Samurai! (or how I ended up cosplaying Hinamori Momo)

Back in March, I was contacted by the Worcester Art Museum about finding a cosplayer for the opening of the Samurai! exhibit, which combines real samurai goodies such as armor with current pop culture. Of course this seemed interesting since I used to intern at Higgins Armory (an excuse to look at armor again and make costumes? yes please!).

I spent a while trying to think of a costume that would be fairly recognizable, family friendly, and doable in a couple weeks. It suddenly hit me, Bleach! I used to both read the manga and watch the show so I'm relatively familiar with the early parts of the story (there's a crazy amount of chapters/episodes now). I asked my boyfriend to participate as well, and we agreed on dressing as Momo Hinamori and Renji Abarai. These characters are both lieutenant shinigami, who wear a black and white uniform based on traditional Japanese clothing.

I don't have finished photos yet, but here's a bit of a sneak peak and some construction notes:

"I am the darkness of space"

I mean, not really, these projects are pretty bright and colorful. It's just something I say sometimes...

Anyways, I finally got around to making those space suits!

"What's a good way to get some tentacles without making too much of a production of it?"

One of my friends recently had a "crazy" idea to dress up in tentacles. She drew me a picture, suggesting that this is probably a weird thing that won't work out the way it looks in the picture.

It really didn't seem all that unreasonable to me, so I offered to make them. I looked around at "squid plushies" to get ideas for construction and we picked out some fleece and minky fabric based on what I'd seen. The house got pretty thoroughly coated in minky fluff (if you've never worked with it, it sheds like crazy when cut) but the tentacles came together nicely.

As you can see in the drawing and in the final costume images, the outfit consists of a tentacle belt or skirt (whatever you want to call it), sleeves/arm warmers, and a collar.

"You have to wear a bell so I can find you if you run away and hide under a car"

You know, like a cat would.

Since I put together this witch outfit for myself for a Halloween party, and my boyfriend likes it when I dress him up, I wanted to make some sort of matching "costume" for him. We decided on kitty ears and a tail (he also has a collar with a bell on it, so he doesn't get lost of course.)

This isn't my boyfriend, clearly, but he wasn't available when I took the photos and Bria here agreed to help (thanks Bria!).

I used the same pattern for the ears as I use for my animal hats, for example these or this one. They are a layer of fleece, interfacing, and faux fur, sewn together then attached to a headband. For this set I also added little bows. We have a bit of a joke going about having bows on everything.

I free-handed the tail. It's a rectangle with rounded ends, about 24" by 7". There's a belt loop on the end that can also be safety pinned on if you're not wearing a belt.

I could go for a taco right about now.

A couple months ago, some of my friends came to me and asked if I would make them into a taco for Halloween. Well, that's an opportunity that's hard to pass up! (They get super bonus points for asking far enough in advance). I think this is a super cute couple's costume. Sam here is playing our taco shell/tortilla, and Eloise is the lovely bunch of fillings.

For the shell, I cut a large circle of 1/2" upholstery foam (technically two half circles I had to sew together because I couldn't get a piece large enough) and made a cover for it out of fabric that has sort of a speckled yellow/orange pattern. I added loops for the shoulders, hands, and legs so it doesn't flap around behind him. In retrospect, it could have been a bit bigger. I was too concerned with making it hard to move around and sit. Sam found a perfect yellow shirt to go with it, and I can only assume he already had these gold pants.

For the dress, Eloise gave me a simple black dress that fit her well to use as a base. I sewed fleece shapes over that to simulate the layers of fillings that would go in the taco. A bit more on that later.

I got really excited to make this little hat for some reason. It's a small foam base covered with brown fleece (for meat) with other fillings sewn over that. The whole thing is sewn to a headband. 

Holy hell I actually finished the Victorian project.

Alright! So, earlier this year I was hired to do some art for a card game, Moriarty's Machinations. Part of my involvement with the game was dressing up in character as Irene Adler to advertise at a couple conventions, including the Boston Festival of Indie Games. (We won the award for best indie tabletop game by the way, which was super exciting!)

It has been a long time since I posted about my Victorian costume. Check out the project's tag for all the related posts. I started it back in 2011, as an independent study course in college, and then didn't finish it after the class was done. There was only a couple things left to do by the time I got this job that required me to have a period costume, so it finally motivated me to finish.

Here's my original rendering. I think I got pretty close.

The fabric isn't authentic at all. I used a striped velveteen synthetic (it feels luxurious at least) and a heavy plum sateen (probably poly). I also didn't stick very closely to one part of the Victorian Era. The anachronisms aren't so strong that a casual observer would notice them.

I don't think I'm qualified to fly this broom.

The other day I was looking for a fabric in my stash and ran into this cool flocked organza that had completely slipped my mind. I promptly forgot what I was doing and made a skirt and hat for a witch costume. I'm going to a couple Halloween dance parties next month so this will get put to use soon at least.

The fabric is a transparent purple with black spiderwebs. I wanted the webs to pop so I used a fuchsia lining. The skirt is a circle skirt with the hem gathered to the lining to make it bubble. It has a spandex waistband.

Isa Cosplay

I started this costume a couple years ago, but didn't finish... until now!

Originally, a friend and I were going to dress up as Lea and Isa from Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep. Unfortunately, we kept putting it off so long that we don't hang out anymore, so I got myself together and did the Isa costume alone.

I wore this to PAX East a couple weeks ago. Not many people knew who I was, but I pretty much expected that. This was also my first time styling a wig like this, and I am pretty happy with how it came out.

The costume consists of purchased white jeans, black shoes I painted with white soles, a purchased black t-shirt, and (the thing I actually made) a sweatshirt. I searched thrift stores for a sweater and shirt that were both that light blue color to use as trim on a sweatshirt I made from scratch. It has welt pockets, which are just crazy to do in sweatshirt fleece. The wig has almost a full can of hairspray in it... there's still hairspray on a bunch of my stuff (like my computer mouse).

Sorry I don't have any good full-length or construction photos.

Something about a bustle and a beard.

Some long time ago I put together a vaguely burlesque outfit for a themed party. I don't actually remember what the theme was, but apparently it gave me an excuse to make a tie-on bustle, shorts, and fascinator.

 

The bustle is a pretty simple design. It's a large gathered rectangle on a waistband, with two short straps and D-rings on the outside  corresponding to much longer straps on the inside. To wear, you pull the interior straps under the bottom of the rectangle and up through some loops on the surface (to keep the straps in place), then thread the straps through the D-rings near the top. It can be adjusted to be more or less gathered up.

Unfortunately I don't really have a good picture of the shorts. They're basic bloomers with some lace on the leg openings and pockets (because all party outfits need pockets).

The headpiece is a buckram oval with a small wedge missing to make it sort of the shape of a spoon head. I covered that with fabric, then added some net and ribbon decoration and a hair comb to keep it on. It's pretty simple but worked to keep my head from looking too plain.

Why am I posting about this now? I used the bustle a couple days ago for a bearded lady costume. I wore this to work (retail does have some perks once in a while). This was my first time applying a fake beard. One customer explained he kept looking at me because he thought I was a dude in a dress (not a girl with a fake beard) and was trying to figure out whether that was true. Children were confused. I got to joke around about forgetting to shave. My manager kept announcing that people should find the bearded lady if they need help. I got laughs and double takes. With all this, I say the costume was a success.

Commission update: Naomi from Monsters University

I posted a while ago about some costume commissions. One of the customers got back to me with some photos! (I did not take these)

As the title states, the costume is for Naomi from Monsters U. I did end up having to make some alterations after she tried on the skirt I had made in my previous post, but it turned out well in the end and she was happy with it (yay!). I always worry things won't fit right when making items for people I can't see in person. Since my experience mostly comes from theatre, I'm used to having people try thing on while they're being made. In this case, I had interpreted the reference image differently than her and her husband and had made the skirt too A-line. Easily solved though!

Oh no, it's been too long.

I haven't had an opportunity to take pictures of my finished projects lately. A couple commissions have been my primary sewing focus, though I have made some other items in the mean time. I'll take pictures of those soon, I hope.

For now, here are the costumes I've been working on. The first I (pretty much) finished today.
It's Naomi from Monsters University (first picture not mine, obviously). I was only commissioned for the fur pieces:

This is what it looks like as of right now.

The other costume keeping me busy (read: stressed) is Nono/Nowi from Fire Emblem Awakening.

It seems pretty straightforward, but there's some sort of anti-physics happening here that's proving tedious and difficult to recreate. Progress is slow but happening.

Oh no, it's been months!

I said I'd keep this up... I really want to, things have been pretty busy though. To make up for my lack of posts, here are some other costumes from Halloween. This isn't even half of all the ones I wore since I dressed up almost every day for work. I think it came to something like 36 costumes.

I was a couple characters from Alice in Wonderland, Alice being one of them. The dress isn't something I made specifically for Halloween - I've had it for a couple years now. I remember using a pattern, heavily altered though.

I didn't make any of these specifically to use in a clown costume either, but it all worked together pretty well. The no-sew tutu, leggings, and tank top with side gathers are all sewn by me, long sleeve shirt is some tie dye I did.

Funny story on this one - I purposefully didn't do full white clown makeup because I didn't want to scare anyone, and yet there was still a girl at the store I work in (probably around 13 years old) who could not look at me and had to close her eyes whenever I walked by.

So, I really like capes.

Capes are awesome. They're fun to wear, work with lots of styles, and are super easy to put together. I guess the downsides are the amount of fabric they use and how they choke if they slide back. I tried finding information on stopping this, but short of attaching the cape to clothing underneath I can't find much - guess I'm not cut out to be a superhero.

Over the past couple weeks I've made 3 very different capes, using zero patterns and vague measurements:

1. I have to get to dress up for work on the weekends from now till Halloween, and when I saw this cheap red velour I thought it would be great for Little Red Riding Hood. It's a bit scratchy on the neck seam so I'll probably have to wear something with a higher collar underneath, but I like the look. This "pattern" is a half circle.

Victorian project - update 3

I'm sorry I haven't been updating as much as I promised myself I would. There's so many (sometimes odd) things going on lately that sometimes I feel like I'm in an Asian drama, though that may be because I was watching one a couple weeks ago.

I have made some progress on the Victorian costume, but it still has a long way to go. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but the deadline has moved to May 26th, so at least I don't have to get this done by the end of the week!
Tonight, I made a bustle pad of sorts (following these instructions) to help fill out the back of the costume.  This is pushing it to a different year, but I'm okay with that since it makes the bodice sit better.

 
Last week (or the week before maybe), I got the back pleats of the bodice taken in, overskirt figured out, and added a waist tape to the inside of the bodice. The bodice is much lighter with the smaller pleats and feels much nicer when on, though the lining still peeks out.

The hat of pain and pattern of many pieces

In my last post, I wrote about purchasing this hat pattern from Truly Victorian and some millinery supplies. Well, the pattern came on Saturday and the supplies a day before, so I got to work on my hat all day Saturday. I probably could have finished it in a day, but got stuck because I don't have enough trim for the edge of the brim. (Why do I never have trim?)

The pattern is great though (it's not the pattern of many pieces, that one will be discussed later). I've been doing it a little differently than instructed, mostly because of the qualities of my fabric - not because I can't understand the instructions or think they make things more difficult than necessary, which can happen with commercial patterns. This fabric is not the easiest to work with, don't let its simple black appearance fool you. It's pretty drapey, so the edges of the frame were very obvious when I tried covering it. To remedy this, I added a layer of fleece over the buckram frame.

"So," you may be wondering, "how is this the hat of pain?"

Sims 2 Cosplay

Like I mentioned at the end of my post about my first pair of jeans, I cosplayed a character from the Sims 2 game last year with my best friend Eddy. 
Getting right to the point, here's the character I was aiming for:

and my rendition (The shoes were the only part of this costume I already had and didn't need to make):

The Victorian Project - update

I've made a good bit of progress since the last time I took pictures of this outfit. I say "took pictures" because in the last post I mentioned the bodice was mostly cut out already and I had been working on it for a couple days before posting.
So, here's what I've done over the past couple weeks:
- put the main bodice pieces together.
- figured out the shawl collar, which was one of the parts I was least enthusiastic about doing. It's not perfect, but acceptable.
- re-cut and fit the sleeves. Again, I wasn't really looking forward to this part. Back when I was doing this project for class, I had fit and re-cut the sleeves so many times I don't even remember. They're still not perfect, but much better than any of the other versions.
- adjusted the darts.

Why yes, I do things the hard way.

Here's another project from the past year. Although I mostly sew for myself, it's not because I don't like sewing for others. I like doing commissions (hint hint), as long as the person I'm working with is willing to try things on and discuss what is and isn't possible. In this case, my best friend asked for some pants from the Sims 2 game, like these:

 ... and here's my version (plumbob also made by me using a template found online. It's card stock that's been painted and wired to a headband):

I did kind of promise to sew Eddy something for Christmas and he's pretty easy to work with, so I didn't mind taking on a complex project I had never done before. By that I mean I'd never made structured pants, put in a fly front, or worked with denim. I'll say now that I was a little amazed when I finished them and they turned out better than I expected. There were some tough times with how much my machine did not enjoy sewing through 8 layers of denim.