Padded Sensory Deprivation Hood - PART I

This week's project: a padded, 2-layer sensory deprivation hood. This is a male version of the hood I attached to the butterfly jacket (project seen here), and I'll take you through all the steps along the way of making this one. 

We begin with my wood head form, already dressed in a tight fitting leather hood. I'll be using the same pattern for the inner hood, only slightly modified for the different rear opening. The first thing I want to do is create a pattern for the foam layer, and for that we need a wrap. 

The hooded form gets wrapped with pallet wrap. 

 I use this trick to make it easy to release the wrap: Get some painter's tape and a length of string. 

 Put the string on the tape, and use that to make a sort of rip-cord to help remove the wrap when we're done. 

 I align this tape/string along the rear centerline. 

 And make sure to leave enough string at either end to grab onto. 

 Now we can go to town on the duct-tape wrap. 

 Piece by piece, we slowly build up the duct-tape coverage. 

 Until we have everything nicely encapsulated. 

 Draw on the seam lines with a Sharpie. 

 I try to find clean lines along the break of the plane - I try to keep in mind how the leather is going to wrap around this curved form. 

 Once I'm happy with the wrap and seam placement…

 I pull the string ends to release the wrap. 

 Plastic wrap keeps anything from sticking. 

 And now we've got a shape for our foam inner layer. 

 These get trimmed out along the seam line. 

 And I use the shapes to create a paper pattern. 

 The paper pattern is used to mark the shapes on 1/2" foam. 

 And these are cut out. 

 The foam shapes are placed back on the hooded head form, and held with another layer of pallet wrap. 

 I made some modifications to the foam pattern at this point based on the fit of the foam panels. Added a bit along the top edge of the side panels, and at the chin too. 

 This foam layer now gets another wrap job: this time for the pattern that will become the outside of the hood. 

 Same build-up of layers as the first wrap: 

 Little by little, until the shape is completely covered. 

 Once wrapped, seam lines are again drawn on the outer shell. 

 I wanted the lines of the outer layer to match the seams of the inner foam layer. 

 Once happy, the outer layer is cut away along the rear opening seam. 

 We have a nice looking outer hood with the foam panels tucked inside. 

 I actually tried it on at this point, and could tell the shape was pretty much spot on based on the quick test fit. 

 So we end up with our foam pattern, our outer layer pattern:

 And our inner layer pattern: 

Next time: Ready to start building...

Tape wrap progress...

This is the first time I've attempted a wrap in a crouched position. You can see there is definitely a nice shape around the derriere part. I'm hoping to can keep that beautiful contour into the final piece. 

I'm still working out where the seams are going to go when it comes to that shapely rear end. Lots of different options... This is really exploring new territory for me. 

 Because she's going to be bent over, I don't want wrinkles or anything bunching up in the stomach area. This is going to be a one-position restraint. It won't be possible for my model to lay flat inside this piece. 

 I'm happy with the way it's looking so far... More to come. 

Bondage Fist Mitts - Let's make a pair!

For a long time, I've wanted to make a pair of super-tight fitting bondage fist mitts. 

I've always thought boxing gloves had their own special appeal. Something about the way they render the subs' fingers useless, making them even more helpless. Especially when combined with additional bondage. These are going to be a sleeker version than a boxing glove, a more couture take in soft black lamb leather, with a zipper for quick on-and-off. Did I mention they'd be really tight? 

I start with a careful, fitted wrap. Duct tape over plastic wrap. 

 Sketch some keylines with a sharpie to define the pattern shapes. I'm looking for natural plane breaks, and trying to make pleasing, not-too-hard-to-sew shapes. Smooth out those curves.

 I put a piece of string under a strip of masking tape to create a kind of quick-release tab. Once the wrap is done, just pull the string to let your model out. This gets taped back up before cutting the pattern apart.

 Initially I have four parts:

 Two sides, and a top and a bottom piece. I like the way the sides are...

 ...but the piece for the top has a very pronounced cupped shape. (Shown below in an out-of-order image.) That was not going to lay flat as it was.

 So I split that top piece into 2 parts, giving me two hockey-stick shaped pieces. 5 pieces total for the pattern. 

 These all get transferred to card and cleaned up.

 And finally cut out, ready to transfer to the leather.

 It's a soft black Italian lamb measuring about 0.7mm thick.

 I transfer the pattern with a pen - nice, precise marks.

 These get cut out with about a 1/4" seam allowance. I keep it minimal on this thin leather.

 I clip what will be the zipped top panel first. This gets sewn only at the two ends (leaving room for the zipper in the middle).

 The whole seam gets glued down, prepared for the zipper to be sewn in.

 Lately I've been using double-sided tape to hold the zipper in place before sewing. It allows very precise placement, and keeps things from moving around at all while going through the machine.

 Get everything lined up... stick it in place with the tape...

 ...and carefully topstitch.

 Instead of backtracking on this delicate leather, I usually trim the threads long and tie them from the backside.

 Trim the zipper to length.

 Prep the tongue with double-sided tape.

 Position the tongue, and topstitch in place.

 This gives you a second line of topstitching on the tongue side.

 You can trim the tongue down if needed.

 Clip the bottom strip to the top where they meet, and sew that together. Glue and flatten that seam.

 Now, we're ready to sew on the sides. These get clipped in place and sewn.

 I find it best to sew the "shape" and let the strip follow along. So I'm looking at the line for the side panel when sewing these together, and letting the "top and bottom" panel follow along from below. (Hope that makes sense.)

 One side down... time for the other.

 Same deal as before: Clip...

 ...and sew, following the line on the side panel.

At this point, I use a 1 by 2 secured to the workbench to hold the workpiece in place. 

There's a bit of foam at the tip to help the hand pocket retain its shape. 

It gives me something to push against as I glue and flatten the seams. 

I just brush contact cement on the seam allowance, and flatten the seams all around. 

Turned right-side out, I'm pretty happy with the shape. 

The bottom edge gets glued and topstitched as well. 

And our mittens are done. Ready for the test-fit session.