Stirring Adventures and Mad Mods! Saving the world one questionable decision at a time.
By Madame vonHedwig on Saturday, February 6th, 2010
Update: Here is the very handsome cap of Mr. Kevin C Cooper Esq, made based on my instructions below. What a dashing fellow!
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This past Yule I made vonHedwig a smoking cap to match one of his smoking jackets. Here’s how I did it.
fabric – I started with 1/2 yard and had loads left over
stiff fabric – I just used a sheet of stiff felt
needle, thread, pins, and scissors
tassel – try the upholstery area of the fabric store. I couldn’t find a tassel significant enough for my husband, so I made my own.
To make your own tassel: yarn, piece of cardboard 2″ wide and as long as you want the tassel to be
1. measure the circumference of the wearer’s head mid- to high-forehead, wherever looks right, and measure or estimate how high you want the cap to be. I made mine 4″ high. It shouldn’t be too high, as it is a smoking cap, not a fez. (besides, a fez is traditionally felted.)
2. cut your stiff felt to those measurements, with 1/2″ or so overlap for seam allowance
3. cut your fabric so that it will entirely encase the brocade (leaving yourself seam allowances
4. connect the ends of your stiff felt and pin. Holding it in the shape of the final hat, lay it on the wrong side of the fabric and mark the top of the hat. Add seam allowance and cut it out.
5. fold the felt into the fabric cut to encase it and sew the wrong sides together along one long end.
6. Pin your fabric-covered felt into a circle, then pin right side of the hat top to the inside of the hat seam you just made, and sew it. 
7. Turn the cap right side out. Fold under the cut edge on one side of the fabric join and hand sew it shut (inside and outside of the hat), using stiches that don’t show.
8. Sew tassel on the top center, and an interesting button on top of that.
To make your own tassel:
Cut a piece of cardboard (just grab something out of the recycling) and cut it a quarter inch longer than you want your tassel and 2″ wide with indented ends.
Wrap yarn from end to end until it’s as fat as you want it.
Slip another length of yarn under one end and tie a knot around the bundle.
Slip your open scissors into the other end and cut the tassel open.
Take it off the cardboard form and return it to the recycling. Tie a second knot an inch or so down from the tied end to make a ball at the top. (you can even put a small ball inside to round it out)
By Madame vonHedwig on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
Read more from Airship
Several of us in the Steampunk Family will be attending the Rock Creek Cemetery picnic, Sunday November 8, one o’clock to five o’clock in the afternoon. Shall we meet you there?
By Madame vonHedwig on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009
For fear of little men!*
Before Yule, there was quite a bit of top secret crafting here on the airship. We promised to tell you about it, so here’s mine. Being a German family, the Nutcracker figures prominently on the mantle. (the objet d’art, not the ballet) We have acquired a small collection over the years, and in the last two holiday seasons I have added to it myself.
This year I made this one. I am nearly as delighted with the little fellow as I am with he who inspired him. It is, of course, a portrait of my beloved husband, the Fearless Fabricator. I got the hair just right, didn’t I? (Compare with the In the Lab photo)
And look at his wee belt. He’s sporting a telescope, and a disruption device (it’s like a grenade, but instead of shrapnel it produces a gentler distraction, such as loud music, or a plague of locusts), and lovely gears and deadly sharp clock hands.
Although I will need to get myself a lathe or develop a better source for some of my future nutcracker ideas, I was able to make this fellow from a paint-your-own kit, slightly kit-bashed about the head. For Herr vonHedwig it was relatively simple to even out the brim of the soldier nutcracker’s hat to make it a topper.
Last year’s kit-bash was considerably more difficult, as my dedicated lab assistant had to saw, file, and sand the crown off of the prince kit and round off his head into a semblance of normal head shape. I am delighted with the result though, especially Etaine’s woad and eye painting. If you don’t know who this is, you should acquaint yourself with him immediately!
* From “The Fairies” by William Allingham, Pre-Raphaelite poet, friend of D.G. Rosetti, and precursor to W.B. Yeats.**
** Yeats considered him so, as he was an Irish poet working in English.
This was Annabelle’s pronouncement Christmas morning, after the floor was cleared of wrapping and the air cleared of squeals of girlish delight. We had a steampunk holiday – both the lab and sewing room were busy over the last few months. To facilitate secrecy, Annabelle made a door hanger shaped like an elf hat.
From the sewing room, the girls received new cloaks, day dresses, pinafores, camisoles, and bloomers. From the marketplace came goggles (of course!), shiny new compasses for adventuring (personalized in the lab) and a ratty but sound antique trunk to store all the new jank.
From the lab of their father, the Fearless Fabricator, came clock-faced brooches to hold their cloaks closed…
… and decoding devices to send secret messages. The decoders will get their own post from the Fearless Fabricator in the future, but here is a peek. This is the design as etched onto Mirabelle’s.
The inner ring spins independently from the outer ring. As you see, the sender lines line up a symbol from the outer ring with one from the inner ring. That becomes the key for the message. This configuration can be called Q9 or K5 or Z+, for example. Can you decode the following message?
HU. 3NNE UN EN HU WNT0.D62
ATU HU. ADUUD0 UN EN HU UN3DUID0
Post your answer in the comments!
By Madame vonHedwig on Wednesday, December 24th, 2008
In the beginning there was the Maker. The Maker had two daughters, who spent much time in the pursuit of scientific discovery, and were keen inventors. The Maker’s two daughters were lovely, each in her own way, and they were clever, creative, and ambitious.
These are fine qualities, but excess of even a fine thing can lead to trouble. Each dedicated herself to the improvement of her mind, and the besting of her sister. As the girls grew to womanhood the qualities they shared began to rub against each other, so each chafed against her sister like a shoe she had outgrown.
They argued over string theory. They fought over the uses of multiphase hydrosonic transmissions. They failed to share their laboratory equipment courteously. The Maker sighed, and was troubled, but hoped her children would work out their differences.
Lucia, the younger child, was fascinated with light and sound. She played with lasers and sonic booms. She delighted in decibels; she frolicked with photons.
Her elder sister was of a more contemplative nature. She studied small, close things; delicate, quiet things – the crystalline architecture of snowflakes, the dreams of hibernating bears, the structure of darkness itself. Leila found her research greatly disturbed, indeed endangered by her sister’s investigations. Lucia’s instant-bonfire matches melted Leila’s snowflake farm. Lucia’s sonic safety net woke up Leila’s bears. Lucia’s photon fomenter infiltrated Leila’s deep pools of darkness.
Leila grew frustrated. She developed sound dampening devices and darkness generators. Her bears ate all the instant-bonfire matches. When Leila powered up her darkness generators, night fell all across the land, and people were afraid.
Lucia retaliated with more light, and the world startled awake to daylight that lasted for weeks. The people grew more afraid still, even the other scientists.
The Maker could stand by no longer.
“Enough! I am disappointed in you both. You have selfishly disturbed not only each other’s research, but the entire world. I expected better manners from you!”
“But her darkness ruins my light!
“Her light undermines my dark!
“You are each doing important research, which you should pursue, yet your work is incompatible.” The Maker considered. “Since you cannot work together, you must work apart. Leila, you shall have the winter months of the year to explore snow and ice, darkness and dreams. Lucia, you shall have the summer months, for light and life.”
And so the world has been divided ever since. This longest night we have just passed marked the peak of Leila’s experiments, for each day now grows longer, and Lucia’s time is come.
By Madame vonHedwig on Saturday, December 6th, 2008
This entry is part of a series, A Holiday to Remember» Part one may be found here, and part two here.
Chef found himself in a race with two of the missing turkeys, newly fitted with rather clever wheelwork brains! Chef was beside himself, for although he is a genius, he is a deeply conservative man, and finds certain types of innovation disturbing. Claire was nowhere to be seen, but I sensed her hand in the affair with a surety.
“Wicked, wicked boy!” cried the unhappy chef de cuisine, “It is you avec les tours infernaux! C’est impossible! I cannot create in these conditions!”
“Adolphus, these are terribly clever, but you must apologize to Chef.” I said. “And to make reparation you will assist him prepare for the feast in every possible way until he releases you.”
“Oh no, no, alors! I cannot create ze feast magnifique with thees urchin smirking at me. I will not have him in ma kitchen!”
“But surely there are many potatoes to peel?” I suggested.
Chef muttered something that, as a lady, I found unintelligible. Then he slowly folded his arms and assumed the gleeful look of a man contemplating the possibilities of revenge through manual labor.
“Very well. He shall work off thees outrage in ma kitchen, but with a bag over his head. I will have no smirk!”
“Oh, I say!” protested Adolphus.
“It’s only right, my dear,” I said. “It’s either that or you’ll have to work extra shifts in the boiler.”
“It’s a jollier time with the boiler monkeys than peeling potatoes with a bag over my head!”
“Nevertheless,” spoke Herr vonHedwig, arriving at the scene of the destruction, “you shall provide yourself with a roomy bag with adequate eye-holes and report to the galley post haste. And, after your Grandmama leaves, you may diagram these cunning devices in your lab book. They’re rather nice work!”
At the farther end of the passageway, Ulrik deftly quenched the small fire engulfing the geared cranium of the winning bird. (In order to succeed as Herr vonHedwig’s laboratory assistant, one must be most conscientious in the matter of quenching fires.) One of the boiler crew turned up with the remaining birds over his sturdy shoulders. They had been found in the children’s lab, and had the look of prototypes about them, one with exposed wires sparking listlessly. Adolphus retrieved the other animal, which had been moving in smaller and smaller circles along the passage, then followed Chef, bravely accepting his fate.
Here is an excerpt from Adolphus’ laboratory book, documenting the post-mortem race.
from Adolphus' lab book
After that, the onslaught of the relatives was positively tame! The only further incident occurred as we cast off. The last grappling hook became lodged in the decorative brickwork of the medieval tower, and as we powered away from the fortification I’m afraid we pulled it over just a bit. So sorry!
Until next time dear reader,
I remain your faithful friend,
Madame vonHedwig
By Madame vonHedwig on Friday, December 5th, 2008
This entry is part of a series, A Holiday to Remember» Part one may be found here.
Preparations progressed smoothly until Chef went into the hold to collect the turkeys he had left hanging in a cool, quiet place. They were gone. No carcasses swaying serenely within our moored ship with the motion of the river breezes. No tasty free range forty-pounders waiting for plucking and roasting. No birds of any description, not even a fluttering duster.
Chef is a genius outside the kitchen as well as in, and only allows his Gallic temper to best his intellect under the most provoking of circumstances. He rapidly inspected the ropes by which the future meal had been suspended, found they had been carefully untied, then sought out me out to protest in the strongest terms that his culinary magnificence was sabotaged by une certaine entité inconnue!
Not only did I grieve for the shocking loss of the turkeys, but my stout heart quailed at the thought of Chef so put-upon, so unhappy, so ready to accept another position, when my sisters-in-law were coming aboard. I flew into action, raising the alarm and calling all hands to search for the missing meal!
There was no need, as it unfolded. Chef and I charged off to search the family quarters and came upon Adolphus, laughing madly, peering around a corner. I must explain that Chef has not trusted young Adolphus since the unfortunate Crab Incident (which in all honestly was not his fault!) and so, giving a mighty howl of rage, he flew around the corner at speed.
Read the conclusion here!
By Madame vonHedwig on Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008
This entry is part of a series, A Holiday to Remember» The holidays approach, dear reader, and you know what that means. Chaos, havoc, and violence.
For the recent gratuitous eating holiday, it was our turn to host the family of my darling husband. (We do not mix my family with my husband’s family. Even for the vonHedwigs there is a limit to the chaos, havoc, and violence required to make one’s spirits bright.) So we turned the Schoneluft north and east to Prussia. We followed the Vistula toward the ancestral home of the vonHedwigs, and flew right over it, for it is not Mama vonHedwig’s year to host.
My darling is the sole male heir to his family. I don’t know if you know any of these large old feudal families, but the concentration of sisters seems to bring out the venom. As dear Rudyard would have it, the f. of the s. is more d. than the m. Therefore, each joyful holiday gathering requires months of careful diplomacy. We have agreed to dock in the nearby city of Thorn, on a charming medieval tower in the old fortifications. There’s something so comforting about fortifications, particularly when facing one’s in-laws.
The violence began cheerily enough, with the annual turkey hunting a few days before. Her vonHedvig and the older children took the runabout soaring over the broad Anatolian plain, driving flocks of the majestic beasts before them. Adolphus, who is rather addicted to sport, stunned the finest bird with his bolo. Phalen, his lab assistant and personal attendant Ulrik, and dear Philomena, home on holiday from the Academy, each succeeded with a net gun.
I only discovered some time later that Claire and Adolphus had a spirited discussion on whether or not fowl run about after their heads were cut off, as claims the popular simile. They argued over it, of course. They argue over most things, most days. With frightening exceptions.
Claire was furious not to have caught anything, but, as I rather cruelly explained later, that is the obvious consequence of spending every waking moment in one’s laboratory, never seeing the light of day, and never spending a merry hour playing battledore in the garden. She sulked for a day, then her mood mysteriously brightened.
I should have suspected something then, but was rather busy with my own preparations to please the palates of the onrushing kin. Herr vonHedwig’s concern was to have the ship in fighting trim and ready to be inspected by the eagle eye of the impeccable Mama vonHedwig. There were times when the children were not dusting, polishing, and pressing, but left to their own devices…
Read part two now!
