Hoops, Fail One

*NOTE: Made this item a while ago, but it is a stall-fail so Ive not posted anything. Here is what I have so far. 

Today was REALLY hard. My car is on the fritz so I can’t just go fritter off anywhere to do what I want. I managed to save the money to get my first 100 feet of tubing, but unfortunately, I had to wait until later in the day, half an hour before work, to get it. (As I’m being ferried about by the Dear Mumsie)

So, all day I’ve been thinking about this tubing and making this hoopskirt. While working I’ve been sketching out ideas, writing down stuff to blog about and biting at the bit to get to it. Now I am home… and its too late to begin such a project, lol.

BLOGGER AWAY!!!!!

So, the tubing is… not what I expected. The whole word ‘tubing’ implies a giving, gummy surface, easily bent to my ideals. This stuff is hard plastic with a little bit of give to it, but as evident here:

Not TONS lol.

I still have high hopes though, as its rigidity (Is that a word? Spellchecker says it is, lol) will help hold up my tougher, heavier skirts. Heres hoping.

My original thought design: 

I am following Dreamstess’ design pretty closely, as I am one of THOSE kind of people, lol. So, I am a little bit worried about the size, I want to do civil war era size but some of the designs are SO BIG. I like Dreamstresses bell shap though, so we could start with that and enhance if need be.

HOWEVER. My waist is not 29 inches I can tell you that much, lol. So, the bell she makes with her measurements is going to be less impressive on me than on her. So Ive decided to use my dusty, dusty math skills to create this idea. Her first measurement is seventy inches. Which is about 41 inches bigger than her waist, so I took my waist measurement *Cough*40*cough* and add it to get 81 inches. Then, I see the difference between each of her hoops and add as I go. Seventy goes to eighty-five, a fifteen inch difference, so my eighty-one goes to ninety-six, and so on and so forth. Here is the hesitant sizes of my hoops.

1)      80

2)      95

3)      192

4)      112

5)      120

6)      127

7)      135

8)      140

According to math and logic that means the shape should remain the same but account for my far-curvier size. And, worse to worse I can cut it down to make EXACTLY her hoopskirt and use it for my less curvier friends. Win, win. Haha!

So size wise, waist to floor Im like, a 40 inch, tops. (36 actually, but I like to round up on my height, lol) So the length shouldn’t be any more than about 30-35. I decided 32, because of the wonders of Math. See, there are to be eight (or so) hoops, each hoop three inches apart, the fourth inch (As per Dreamstress) is sectioned off to slide the hoops through. The only problem foreseeable (Right now, lol) is that the distance between each hoop wont be three inches. I can’t do THAT much math, lol. So heres hoping

“My hoops, my hoops, my hoops, my hoops; My lovely lady loops”

2^ND DAY

Okay, had to put off actual construction until after some business in the morning and until I had put Toby baby boy to bedy-byes. Then I get myself set up.

I have got this huge nervous issue. I never want to do anything without seeing it done, reading about how its done from an instruction manual, then reading how other people do it and then freaking out about it.

BUT I went and pulled out my lobster tail bustle and played with that a bit, to get myself used to playing with the tubing. That’s on my post about the bustle. Heres how working with the tubing went.

I thought to use my gardening shears to cut it, but they didn’t work.

Neither did sissors.

Neither did glaring at it.

So I got a serrated edge steak knife and hacked and hawed my way through it. It wasn’t actually too bad, except for the end when I put too much pressure and the knife went ZOOM! STABBITY!!!

I used my measuring tape and measured out the inches as I suggested them up top there a bit, at the beginning of the blogpost. When it got to the end though, I stopped at seven for three reasons. One, because I didn’t know if I had enough tubing, two because I was tired of sawing and three because it was almost too big for petite me and my mom. So I set it up. 

THEN I SPENT TWO HOURS SEWING FOUR STRIPS OF TUBES FOR THE TUBING ALL OF THEM TOO SMALL.

Worse too was the fact that after sewing I sat for another hour trying to force them in. Ugh. At least I used this vintage, old blanket binding which I got from goodwill.  

Makes it so that I can do my original idea, which was using my ribbon.

So after taking a small frustrated break I wait until the family gets back home and take them out again. So, then. Cut off the pink seam binding. Then I used a hecka lotta pins to pin the single red ribbon I could find to two sides and see.

In the end, so far, lol, I decide that I like the basic shape. I am thinking about trimming the bottom hoop because its SO MUCH bigger than the other. Like, three inches all the way around between it and its neighbor. Sister is contrary, says the flared bottom helps out to make the bell shape instead of just a curve.  

Bottom line of Day Two, circles cut, hesitantly pinned. I need to find the other ribbons and sew the channels.

But Im hesitantly excited about the outcome. 

*NOTE-This project is on hold on account of it makes me irritated, mad, and upset. I will continue it when the hoops stop sassing me.