Jr Lobby Boy in Training
In case you didn’t know I’m a little obsessed with Wes Anderson films. Since I can’t live in one I decided to dress like I’m in one.
Grand Budapest hotel has some of my most favourite movie moments. A downhill ski chase, art theft, delectable pastries, and a prison break. It’s non-stop debonnaire adventure. I’m patiently waiting till I can slip “the curtain rose on a parenthetical domestic drama’ into a conversation. Plus Grand Budapest Hotel is completely beautiful to look at. Just utterly utterly gorgeous and I wish I could be glam and fabulous and live there forever.
When it came to thinking up a DIY for this movie I was pretty stumped. Finding something within my skill sets that paid adequate tribute seemed a little like a lost cause. But, much like Zero wouldn’t give up on Gustav in prison I would not give up on this project. Whether I should have or not is still up for debate.
Initially, I thought about some cute aprons in the two colour schemes. Buuuuuuut let’s be real that was a bit too ambitious for me. Apparently, they are easy says my ‘one time casually sewed a suit jacket’ sister. So if you wanna go for it props to you. Maybe someday I will. But I decided an eye cover or sleeping mask would be a bit more my speed.
SUPPLIES:
-cotton fabric
-elastic
-felt
-bias tape
It was a lot harder than to find the right colour fabric than I thought it would be. Which I was NOT expecting. I went to a massive fabric store that I wandered aimlessly for too long until I found what I needed.
I don’t know about you but the ladies that work in fabric store intimidate the hell out of me. Long story short I got nervous and bought a meter of each colour of the fabric. Which if you’re like me and don’t really know how much a meter of fabric is its WAY WAY WAY too much. I could mess up like 10 eye masks and still have enough fabric to try another 10 times.
Once you get down to it this project is pretty simple. There are lots of really great free patterns for eye covers. I used this one Tilly and the Buttons Eye Mask Pattern. Use this to cut out two pieces of the fabric of your choice (NOTE: it’ll be all up in your face so make sure it’s comfy and soft) and one piece of felt.
Place your fabric pieces right sides together (the nice sides) This next part was a bit confusing and took some finicking to get right but use the bias tape and sandwich it in-between the two pieces. Use a ton of pins just so so so many pins.
Sew it all together. Go slow there are lots of curves and it’s very easy to go all over the place. Be sure to leave one large space at the top of the mask and two smaller ones at the sides for the elastic to go into. Flip the mask so the right sides are facing out. Then trim a few notches out of the curves. This will make it lay flat and not pucker.
Use the pattern to cut out a piece of felt and trim it down until it fits inside the eye mask. Use the mask to measure how much elastic you’ll need to comfortably fit your head. Slip the elastic into the spaces left on either side and pin them in place. Sew all along the mask sealing the elastics in place and closing the space at the top.
I tried a couple methods for the designs on the front. For ‘LOBBY BOY’ I hand painted the eye mask. If I did it again I think I would use a gold instead of a yellow but it’s alright. I didn’t think I could paint a good enough Mendl’s logo so I printed a design onto some transfer paper. I stupidly bought the white one and not the transparent one but it worked out because the pink colours matched enough.
This is something I would love to try again and improve upon but I am pleased with how they turned out. I’ve been using one and even if it looks a little rough it works wonderfully.
-H
