Strawberry shirt

Come for the rick-rack, stay for the strawberries.  Super adorable. 

 

 

 

The skunk skirt

You've heard of the poodle skirt, but have you heard of its lesser known cousin, the skunk skirt? 

 No? 

 I hadn't either, until...

Super adorable, right?  A skunk with flowers? How can you beat that!?

.

Sunrise over the rolling hills

Sometimes you're shopping for a show that you're designing costumes for -- desperately searching for a 1970s denim wrap-around skirt.  Ask and ye shall receive.  I was innocently browsing while one of the folks was restocking and as he was hanging this up, I caught a glimpse and gasped a gasp that rang through the calico hillside.  

 Behold:

A rick-rack sunrise over calico hills.  Bet you've never seen THAT before.

I wish I had captured a better photo of the magic of this skirt, but I was trying to be quick about it and the lighting wasn't the best. This skirt weighs a ton -- that is a boatload of rick-rack.  Sadly, this was more or less the exact skirt I was looking for and, for the first time ever, lamented it's generous application trim.  Alas...the search continues.

Have a little patience.

GUESS WHAT!!??

So, after these couple of years searching for those damned gingham glasses to no avail, I hit the mother load.  Even better and WAY more useful than those tiny juice glasses!!!  Turns out that being patient and never giving up the search pays off.

Also, this guy was only $7.  I stumbled upon an antique store that I had never seen before and also scored an ugly pretty lamp that is my other new favorite thing ever and perfectly matches my living room.   

I was going to crop out the beer bottles, but I kinda love them and this way, you can see the awesome canister in its natural habitat...

Pink net and gold rick-rack poodle apron

I'm pretty sure I can't write anything that will make this any funnier than it inherently is.  Enjoy.

Flea market season kick off!

It's that time of year again, kids...flea market time.  Those magical Sundays when you set your alarm for 5:30, roll out of bed, slather on the sunscreen, chug your coffee and wander around vast fairgrounds full of treasure until you just can't wander anymore.

There was a shockingly small amount of rick-rack to be had. To be honest, I was a little disappointed.  Fortunately, for my friend Andrea, there were copious amounts of seashell art around, so her blog, Just for the Shell of It, is gonna get juicy.

Here are my findings:

Aprons --

Pretty classic rick-rack usage -- but I do love it as a way
to break up prints and solids.   

Embroidered rick-rack on gingham -- these are a few
of my favorite things (it's ok if you sang that line,
I totally did.)

   

And then....then, this happened....

 

Sadly, there wasn't a great way to get a good picture of this tragedy that calls itself a Christmas apron.  Held up or laying flat, it'll suck any Christmas cheer right out of the room.   It's a single line of rick-rack in a blobby christmas tree shape, adorned with three crappy bells.  Functional bells.  Out of proportion, cheap, functional, mismatched bells.  Oy.

And I'm sorry, the colors??  A warm red with an olive green? Ew. It needs way more than just an introduction to an iron to make it worthy to be worn while serving grandma's jello mold/salad.

Moving on.

Here's a super cute usage that I've never seen before:

It's kinda darling, right?  Just the tiniest bit of the edge is caught in the seam.  AND it's glittery.  It's a win, win!

I had a similarly quilted pillow when I was a kid -- but with eyelet lace around the edges.  I have a bit of a soft spot for this guy.

I would have loved to wrap up this post with an account of how I found the ones that got away -- but I didn't.  Rather, I found their smaller cousins in yellow.  Set of 4 for TWENTY DOLLARS!  I could not believe it.  I got all cranky last year about 6 for $18 -- maybe I should have pounced when I had the chance.  No worries, I'm not giving up the search.

Since they weren't meant to be, we'll end our tour of Elkhorn's season opener with a splendid use of rick-rack's long mocked cousin.

That's right, friends...I'm talkin' about ball fringe.  

I very much want to see a circus clown pushing her
clown baby around in this freaking fantastic pram.

Laura's yellow dress

It always makes me happy when a designer hands me rick rack.   We recently opened a lovely looking show set in 1938 (ish) for which we made many adorable garments.  This dress, in particular, was one of my favorites.   After many brain melting hours trying to figure out the pattern for the bodice (the sleeve and the front and back yokes are cut as one), I was rewarded with charming trimmings.

Rick racking process...

The collar pattern called for shaped pin tucks trimmed in rack rack.  To be honest, pin tucks on a curve are a pain, but worth it when they come out as darling as these did.  These were achieved by patterning the collar flat, tracing out the first inside tuck line, stitching it with a wide twin needle with the bobbin tension high, pulling the bobbin thread taut, pressing the tuck flat, laying the pattern back on, tracing out the next tuck line and the collar seam lines in between, lather, rinse and repeat.   

Finished bodice

The thing about rick rack -- in my humble opinion -- is that there's a right way and a wrong way to sew it on.  We usually default to a zig zag, and that's fine for theatrical things, but it's not pretty up close.  Neither is a straight stitch down the middle -- especially when the edges curl after a washing.  Don't get me wrong, I use both of those methods all the time as we're generally pressed for deadlines and on certain shows we've had an unbelievable amount to apply.  

If I've got the time and I want it pretty, I use a hand prick back stitch down the center of the tape that catches the top and bottom of the waves.  I prefer it because it's secure, invisible, and tacks the edges down -- but not in a way that it cements the trim to the garment.  This way, it floats gloriously on top.  Love it.  

Design by Kim O'Callaghan