Exciting news! Divinity anthology launches July 14, 2016

Exciting news folks! Dark knits boutiques newest and most intense collection to date, entitled "Divinity Anthology" launches July 14, 2016 at RAWs 'verve' showcase!

If you've never been to a RAW showcase before you are in for a treat! There are fashion shows, art galleries, live bands,  libations- all in an intimate venue where you can personally chat with artisans, designers and musicians. All this and advance tickets are only $20 each, that's a steal! You can head on over to www.rawartists.org/Darkknitsboutique to get your pre-sale tickets, and to sweeten the deal, you can pick up a coupon code from the DKB table at the show for any future DKB purchases. 

As if you need more to entice you to come out and visit the DKB babes in thier finest, and see all these awesome artists in one place, the funds from the ticket sales go to put on shows like this which support artists of all sorts, all over. GOOD KARMA AND A SHOW?! Go get your tickets pronto. Seriously. 

Stay tuned for teaser photos of the divinity anthology in build progress! 

Making a Tudor inspired gown!

Recently I was asked to make a Tudor gown, but one that would be reasonably comfortable and not restrict mobility for wear as its for a photoshoot. 

Challenge accepted! 

First I built a supportive hoop underskirt to give the gown the fullness and volume required without a ton of heavy underskirts. 

Then I set out to make my fabric choices. The model has stunningly brilliant ginger locks, so I decided to contrast that with rich greens and soft golds. 

This is what I ended up with, though about half way through I abandoned the bright green ribbon in favour of more soft gold. 

From here I draped, pleated and pinned the gown to a waistband I quickly whipped up. 

Then I carefully pulled it off the dress form and returned it to my sewing station- surprisingly only getting poked a handful of times. I built in the waistband and gave it a fancy fold over hem with embroidered detailing. 

Next I draped and built the corset, it took me 7.5 hours from start to binding completion. 

The pattern matching across the front makes me especially happy with how this one turned out!

Next up was the half sleeves, which are elastic at the cuffs for comfort and to keep them up. 

Check out dark knits boutiques social media streams for photos of the finished gown on miss Maxine! 

Tour of the Dark Knits Boutique studio

I am often asked about the space in which I work, which in my highly biased opinion; is awesome! So may I present to you the DKB sewing studio space-  see it now before the next fabric implosion hits!

Our entryway:

Our client area, and where I play the organ entirely too loudly at all hours, because what fun is being an adult if you can't tear it up once and a while <insert classical music here>

We have a handful of lovely displays of our works;

And my main sewing area; 

I currently have four sewing machines, a singer futura embroidery machine nikcknamed Franken-singer because it's got all manner of parts keeping it alive, there's a brother domestic, an old singer 99k that's survived 3 generations of my families sewing (that's impressive with the way we sew!), and a Piedmont blind stitcher dubbed "the medic" because medical attention is usually required when I use it. 

Above is my grommet station, and my trusty setting press, this tool alone has saved my hands more times than I care to imagine. Once upon a time I pressed all grommets with a hand tool; not fun. 

The room below is where all the resin casting, prop making, fabric cutting and generally messy stuff happens. In the interest of containing fumes from paint and resin processes as well as mess- I set up a separate room with large windows for ventilation for the mess-making type activities of the job. It also allows me to easily keep Chairman Meow (resident studio cat extrordinaire) away from anything toxic or in the process of curing. 

That's the DKB studio folks.

 Feel free to email us anytime (darkknits<at>gmail.com) to set up your very own visit and chat about a custom piece of awesome made just for you! 

Ten epic projects of 2015!

These are ten of the most fan favourited projects of 2015, I did far more than just these ten projects this year, and as always- much love and thanks to all the fans, clients, collaborators and friends for all the shenanigans we got up to this year. May 2016 find us even more shenanigans! 

On with the list, in no particular order! 

This is my Crystal Maiden cosplay (DOTA2). This one took forever and a day, because all that light blue detailing you see on there? That's hand appliquéd and heat treated to keep it there. Fun stuff. I built the staff too, measuring in at just under 8 feet, it's a behemoth, and it lights up all pretty like. 

The whole thing turned out beautifully and I couldn't be happier with it! 

Next on the list is a massive gown with panniers and the whole nine yards as far as underpinnings go. This is a trial run for another one of these I'm building in pink- to make sure I can wrap my head around the underpinnings and the drape. It's become a fan favourite and it's not even done yet! 

Up next is the fabled malefiecient-scissor hands mash up. This is another one of those detail rich pieces, as such it took a massive amount of time to build and complete- you can read about the build progress elsewhere in this blog. 

It features draped belts, hand sculpted and cast headdress and a staff that comes apart to fit in its owners smart car. 

Next is a personal project, paying homage to my love of all things Star Trek and team engineering/science (pending how you look at it). One of my first ever waist training over busts, this one pushed some patterning skills to new levels. 

Up next is my Bowser project for Veda Cosplay. You can read all about the build in a previous post so I won't get into that.  I will however say that piping and I still aren't on good terms, though I do love, love, love how this turned out. 

Here we have a peek at the upcoming robotica collection (hopefully launching in 2016!) and my first attempts at pairing the art of corsetry with technologies like EL wire and hidden power supplies. 

Electrical work/wiring and I do not mix well so this one is a special kind of success for me. 

This one is a collaborative project with the amazing Bettie Buxom! Pushing my boundaries on my love/hate relationship with tulle, this ensemble also features new to the line up this year harnesses and my tried and true waist training under yay corsets in cotton duck fabric. Stay tuned for gorgeous photos of this collaboration from Ashlee Champagne photography!

Also paying homage to my love of all things nerd is the Star Wars "twin"/contrasting corsets made this year. 

While on the topic of Star Wars, another one that pushed the skills a bit was the twi'lek build for my collaboration with Nordic film works! 

Another new one for this year was my first set of Edwardian stays. This one was shown at this years annual steampunk shoot and get together at Fort Edmonton park, rocked by the one and only Bettie Buxom with one of the fabled tulle wisp gowns made from 300 meters of tulle. 

Thank you all again for being apart of the wonderful year that was 2015! Wishing you all the very best in 2016! 

The making of Bowser the king of koopas!

The lovely Veda Cosplay commissioned me to make her a Bowser inspired head to toe outfit for this years expo season. Me, being me, I said; "CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!" And hustled to work. 

^this is Bowser. For those not in the know. (I had to break it down for more than one person, whom I feel tragically sorry for the missed pieces of their childhood... No childhood is complete without epic battles with the king of koopas.)

This is unlike anything I've ever done before; taking a cartoon creature and making it humanized while still keeping enough of the original characters features that it's instantly recognizable was a challenge here. I knew without a doubt that the koopa shell had to stay a big part of this. I also decided that the arm spikes needed to stay, and that the signature colouring would be what instantly identifies this as a Bowser inspired ensemble. 

I started with what I thought would be the hardest part, the koopa shell backpack. I made it from a variety of thermal plastics, resins and some foams. This being what I thought would be the hardest part, it's t pretty smoothly, and I was tickled pink about that. Below is the backpack in the works.

Next I patterned and built custom leggings in Veda's size- not a problem given my sewing background. Then I moved on to the corset. I should preface this by saying I am fortunate to have a ten year long sewing career with most of that career spent building corsets. I thought this one would be no problem and I thought I'd make bowsers horizontal tummy lines by using piping on the centre two panels. I thought wrong on the easy going part. Getting piping and a busk closure to cooperate in any kind of a reasonable fashion is downright difficult. I'm talking the kind of difficult that requires you to sit on a horseshoe while praying to the sewing goddess for benevolence and acknowledging your stupidity while possibly sacrificing a unicorn. Things have to line up juuuusst right. 

I re-did those venter panels 7 times to find out what juuuusst right looks like. In those seven iterations I am certain this corset heard every curse I know. But hey, they don't call me screamstress for nothing I guess. 

Below is what I settled on for piping across the central panels of the corset. The remainder of the corset came out about as smoothly as one could hope, perhaps out of sheer fear that I would indeed "kill it with fire" as I threatened so many times during the piping process. 

With the koopa shell backpack, leggings and corset out of the way I moved on to finish the red bob wig with horns, the arm spikes, pauldrons and thigh armour. The spikes for the entire costume are cast in foam so they are expo safe, they squish and pop back of anyone bumps them. There shall be no injuries here!!

Most of the armour I made from varying types of foam both because I rarely get to work with this fun material and practice in its function is also a rare treat. 

Things I've learned in working with foams: priming and sealing are important. More important than the paint job itself because of you don't prime the differences of foams can be seen since they each handle paint differently, it also smoothed everything out... And sealer because foam remains flexible after paint and a good coat of flexible sealer will save your piece from cracking and looking like junk over time. 

Above is most of the finished ensemble. What I could get on a mannequin anyways. Veda cosplay is awesome and 

has allowed me to display it at this years Edmonton expo, so look out for it there and at expos across Canada as she continues to rock the king of koopas for years to come!

All clothing and costume designs in this blog entry remain the sole intellectual property of dark knits boutique, they may not be copied or reproduced without express written consent from us. 

Resin casting goodness!

Lately I've been learning the art of resin casting and silicone mold making from my clay sculpts. I'm getting better at it but still far from being horribly efficient at it- either way, I'm making a large portion of my stock for upcoming expos this way. Take a look at what ive come up with thus far; 

Tentacle pendants

Finger keychains, carry a piece of your loved one anywhere!

TARDIS pendants!!

And other assorted fun stuff, including a variety of bird skulls and Star Trek science badges! 

The making of the zodiac collection

The zodiac collection is coming together beautifully! 

This collection has some intense headdresses- here is the making of a few of them!

First you need to build a base, that's what's going on above. 

Then the horns were formed up, attached and smoothed out. 

Paint, sealer, flowers and leaves later and this one is all done. 

That's the Capricorn headdress! Hooray for flowery goats. 

This is the pieces, for this I had to make the fish. The fish was named Stu, short for stupid koi fish- something spoke many times during construction. 

This is the progression of Stu from looking like a KFC chicken wing to a halfway decent fish: 

And this is Stu all finished and on the headpiece: 

And Stu with his finished flowers: