Lint Balls of My Life… Plus a Little Giveaway!

I’ve had a couple of freelance costuming jobs this year that I haven’t really blogged about – partly because there wasn’t much to make a complete post and partly because I just never sat down to go through some of the photos I had already shared elsewhere on the internet. Y’know, lint balls of life.

Back in March and April, I spent time working at The Dallas Opera. (You may remember me mentioning my job at the opera because it was during this time I made my Easter dress.)

The costume shop at The Dallas Opera

They did a production of The Aspern Papers, which was a complete costume build. (Yay! A period costume build!) Usually, they either rent the majority of a show’s costumes or pull them from storage, and then just build just a few key pieces for the leads.

There was lots of menswear and tailoring. But I did get to help with the construction of one dress:

Dress from the opera The Aspern Papers

Then I did some work at home (read: not personal projects) like pattern testing Disparate Discipline’s Avocado Hoodie.

In May and June, I once again worked for Shakespeare Festival of Dallas. This year’s summer shows were A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Pericles with costume design by Lyle Huchton.

I had way too much fun sewing Lyle’s designs with the amazing fabrics he bought! You may have realized this from all the photos I posted on Instagram. Here are some of my favorites:

Shakespeare Costumes

This dress for the princess in Pericles was the one I did the most work on.

At the end of June (actually the day after I finished Shakespeare), I met fellow costumer Deborah Lynn Dixon, of Colorado. She stumbled across my blog earlier in the year during a bit of random web surfing. We met for lunch while she was passing through the Dallas Area on business.

She has developed an amazing product and technique for embossing fabric with glitter and paint that can look like intricate beadwork.

The embossing is permanent, flexible, & lightweight, and it can be gently washed or dry cleaned!

You can read more about the embossing process here and here. I can’t wait until she starts marketing her embossing supplies and instructions – I want to try it! (psst! Deborah, you need a blog!)

And just before I started sewing for Shakespeare this year, I applied and was hired to work a part-time job at a local fabric store called Fabrique. It’s a nice little apparel fabric store and the owner is willing to work around my unpredictable freelancing schedule. =)

Fabrique Fabrics

Fabrique has a website but not everything in inventory is listed for online ordering – you just have to ask (phone or email) if you don’t see something you’re looking for on the site. (Right now, there is Free Shipping on orders of $50 or more until August 14!)

So far, I have been pretty good about not bringing all the fabric home with me. I’ve only bought a couple things. One being some of this outer space print chiffon:

There’s still some in stock if anyone else wants some!

I have 3 sewing projects for others in process right now, and I start another long-term freelance costuming job this coming Monday. I’ll share the details of that job and the undisclosed projects as I can in future posts.

Well, enough lint balls. Let’s talk about that giveaway mentioned in the title of this post!

Since I now work part-time at a fabric store, I finally remembered to buy myself some silk organza to use as a press cloth. It’s my favorite type of press cloth because I can actually see what I’m ironing underneath it.

A silk organza press cloth can take a high level of heat while still protecting other fabrics from the iron. And the bonus is it’s see-through!

And I bought myself enough so that I could share!

I have 3 small and 1 slightly larger press cloth to give away to 4 lucky winners!  (The small size is 18.5in x 13.5in. The large one is 18.5in x 18in.)

To enter to win:

1. Be a sewist/sewcialist who needs a good press cloth.
2. Leave me a comment on this post and tell me you’d like to enter.
3. Let everyone know what you are currently sewing in your comment. (Include any related links if you have photos posted somewhere.)

Giveaway is open to all locations. Winners will be chosen at random for the smaller cloths.  The large cloth will go to the submitter of the comment that…um…entertains me the most!

Deadline for entry is closed 11:59pm on Friday, August 16, 2013 United States Central Time (GMT -6). I’ll announce the winners in a post on Saturday August 17. See who won in this post.

Press cloths are neatly serged & standing by to be put in envelopes and mailed to new homes!

If you’re wondering why my ironing board is backwards, read this post.

And one last thing that a lot of you might be interested in: the sale of vintage sewing patterns at Vintage Martini is being discontinued. They just uploaded a ton of new listings and they are marked down to almost nothing! Go check out the great patterns (after you comment of course)!