On a roll with Little Miss D....

Rolling is the operative word here as making the little dynamite sticks took considerable patience and dexterity! First I had to find the perfect wick or cord for it. My husband was fascinated with the process as he was a mining technician in his younger days and knew what dynamite should look like! I had about 8 different strings and cords to try out and my husband and I sat at the kitchen table with a teflon cover placed on it - barbeque lighter in hand, like a couple of pyromaniacs lighting them all to see what kind of residue they left and if they burned to our satisfaction. They did NOT!! So, off I went in search of the perfect " wick". I finally came back with four more cords. The ultimate winner was nylon and polyester and it burned to perfection.

I had a quarter of a metre of the most beautiful reddest red ultrasuede I could find and after a lot of measuring and balancing size against the female figure ( found in a bin at a charity shop a couple of years ago) I drew some sketches of different size strips I thought might work. I did a couple of dummy runs on felt and then with the rotary cutter , cut two different size strips from the suede. I cut more than I needed as I knew I would no doubt ruin a few and then came the tedious part, rolling the sticks as tight as I could....they had to be really secure. I proceeded to seal the edges cleanly with E6000 as those sides would not show. I had quite a production line going by now. I cut a series of 16 inch nylon/poly cords and lined them all up. Using a large eyed needle, I threaded a single cord into the eye . Then I carefully lit the farthest end with the barby lighter until it was molten, then blew on it just when it was at a certain stage of gooeyiness ( therein lay the trick - it had to be just the right amount of gooey !!) and then I put the needle through the dynamite stick and pulled slightly so the gooey knot caught inside the stick, without mucking up the ultrasuede outside but thereby gluing itself to the inside of the stick. A tricky feat I can assure you! Each one had to have a little tug on them to see they were secure enough. Next,I had to estimate how much wick to leave at the top as I had to burn that end to a perfect little knob to look realistic enough. That was a "suicide mission" because if the fire caught too quickly I was left with a sad looking stub not a nice shaped wick. If that happened, the dynamite stick was ruined as the other end was already secured inside. I only destroyed two of them so that wasn't too bad in light of things ( no pun intended). It was a fun experience but took a lot more time ( and patience) than I bargained for.

The string of firecrackers on the left cup was a little demon to make as there was a curved seam on the outside of the bra cup which formed a " dip" and the bugles would not lay as flat as I wanted them. It was an exercise to turn a purist's hair grey and I can't begin to tell you how many repetitions of silamide are securing them. I couched down two layers of nylon/poly cord one on top of the other, between the two rows of bugles and then " lit" the top of the crackers for effect.

The " explosion" on the right cup was three layers of ultrasuede, which when stitched over the outer fabric, foam underlining and back lining made for six layers of fabric to stitch through. No mean feat!

The word " Danger" was colored in orange on the safety ribbon so I had to very carefully paint over it in diluted red acrylic and then seal it.

The stars and the shooting stars are made from angelina and then bonded onto handpainted yellow ultrasuede. I also painted the HOT insignia and then I made her a little firecracker necklace out of bugles and swarovskis.
The beaded flame on the left hand side is ready to light the wick on the dynamite.
I put on the little glass chili peppers saluting Vickie's hot Texan culinary tastes and if you zoom in on the overall pic, you will see LMD is holding a pomegranite margarita in her left hand. I can tell you I was ready for one myself after this process!