PPR Challenge #2: A Night at the Opera

It's no coincidence that this week's challenge is named for a Marx Brothers film filled with zany pratfalls and physical violence in the service of comedy. Because that's a pretty good summation of the past seven days in the Little House.

We've all seen the Model Drama that sometimes bubbles up on Project Runway-- hardly surprising when you are filming a nearly feral pack of starving, gorgeous 16-year olds with little or no adult supervision. My favorite model of all time was the batshit insane Morgan on season one. If we ever needed proof that the producers interfere with the competition to amp up the drama, Morgan's continued presence on the show (despite TOTALLY flaking on Jay so that he had to have Austin model his outfit in the Post Office challenge and ripping poor Kevin's albeit hideous bathing suit to pathetic shreds during a night of partying) certainly meets all legal standards of evidence.

One thing that's never happened on the show, however, is this.

Poor Kateri lost her head. I won't go into details. Suffice it to say, the Assistant surprisingly had nothing to do with the decapitation. It was entirely my fault. However, I will tell you that hot glue works just as well at repairing models as it does holding my crappy garments together!

So for this week's challenge we had to make an elegant, "couture" gown for a glamorous woman to wear to the opera. The real PPR designtestants had $350; we had $35. The only time I've ever been to the opera was in sixth grade, when my class was frog-marched to a matinee of "Tosca." I think I may still have opera-related PTSD from that experience.

I tried to get to the fabric store many times that week. Things kept interrupting. Mostly, the delays resulted from my darling husband going out of town all weekend to get his geek on at the MIT Mystery Hunt, leaving me with the full time care of the Assistant. (His team came in fourth, which is pretty awesome for a bunch of old guys competing against the brilliant young college things. Congrats, Team Leftout!) The Assistant does not enjoy going to fabric stores, particularly. I mean, at all.

So I had to wait until yesterday when the lovely Susi took the Assistant bowling for a few hours to get my materials. When I walked into JoAnn Fabric the first thing that struck me was this sign:

Really, JoAnn? You are the largest retail fabric chain the USA and the best PPR All Star you can get is April?

Needless to say I skipped April's ugly fabrics and headed for the stretch jersey. I have no shame. I'll admit it. I knew time was tight and the clothes should be too.

On my way to the jerseys I passed a lovely little section of silk brocades labeled "Cheongsam and Sari Fabrics." I was struck with inspiration!  I live in heavily-Asian San Francisco, so a cheongsam-inspired look would be totally appropriate for the opera. I grabbed a gold, green, and maroon brocade and a plum colored stretch jersey, as well as a length of silk string and a couple of brass buttons. Total spent was $9. Nota bene: I did not buy thread that matched any of the fabrics. This failure in planning would come back to haunt me.

I got home, checked that Kateri's head was still attached, and began sewing. Two hours later, I had mostly finished. As I was sewing the last seam, the Assistant asked me to make a coat for her stuffed frog to wear to Tahoe next month. So I whipped that out in about 5 minutes.

The brocade was a beeyotch to handle. It frayed whenever I looked at it. Had I been planning ahead, as well as buying matching thread, I would also have picked up a gallon of FrayCheck. Instead I was singeing the edges of the brocade with a BBQ lighter after every cut just to hold it together long enough to sew. These are the things you learn "during the process." Next time, people. Next time.

So here's my runway look. A high collared, cheongsam-inspired short shrug jacket with rope knot detail, and a stretch jersey tube dress with a deep V brocade insert.

There is a hight slit in the back for showing off Kateri's gams. You can see the ugly white thread I had to use, unfortunately.

Finally, I was cruising vintage clothing sites and drooling over the gorgeous Victorian opera coats when I was struck with an inspiration. After hostage-level negotiations with the Assistant, I was able to wrench the Tahoe coat off of the frog. It was hard. How can you take a brocade frog coat from this face?

But Bad Mommy did it, all in the service of high fashion. And that completed my look.

An off-the shoulder, kimono-style opera coat to top the whole thing off! I am pretty pleased overall with my look, especially in that MY model doesn't look 6 months pregnant, like most of the models on the PPR All Stars Runway. WTF with those hideous high waists and puffy skirts? I think if your clothes make a 102 lb., 5'10" teenager look pregnant, you should be automatically disqualified. I think my dress is pretty unique and it's comfortable and versatile for a night at the opera.

So what do you think, folks? Am I safe to move on to the next challenge?

Project Project Runway First Challenge: "Fashion Cents"

Oh. My. God.

I feel so much more sympathy for the contestants on PR now that I've "finished" a challenge. Of course, their models are mostly human-sized (albeit freakishly tall, skinny, insectile-looking humans) and they get 12 hours to Make It Work.

I had about 2.5 hours, total. This was due to my other life obligations, like eating. And taking care of my child. And sleeping.

But I cranked that bitch OUT.

See?

I started with the skirt. I dismantled the pleather pencil case and the puffy duster-thing. At first I thought I would make a pleather mini skirt with a duster "shrug," but once I saw how the duster was constructed I knew that was a no go. That duster was going to require glue. Hot glue. And lots of it.


I settled on a "mermaid" style skirt and left the zipper on the front for a hard texture to contrast with the soft puffy duster on the sides and back.

Next I fashioned a halter top from the cover of the CD case and the string from the duster. I had originally planned to use the little beads from the duck ice pack as my "bling" but upon eviscerating the canard I discovered the beads were soft and gelatinous. They also repelled the hot glue like-- oh, I guess like a duck repels water. Argh.

The pink belt was originally the "lunchbox strap." I thought the pink would break up all the orange. It's a good thing Kateri has such a lovely dark complexion, because I don't think a white girl could pull off all that orange.

DUCK GUTS!!

I added a couple of accessories from the Nieman Marcus Wall. Pickings were slim so I am just letting Kateri's inner hoochie hang out with bright pink stilettos and pink oversized sunglasses.

It's not terribly pretty, construction-wise. And it's probably too matchy-matchy, but I think I have survived the first round of judging. For my first outfit, I don't feel too bad.

Project Project Runway: Meet the Model and the Materials

Because I don't have enough to do with just keeping myself and my family fed, clothed in relatively clean garments, and exposed to only a minimum of household squalor, I decided to join my friend Susi and the rest of the designers over at Project Project Runway. We are supposed to sew along with the current season of PR, following the same challenges and rules as the show's competitors, only on a MUCH smaller scale.

Doll scale.

Now, I was raised in a house FILLED with dolls. When I say that there were dolls floor-to-ceiling, I do not exaggerate. In 1996 my brother was almost killed by a new-in-box Dylan McKay 90210 doll falling on his head when he attempted to open his closet door.

As a result I do not like dolls.

At. All.

But in order to participate in PPR I needed a model. My sewing skills are marginal at best, and I had read of how difficult Barbie's petite dimensions can be to sew for. So I packed up my three-year-old daughter (to be known from now on as "The Assistant"), cajoled her with promises of a Winnie-the-Pooh figurine set, and dragged her across the city on MUNI to the Disney store. There, we met the model for whom I will be "making it work." On sale for only $12.99!!

She's a 17" singing Pocohantas with articulated arms and legs. She's a dead ringer for Padma Lakshmi from Top Chef, but I've renamed her Kateri. "Kateri Tekakwitha" is my confirmation name from when I was still nominally a Catholic (my parents shot down my first two choices for a confirmation name, "Perpetua" and "Scholastica," but I got away with Kateri because she's the only Native American in the pantheon, or whatever you call the list of saints). Kateri, in her former incarnation as Pocohantas, also sang whenever you moved her arms, so as soon as I got her home I ripped her little batteries out. Sorry, no more "Colors of the Wind" for you, little missy.

Next we had $10 to spend at the dollar store for the supplies to make our first outfit. My Assistant was just about done with shopping for the day and eager to get home and whoop it up with the critters from the Hundred Acre Wood, so we used the power of the iPhone to locate the nearest dollar store in walking proximity to the Disney store. It turned out to be a Daiso, which is a Japanese chain fairly common on the West Coast.

Of course, it was a truly "San Francisco" dollar store, in that everything actually cost $1.50 and there was a homeless guy sitting in front.

I took my $10 and scoured the place for usable materials. There was a lot of orange. I decided to go with it.

I think the fact that I was at an Asian dollar store rather than an Western one was both an advantage and a disadvantage-- an advantage in that there was a lot of weird crap and a disadvantage because... there was a lot of weird crap. I ended up with a duster, a paper fan, a duck-shaped "cold pack," a CD case, a set of false eyelashes, a "lunchbox belt,' and a pleather pencil case. Total: just under $9.

Next up: what the hell do I do with this?