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:

How many times have I said I'm not making another hat?

Every time I make a new type of hat I tell myself, "never again." I've even started telling my friends to stop me. It's always a crazy fiddly mess.

No matter how many times I say it, I inevitably make another hat. Half way through this one my serger just quit. It was also my first time working with PUL fabric. Great!

One of my friends asked for a warm, waterproof winter hat and sent me a bunch of pictures of helmets (the armor type) and some knit hats. From that we came up with an actually technically possible design for a sewn knight helmet hat with a movable visor.

(I asked Bria to help model again since she was available)

There's always ghosts touching you

I found this super cute ghost fabric the last time I went to the $1.99 Fabric store, which is soon to be $2.99.

Nooooooooo ~

I mean, that's still good.

The fabric is very soft and sheer, so I decided on one of my usual designs - a bubble skirt. Once I had the skirt, I thought I should have a matching top... and (what a surprise) I made one.

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. 

"Can you make me some post-apocalyptic clothing?"

My boyfriend asked me if I could buy or make him some new clothes. I pointed out how this will result in him wearing strange clothing I want to see him in, but okay!

I was going to use this interesting double layered cut up fabric for a dress, but it's a bit sheer. One day I got the idea to make a shirt for him. Sweet, I get a use for the fabric and he gets something vaguely post-apocalyptic.

This is only the third thing I've made on my serger after not having used it for a couple years, so it's not perfect (it didn't help that the fabric was inherently difficult to work with). The biggest problem is that the back of the neckline got a bit stretched out. It's not too bad, but enough to bother me.

It's kind of interesting that the inside of this looks like flowers and leaves because of how the outside layer is tacked onto the fabric. It's such a contrast to the outside.

Like I mentioned in my previous post about using this machine, I like having different colored threads in the stitching instead of four spools of all one color. In this case, I used one golden brown and the rest black to match the fabric.

I didn't use a pattern. Instead, I traced around a t-shirt onto the fabric, basted it on a regular machine, had him try it on and made adjustments. Once I had the fit right I serged everything so I didn't have to worry about him stretching the shirt and busting any seams. I finished all the hems with the serger too for a rougher look.

Big bunny pants? Bugs Bunny pants.

A couple months ago some folks asked me why I don't have any phat pants in my Etsy shop. I finally got around to finishing some. Personally I enjoy cartoon characters on my pants, so when I saw this Bugs Bunny fabric in an awesome bright blue I thought it would be great for the project.

I altered a plain men's pants pattern for these. Quick step-by-step: Trace the pattern, add width to the bottom smoothly from the top, add lines for color blocking, cut out the paper pattern and add seam allowance when cutting out of fabric. 

The original pattern called for a zipper fly but since these pants are quite light, I went with velcro. The side pockets also have velcro closures. I added the drawstring at the waist (and leg openings) so they could be more adjustable.

If you look super close you'll notice a short line of stitching  next to the side seam on this leg. This is to hold the drawstring in place so it doesn't pull out, for example if you step on it. The stitches are quite large if you'd like to pull them out and remove the string (twill tape).

 I created this back pocket shape for a different pair of pants long ago (I thought I had posted about them, but apparently not), and reused it here because I think it's quite nice. Most of the seams are top stitched for reinforcement. I think these count as "mock flat-felled" seams.

That's all folks!

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.

How many ears is too many?

My friend wanted one of these hats/hoods with the attached hanging pockets and I made him one a while back, but I kept forgetting to post about it. He likes weird things and isn't afraid of looking ridiculous, so he came up with a design that had two sets of ears, and eyebrows. Originally he also wanted teeth on the hands (not claws, definitely unacceptable) but I convinced him that would be very difficult to pull off without it looking like claws. I wouldn't have come up with this hat, and it's pretty awesome. Take a look:

We went shopping once (both wearing our ridiculous fur hats) and had a man walking by exclaim, "Jesus Christ, Halloween was over a month ago." I'm pretty sure he was just jealous because his head wasn't as toasty warm as ours and he didn't look nearly as amazing.

The hat is fully lined in red fleece, has pockets on the ends, fleece eyebrows, and two sets of ears - one smaller than the other. The ears could have been further back and more spaced out, but after I had sewn them on once I wasn't really willing to do it again. Sewing through that much fur is hard on the fingers. The pattern is my usual over-sized hat pattern, also used here, here, and here.

What to do with a mock-up that works?

There are a couple ways I handle mock-ups (sometimes I refer to these as "trial runs" so I'm not constantly saying "mock-up"):
- if the pattern had a lot of fitting issues and I made it work, I save the mock up to use as a future pattern
- if it didn't work at all, it goes back in the fabric pile to be cut again as something else
- this one might be a little different than what other people do: if I think the pattern will work with only minor adjustments, I cut it in my lining fabric so I can just use it to line whatever I'm making once it's fitted. I baste the lining together, fit it, rip it apart to use as a pattern for the outside fabric, and put it back together.
- or, if the piece doesn't need a lining, I turn the mock-up into a garment on it's own. This can work since I mostly use plain sheets for my mock-ups. They take dye well if they have some cotton content so once that's done, no one knows the garment was just a trial run or is made from a sheet.

In this case, I went with the last option. When I made the Sims jeans for Eddy, I did a trial run to work out any kinks in my pattern alterations and sizing for his tiny self.

 

 

Of course they have some seams that don't quite make sense when they're not made in two colors, but that's not something most people notice right away.

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.