me, and after the age of nine helping me sew it, and after the age of eleven sewing the whole thing, and after the age of thirteen taking over writing out and submitting her entry, too.

So somehow the years have passed until now, along with her Spring ballet recital and our Girl Scout troop's Bridging/Graduation party, this show has become another last thing for her Senior year of high school.

It's a weird feeling to be a secondary character in someone else's good old days. 

As the kids are getting properly grown up now, I've realized that these kid years are my good old days, too. So because this is also MY last Trashion/Refashion Show, or at least the last one that I'll experience this way, I asked the kid if I could go back to our roots and design and sew an outfit for her to model. She said yes, and I immediately set about discovering for myself how inadvisable it is to sew a garment for a human to wear out of a broken trampoline. 

Like, that webbing is SHARP!

This is what it looks like when the kid and I are both working on our entries on the same weekend, because we both procrastinated until the very last minute.

I ended up cutting it with the kitchen shears because I was too afraid to let any of my proper scissors near it, and tbh now I probably need a new pair of kitchen shears. The plastic threads in the cut ends of the webbing cut ME the entire time I was working with it, and they poked through all the seams and cut the kid until I covered every single inside seam with duct tape.

And there was only a certain amount of sewing I could possibly do by machine--

--before I had to just get out the hand-sewing needle and embroidery floss and resign myself to hand-stitching all the fussy parts while cutting myself up even more thoroughly.

The dog looks perturbed in the below photo, but even with all that I was happy as a clam, making a big mess in the family room in parallel with the kid making her own big mess. These ARE the good old days!

Remember that skull quilt block from November? I didn't know at the time what I was going to do with it, but I did happen to sew it from a thrifted blouse and my old wedding dress--

--which made it a refashioned item, which means that I could applique it onto the back of the trampoline webbing dress jacket. And then I cut the bodice off the wedding dress, turned it backwards so the cool fake buttons went down the front, added some spaghetti straps, and that became the dress shirt for the garment:

The trampoline webbing pants were a nightmare to sew (and a nightmare to wear, ahem, if you happen to enjoy being able to bend at the hips and knees) and I kept them super simple, but I did cut the triangle rings out of the webbing and hook them together to make a chain to add a little detail to the otherwise plain black:

And here's my Trampoline Punk!

Trampoline Punk image via Bloomington Trashion

Here's the kid's own design, Pavophobia:

Pavophobia image via Bloomington Trashion

Pavophobia image via Bloomington Trashion

And then one last walk down the runway together for old times' sake:

Model/Designer Walk image via Bloomington Trashion

Some of the kid's friends always come to watch her show, and afterwards I always take them all out for ice cream. Because this was also the Eclipse Weekend, though, every place was paaaaacked even at 9:30 pm on a Sunday. It was bananas! But finally we found a spot where the line at least wasn't out the door, and although they were out of waffle cones they still had one last waffle bowl left, and then a giant group left and we were all able to wedge ourselves around a little table in the back corner behind a bunch of local college students whose friends had all come to town for the eclipse:

The kids mostly talked amongst themselves but because they're nice kids and they've all known me since they were seven, they kindly included me in their conversation, as well. A year from now I'm definitely going to have to find my own friends to eat rainbow sherbet with on a certain Sunday night in mid-April, but this one last year I just enjoyed the heck out of it, like you're supposed to do in the good old days.

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Trashion/Refashion Show 2023: Quick Change

 

It was about 4:00 pm on the Sunday of this year's Trashion/Refashion Show. The teenager and I were happily ensconced in our spot on the landing of the upper lobby's balcony, the one that replaced our previous traditional spot in the back of the audience in the balcony and our previous previous traditional spot on the floor in front of the accessible seats halfway back on stage right. We were eating our traditional snacks of fruit gummies and sparkling water in cans, and had bonus snacks of full-sized Lara Bars(!!!) from the complimentary snack table backstage. We were sitting in companionable silence, each on our phones (I have found a blog that does a snarky episode-by-episode recap of Gilmore Girls and I will do nothing else productive in my life until I have read the entire run of recaps, including those for A Year in the Life!), listening to a couple arguing in the lobby below. Whenever one of them said something especially shocking, we'd make expressive eyes at each other. We were anticipating the 5:00 backstage pizza delivery, the 6:30 opening of the house, and, of course, the 7:00 top of the show.

A thought suddenly occurred to me, so I looked up from my phone and told the teenager, "You know, I think this is one of my favorite days of the year to spend with you."

She said, "Right? We should do this more often."

Alas that our town's Trashion/Refashion Show happens only once a year! I eagerly anticipate it every spring, and it IS one of my favorite days, and favorite nights, of the year. 

As much as I love watching this kid grow up, watching her grow away from needing her mom's help is a little bit of lonesome--once upon a time, I sewed the kid's entire garment based on a single markered drawing, helped her with her hair and makeup, taught her a runway walk, helped her practice it, chaperoned her every second backstage, and escorted her through the final Model/Designer walk. The first year she sewed her own garment all by herself, I essentially reattached the entire thing together using safety pins and duct tape between the dress rehearsal and showtime. Even last year, I spent the whole week leading up to the show figuring out how on earth to create those dream moth wings of hers, finally finishing them so the teenager could paint them the day before. 

This year... well, let's see. I held her several extra emotional support hair ties for her, and her ipod. I figured out how to keep the tops of her sleeves secure around her upper arms after they kept slipping down. And I took the photos and videos that she requested. 

My help was so unnecessary to my own designer/model that I volunteered to do emergency mending for anyone in the show who needed it--and THEN I had plenty to do!

As always, this kid's concept and execution amaze me. Her idea for this year was a garment consisting of skirt, bodice, sleeves, veil, and flowy overskirt, all separate pieces:

The flowy, modest overskirt is easy to detach--

--resulting in a look appropriate for a night out dancing:

It turned out beautifully, and she wore it just as beautifully on the runway!

Afterwards, the teenager was thrilled that some of her friends had come to see her--

--and I managed to sneak in a little love, too!

And just in case you'd deluded yourself into thinking that you'd be able to see her face if only she would ditch that veil...

Always and forever our favorite mask! I need to pick up pack of 100 before we leave for England.

Next year will be the last year that this kid designs and models as a grade school kid. If she's accepted next year, it will be her fourteenth time accepted into the show and her thirteenth walk down the runway (fucking Covid). I don't know if it will be her last time participating, but it WILL be her last time as the child phenom who's been designing and modeling her own original garments since the age of four--there are a LOT of college students in the show every year!

Contemplating all that, I had another thought, so this morning I asked the teenager, "Hey, can I design you a garment next year?"

TEENAGER: "Hmm, I've never modeled two garments in one show before."

ME: "Right? Could be fun!"

TEENAGER: "Sure, why not?"

Even though the teenager will also do her own entry, I kind of love the idea, for me, of finishing out the Trashion/Refashion Show where I started it--designing and sewing a garment, with lots of love, a little bit of skill, and maybe a couple of secret staples, for this awesome kid.

Bleach-Painted T-shirts: A Tutorial

 

Twice in the past few months, I've wanted to make some kind of custom fan apparel, but I didn't want to devote a ton of time, energy, or money to it. The first was for a Mother Mother concert, and the second was a present for all of the children dancing the (kind of shitty, because you have to wear a fat suit and giant mascot head that's apparently hot, smelly, and hard to see out of) role of Mouse in our local university's production of The Nutcracker. 

You can do this project a lot more nicely than I did it, with super clean lines and really even tones, but here's how you can ALSO do it quick and dirty-like, whether it's for a concert tomorrow or you've got to make six in a row and you're already bored.

To bleach paint T-shirts, you will need:

• black 100% cotton T-shirt. The best shirt is obviously a thrifted shirt, and for my Mother Mother shirt I did find the perfect black T-shirt at Goodwill. Speaking of... y'all have the Goodwill prices gotten absolutely RIDICULOUS in your area, or is my town the only one in which the local Goodwills have decided that not only do they no longer need to offer any sales or discounts on the crap they're literally given for free, but they've also just absolutely jacked up their prices to Jesus? I'd long more-or-less abandoned the little indie thrift shops around me for more than just the occasional browse-through, because their selection is the pits compared to Goodwill, but 2023 is the year that I rededicate myself to their cause. Anyway, I picked up the six Medium Team Mouse shirts that I needed via a Black Friday Doorbuster from one of the big-box craft stores. I feel like those shirts have a reputation for being cheap in quality as well as price, but 100% cotton shirts are nothing to sneeze about these days, when pretty much every shirt and its dog is infused with polyester!
• backing material. This will need to be thick enough to keep the bleach from bleeding through to the back of the T-shirt. I used a brown paper grocery bag.
• bleach. Get the cheapest, and don't get it on you.
• cotton swabs.
• glass dish.
• paper stencil.
• glue stick (optional). 

Step 1: Prepare the stencil.

Both of the stencils I wanted to make were word art, so I just did them in Google Docs. Because I am basic.

But at least I printed them as outlines to save ink!

Cut out the stencils and save the widows, since you'll need to place them back on the shirt before you paint.

My Team Mouse stencil took up two pages, so I taped them together with the spacing that I wanted.

Step 2: Paint!

Place your backing material inside the shirt, making absolutely sure it will cover where you'll be bleach painting. 

You can either just set your stencil on the shirt, if it's fairly short and simple--

--or you can tape it down with more masking tape.

I even took the glue stick to the back of those fiddly M and U sticky-outy bits to make sure they stayed put, and I also glued down the widows. I was able to reuse this same stencil for all six Team Mouse shirts, gluing the bits and the widows each time and pulling them up afterwards.

Then, put on a podcast and start painting within the lines!

I found it easiest to first draw the outline of each letter, then color in the center. It made them look wonky as I went, since the bleach activates right away--

--but I think it evens out pretty well by the end:

I'm disappointed in how much the edges bled, but none of the recipients of these shirts seemed to notice, and you also can't really tell when you're standing a normal distance from the human wearing it.

Below is the first shirt I did, though, and for that one I just painted away and it also looks fine:

Step 3: Rinse and Wash.

After I finished painting, I gave the bleach a few more minutes to even out the last couple of letters, then I rinsed each shirt very, very well under cool water and then tossed it into the wash. I washed each individually so nothing else would accidentally get bleach stained, but fortunately my washing machine has an eco-friendly quick wash, so I'm not the cause of the nation's water shortage.

I haven't tried it, but this TikTok recommends a hydrogen peroxide rinse to deactivate the bleach:

Might be worth a try!

Step 4: Show off your beautiful work.

Here's what happens when you ask your husband to photograph you in your beautiful shirt in front of the theater where Mother Mother is about to play:

Seriously, it's a cell phone camera. You have to really try if you want to get your thumb in the way of a cell phone camera.

And here's one particular member of Team Mouse, coincidentally the one who walked by as I was finishing up and asked if she could use the rest of the dish of bleach to customize her own shirt. Since "her own" shirt is inevitably the shirt that I messed up on (can't give a flawed shirt to someone else's child, gasp!), I happily let her also make her shirt the most elaborately cutest:

It's very likely that I'll do this project a few more times this year, because it's SUCH a quick, easy, and cheap way to customize a T-shirt. I would like to get smoother edges, though, so next time I'm going to play around with thickening the bleach first so it can't run away from me.

Here's an Easy Way to Make a Hogwarts Robe

This tutorial was originally published on Crafting a Green World back in 2016.

If you want to be a character from Harry Potter, you need yourself a good Hogwarts robe. I mean, of course! But how to obtain the perfect robe? 

You could buy a fairly cheap Hogwarts robe in a costume store, but then it would look cheap. You could buy a super-nice, super-expensive one, but then it would be super expensive. There are loads of tutorials for making your own, either from scratch or by altering existing patterns, but if you price out the fabric needed for making a good-looking, reasonably accurate Hogwarts robe yourself, you'll realize that in that case, you might as well just buy one of those expensive ones, after all (and therefore, how on earth are the people making those robes, even the expensive ones, being paid a living wage? Sigh...).

 However, if your goal is an inexpensive, sustainable, good-looking, DIY Hogwarts robe, there is one very simple, very inexpensive, very good-looking solution for you: You need a used graduation gown!

 If you've got a month or more until you need your Hogwarts robe, check around your local thrift stores. We live in a college town that has a surplus store for random used university equipment, and every now and then they sell off a load of old black graduation gowns. Churches sometimes sell their worn-out choir robes. You NEVER know what's going to show up at Goodwill. 

 If you've got a few days until your costume party, I'd suggest checking out ebay. I bought the graduation gowns used for this project there for about 10 bucks a gown, plus a refreshingly uninflated shipping charge. 

 Another option is, of course, your local Craigslist or Freecycle. People keep the most random stuff in their houses, just waiting for the perfect opportunity to offload it. Just last year, my MIL gave me my husband's old high school graduation gown so that I could upcycle it into a dress for my kid, and Reader, he is almost 40 years old!

DIY Hogwarts Robe from an Old Graduation Gown

To make your Hogwarts robe the most accurate, you'll also want an embroidered Hogwarts house patch; I bought patches for three of the four houses at Hot Topic, of all places, although my little Gryffindor is still without her patch. Apparently there are a lot of Gryffindors in our town! I was surprised that I couldn't find any of the patches at my local fabric shop, especially since they carry Avengers iron-on patches, but oh, well. Maybe YOUR local fabric shop has some! 

 Since graduation gowns have generous sizing, so that a wide range will fit, you'll only have to do any hemming if the gown's sleeves cover your hands. Only my ten-year-old's gown required this-- 

 --and even then, I only basted it, because I know that sooner or later I'll be re-hemming it; these kids grow like weeds! 

 Our Hogwarts house patches are iron-ons, but even so, I sewed them on with invisible thread in the spool and black thread in the bobbin: 

 I didn't even bother to research whether or not you could iron a patch onto synthetic fabric without something melting or something else not sticking, as honestly, I think it simply takes less time to just sew a patch on, and I think the end result looks and drapes better, as well.

Accessorizing Your DIY Hogwarts Gown

When you're dressing as a Hogwarts student, there are some extra accessories that you can take or leave. I decided against pointy hats, because they'd never stay on throughout an entire night of trick-or-treating, but wands are a must, even though they're just one more thing to carry. 

We went trick-or-treating on our university's campus last night, and the kids were called upon to perform several spells, particularly the one that my ten-year-old invented, which calls for pointing your wand at someone and yelling "Trick or treat!" It makes candy magically appear! 

 Since every Hogwarts student may bring an owl, cat, rat, or toad, my kids decided that their familiars should be part of their costumes. Each kid picked a stuffed animal (my Slytherin daughter is allowed to bring a snake as her pet since she's a Parselmouth, you know) and I attached it to her shoulder by means of safety pins. She also slicked back her hair, because Slytherin, but the rest of us wore our hair the way that we commonly do. 

 And there you go! Hemming, sewing, and dressing four people in these costumes took less than two hours, and I think they look better than some costumes that I'd spent days agonizing over. The year that one kid wanted to be a "baby deer," for instance? Ugh!

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In Which a Plague of Cats Help Me Reach My Goal (of Remaking a Hoodie)

I have wanted to remake the too-small hood and the stained front pocket on my thrifted Nintendo hoodie for... I don't even know. If someone told me it was a full decade, I wouldn't so much as blink in surprise.

Funny that for something I've had taking up space in the back of my mind for multiple years, it was a single morning's work to actually do it!

I strained the snot out of my poor myopic eyes ripping the old hood and the front pocket with Superglue all over it off the hoodie, then made new paper pattern using the much nicer hood of my favorite Titanic hoodie:

For fabric, I used a flannel shirt for the outside and some stash black flannel for the lining. Gracie helped a lot with this step:

I managed to do all that--AND sew the whole thing back together!--on Sunday morning while Matt mopped up an entire basket of eggs that the cats apparently spent the night throwing around the kitchen (note to self: the basket might as well just sit empty from now on, since the cats will clearly fight over that specific lounging space whether or not it's full of eggs freshly collected from the coop) and the kids followed behind him making an equally huge mess prepping their District breads for our Hunger Games Family Movie Night.

Darn that I was too busy to assist with any of those clearly super fun activities!

Matt drove the kids to driver's ed and when he came back, I asked if he'd take some photos of me in my new hoodie.

Spots helped:

Here she is having second thoughts about helping me model:

Here are her third thoughts in the midst of my clear delight:

And then I guess I wrongly assumed that the photo shoot was over...

Not gonna lie: I am REALLY looking forward to fall weather! I love layers and flannel and sweatshirts and hoods a lot more than I like shorts and sandals and swimsuits. Put me in a Nintendo sweatshirt with a two-layer flannel hood, a pair of jeans and some hiking boots, and a plague of cats to shed on me, and I'll be happy as a clam!