Scale Mail Halter Top - The Beginning!

I'm lucky enough to know a lot of talented, interesting people.  One of them, MsPixy--burlesque hostess, performer, and producer extraordinaire--commissioned me to make her a scale halter top for GenCon.  After a couple meetings, we settled on a bronze/gold number with a fake leather back. 

I started working on this in June after teaching at Bead&Button, but here are some photos of my creative process so far.

I try to keep all of my ongoing projects in little plastic bins.  It's a small attempt at staying organized.

With scale projects, I always start by linking together many pairs of scales.  I get the quick feeling of accomplishment with every pair I link, and it makes the scale mail process more efficient.

Patterns... I don't know why for the first several pieces of clothing I didn't make any patterns.  I guess the struggle of putting on and taking off bits of scale mail was exciting to me.  In any case, when working on a piece for someone else, that's not possible.  Thankfully, Pixy had some muslin and cut out some pieces like a sewing ninja at our meeting.  Here are the shoulders:

I love watching a piece come to life.

I'll be posting daily updates until the piece is finished.  Stay tuned tomorrow for images of the front of the piece!

Vanessa
Handmade jewelry
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