Cosplay – Perpetual Wonderment

Costume Catch Up

I’m rearranging the steampunk sewing area, and adding a costume closet down there to free up space in the bedrooms they’ve previously been migrating between. There’s still a little extraneous stuff to find homes for (and I’m about to dump my fabric stash back in it for a while) but I think it’s coming along nicely. I won’t show you the double stacked clock and mirror though. Or especially all the chicken stuff. *sigh*

Since I’m writing anyway, I wanted to do a quick round up of the newer costumes (or just ones I haven’t shared photos of previously). As you can see, I already stuffed the dress form in a corner, so any shots I took specifically for the post are…a little limp.

Please note these are in no particular order. Well, I supposed by how they came out of the previous closet.

Princess Business – Pink pinstripe suit constructed in fall 2018. The pants ended up just slightly too small by the time I wore them to the symphony’s live Nightmare Before Christmas at Halloween. Lo and behold I was pregnant… My body is definitely a different shape now (no one mentions building out your shoulders and arms!) so I gave it away, but the highlights of the design were definitely the flowing peplum and lovely pearl buttons. The lining had a really nice feel to it, too.

Pelisse – Regency coat I made for myself in early 2019. Luckily I cut the pieces out a bit bigger the previous fall. I was so pleased that I was filling out the yellow dress I wore under it better but it turned out to be a very good thing I made the pelisse. I had to keep it on over the dress for the whole event when I popped a hook and eye! Even the very sedate dancing style (primarily walking) was fairly tiring at that stage too.

Regency waistcoats and tailcoat – Did you know that gentlemen often layered two waistcoats in the 1810s? Neither did I! But I found out when I finally broke down and ordered fancy patterns from a small seller online to make updated pieces for Jeff. For some reason they’re just not popular enough that big pattern companies sell them? Anyway, it meant I got to use two of my fanciest fabrics (augmented with broadcloth for the back). Very fun. We were running out of time for the same early 2019 event and intended to rent – but the local costume shop was out of stock due to a high school production of Les Mis. At least they had pants, so those are still on my to-do list. But I did bite the bullet and buy wool to make the tailcoat. Of course, the folks at the costume shop mentioned they let it drape for a couple months at some point early in the construction process, and that clearly wasn’t going to happen since I had about a week. Including my promised birthday gift to my sister of going to the symphony’s live Pirates of the Caribbean (you may be sensing a theme). After unsuccessful ticket trading shenanigans, I decided sleep was for the dead and did both. There’s still some fine tuning to do at the waist as well as adding the lining (I think?) but the wool was beautiful to work with and the coat looks much better than my previous attempts.

1950s (surprise maternity) coat – So before I got so excited about wool, I actually decided to try making myself a 1950s coat from some of our extra fleece blankets. This was another fall 2018 cut, spring 2019 construct. The wind tends to blow right through it, unfortunately, but there are enough panels that with my paranoid extra seam allowance there was actually plenty of girth for pregnant belly. Which is good, because by the tail end of spring it was the only thing that fit. I cheated on the buttons – they’re just for show and it actually closes with snaps. So it’ll be easy to give it a little adjustment for the fall.

Cinderella – I didn’t make this. I got it from a theatre group that got it from a dress shop that I can only assume was meant to be for a Quinceañera or something. I just barely squeezed into it for a Halloween party in 2018 (again, turns out I was pregnant). I’m so glad I had a chance to wear it before it moves to its next home.

Jaeger – Have you read Girl Genius? No? Check it out. Anyway, the jaegers are great. Their dialogue is written in dialect, they’re obsessed with hats, and they make for a great costume. I never figured out the makeup so never wore it fully assembled. I…when did I make this? I don’t know! Anyway, because the military jacket fastens with elastic straps that part still fits. I tried it on for a (literally) hot second in honor of watching Hamilton on Disney+.

Walkaway Dress – I don’t remember when I made this either, but it’s a project I’d been wanting to do for a while. I bought the pattern after finding a tutorial for it online. It’s just a gorgeous look, and I was looking forward to playing with contrasting colors of fabric and bias tape from my stash. Fairly quick and easy, though I prefer to wear it over another light colored dress. I really liked the button I picked…not that it shows.

Sideless Surcote – Fall 2018 again. I wanted something medieval, to use up the red from my stash, and finally put this awesome trim on something. So in my mass cut out of patterns, I cut this one too. I may even have finished it that fall, too, because it was about the easiest of the things I was prepping. Now I need a new kirtle to go underneath. Probably going to have to buy fabric for that though.

Cersei, complete (and Jaime too) – So I never actually wrapped up the story of Cersei and Jaime. Er…too soon? I ended up fairly pleased with the bodice and sleeve embroidery. The lions were, shall we say, an approximation. Jaime was interesting. I really just made the coat. Out of…vinyl? Pleather? It fed through the machine quite nicely, actually. The real trick here was buying lots of accessories, honestly. So once they were ready…

We took them out to the local Comic Con. Wandered the vendor area and the halls. Saw three versions of Daenerys. Attended a music panel. Followed a Daenerys into a restaurant across the street and made a silly post about it. Showed it to her before we left. She was amused.

And I think that’s that.

Mechanicsburg Vest, Part 2

I decided to line the Mechanicsburg vest in the same fabric as the shirt. Cue more rolling…not really. The fraying bits are all tucked into the middle of the fabric sandwich. Getting there was a process though. I used the vest itself as a pattern again and may have neglected that little thing called seam allowances. I was also using the pillowcase from the sheet set, and didn’t want to add more fabric. Well, once I got my armholes set in (one at a time, unlike when I was working on the kimono/vest), the front right and left were decidedly short on coverage! So I got some more strips from the top hem of the top sheet, and tacked them on, and got my top, bottom, and side seams set.

For decoration/fastening, we decided on some cute little blue buttons to go on both left and right, which we’d ultimately like to connect with some brass chain. So there’s a bit yet to go on this piece, but it’s pretty close to done.

Mechanicsburg Shirt

Unlike replicating the trousers, making another renaissance shirt (once again taking some of the bagginess out) was an experience with a smooth flow from step to step with a very hard to work with fabric. It was slippery and it wanted to shred. Constantly. I rolled every seam under and stitched them down to keep tiny magenta bits from floating around everywhere. Needless to say, there were still many tiny magenta bits floating just about everywhere.

Oh! I did have to go shopping for this fabric, to complement the vest-in-progress. We ended up selecting a set of sheets at Goodwill. So the collar and cuffs are from the top hem, meaning I had less fiddly sewing, holding and pinning to do to get them in place. Though I did somehow forget how I wanted to handle that part of the process, meaning the collar might sit a bit oddly. I still need to add a hook and eye at the collar, and buttons at the cuffs. NOT FUNCTIONAL BUTTONS. Not with this fabric’s propensity to shred. But I do have some pseudo-Roman coin buttons that will be perfect.

Mechanicsburg Vest

So I started on the vest for Jeff’s original character in the Girl Genius universe: a Mechanicsburg reporter. Spoiler: the pattern for this vest is the same as Sherlock’s, minus the flipped over collar. I’d kept out a couple of pattern pieces with the precut fabric (apparently to check on the darts? except they were already chalked) but not the directions, so I worked mostly from memory with a quick glance at Sherlock for reference on the pockets. It went pretty well! I think the top of the pocket liners weren’t attached quite right, but no one will be able to tell, and the outside looks very nice.

Much to his chagrin, I did have to put the vest on Jeff inside out to find out what else had to be done to snug up the fit. Luckily, I put it on inside out to begin with, so the pins were on the correct side. It ended up coming to an interesting point in the center back which almost makes it look like it’s made from a total of five pieces of fabric instead of three.

A Different Queen

And then I got my first commission! By which I mean a friend was looking for someone to make something for their daughter, and I volunteered.

Do you know about tutu dresses? I didn’t. I saw the inspiration picture of a Queen of Hearts tutu dress, had a brief moment of panic when I thought I would have to call up the lady who graciously provided most of my stash to say “help! how I can I get layers and layers of tulle to behave in the sewing machine?!” (she is an experienced tutu maker as well), and then realized that somehow those strips were knotted on.

Luckily the internet is an expert in tutu dresses. I used this lovely blogger’s work as a loose guide (and somewhat regret not following the recommendation to get a crochet top to use as the base, having instead raided my stash for a strip of trim that could be coaxed into a similar configuration). For anyone familiar with latch-hooking yarn rugs, you may be interested to know that the process is about the same, but with giant strips of tulle, larger holes (ideally), and, if you’re smart and/or multi-crafty, a crochet hook.

Tulle is not something I have in my stash, and the friend was perfectly happy to pay for materials, so off I went to JoAnn Fabrics. I happened to hit the store at sale time, so I was able to get the narrow spools of tulle cheaper than buying a giant rectangle of fabric and cutting the strips out myself. Thank goodness. On the other hand, I carefully obeyed the request for “sparkly” and as I latch-hooked the skirt I ended up subjecting my house to an infestation of glitter. (Friend, of course, already has an irremovable colony and was not in the least perturbed.)

The other instruction was “grow with her” which I took as my biggest design feature. The bodice basically is an apron top draped on my (adult size) dress form. The hearts are glitter paper and velcro on, so they can shift up/down if needed. There’s lots of extra strap on the shoulder, designed to be let down an inch at a time. The back heart just kind of hangs, depending on gravity to sit where it’s supposed to (and is even more adjustable with its velcro). There’s a ribbon at the waist that will tie in front for now and can shift to tying in back as she grows.

Other materials details: the black ribbons for border and waistband are from my stash, as is the white lace on the shoulder, and both exterior and interior of the “apron” bodice. The wearer will always have a t-shirt and leggings on underneath (and the tulle still tangles, so adding an underskirt might be a good choice). The crown and wand were more glitter paper (the gold very stiff and almost plasticky), a dowel, and a headband also from JoAnn. The part I got most excited about (having innovated a bit) is making the wand double as a “croquet mallet” (not actually good for hitting anything, but the shape is right, since I used one of the tulle spools).

qoh-back — The back view (gold inside hidden by wearer of course).

A New Shirt for Sherlock

So in reality it is now December. Jeff read through the archives this week and sheepishly came downstairs to tell me that he enjoyed it and he’d really like me to write more. He’s even set it up for RSS, apparently. Therefore, using the magic of publishing dates (break? what break?), I plan to flood his feed. *evil grin*

Fittingly enough, this first post is about him. Er, his clothes. That new shirt for Sherlock we were planning on (which will also be part of the base for Jaime) was ready in time for him to wear to the local ComicCon (marathon-made the night before, of course).

Honestly it’s been so long I’ve almost forgotten the exact details of how I made it…and it doesn’t seem to be in the costume closet, so I can’t check seams. Because I couldn’t possibly go upstairs right now. Nope.

So I started with a big piece of white fabric from my stash – the only one that we felt was really the right texture to translate to Jaime. I’d planned to use the renaissance shirt pattern again, but despite being a lot of fabric, it wasn’t enough fabric. So I draped it.

By which I mean I folded it over itself, cut a T for the neckline, and shoved it over Jeff’s head. (I did ask first!) I made him stick his arms out and pinned the bottom seam of the sleeve in place – with a few adjustments for desired elbow motion. Then we discovered it sat funny at the shoulders, so I ended up cutting the original arms out and shifting the rough outline of the torso lower so I could put in proper shoulder seams.

new-sherlock-shirt — The finished Sherlock look!

I think I did some pretty good 3-D thinking, building a lining into the neckline (which is rounded in back and has a straight line opening
down the center front). By which I mean none of it ended up attached to the “right” side of the fabric. Hooray!

I got to use a massive cheat on the cuffs – they were right on the selvage. And then we cut into them to add cufflinks… If I ever upgrade the piece at all, adding detachable cuffs so it looks more formal for Sherlock is item #1.

Sewing Cersei

I’m about five and a half hours into sewing Cersei (general intentions are here, if you missed them), and it’s been an adventure. No major disasters, but so many little things have gone wrong:

– Staystitch side edge of front above waist. Well great, I didn’t mark the waist. Guess I’m eyeballing it. (No ill effects obvious to date.)

– Stitch upper side front to lower side front. Um…you’ve got an outie and an innie…how do I sew those together? Incorrectly, the first time. (The intermediate step of staystitching the lower edge of the upper side front [the innie] means you can stretch it along the outie for stitching and then afterwards it sort of flexes back into place.)

– Stitch side front to front. The hems line up wrong, and not the way I planned. So much for the brilliant curtain hem intentions. It’ll all turn out fine when I put in the final hem.

– Basically repeat the above for the back and side back. I should probably mention here I’m too lazy to use pins, except for really tricky spots. The bigger mistake is keep forgetting to reverse the stitch at the beginning and end of my seams, to lock them in place…

– As mentioned, I’m skipping the ties.

– Stitch front to back. It finally starts to look like a thing! It’s not super fitted, so I could take in some seams if I wanted, but I think it looks okay. I’ll just have to be very specific about the hemming the front flap so it doesn’t spill over into the contrast section.

– The facing is really where it started getting weird. I hemmed the lower edge of the front, but I typically don’t press, so I missed turning in the seam allowance. And the hem of the back facing is atrocious – another outie, so it’s all wrinkled and overlapped. Stitched front to back okay, but then:

– I added the improvised collar when I stitched the facing to the dress. That step was mostly fine, but when I understitched the facing, I caught a bunch of extra fabric in several different spot and had to rip it out and re-stitch piecemeal (if I did the whole seam over again, it would probably just be worse.)

– Then, it didn’t actually say to, but I slipstitched the lining hem (instead of the armhole facing. And I had it on the dress form by this point. And the slipstitch went through the incredibly thin fabric covering the dress form. So I had to do that over.

– Finally, it was sleeve time! I got all the giant pieces together just fine, but then I started adding the sleeve band and my extra piece of darker contrast. As a single seam, they went on fine. But then I had to slipstitch both the band and the rest of the darker contrast. And I caught lots of bits of the outer sleeve fabric…that was folded under from another part of the sleeve. So I had to fix that, too. I finally got the first sleeve done and am hoping to avoid that problem when I pick up on finishing the second sleeve.

Ermagerd, a progress shot! And a sneak peek of the Steampunk Basement Craft Area series.

Normally the next step after this would be attaching sleeves to dress, but I am going to have a lot of quiet down time away from home next week, so I think I’ll work on embroidering the sleeves (which even though voluminous are smaller than the dress) before I attach them.

Game of Thrones Plan and Cutting Cersei

There’s one more big project I want to get done before Comic Con: a pair of Game of Thrones costumes. Needless to say, it’s incredibly daunting because the costuming on that show is simply gorgeous. I don’t have the right fabrics in my stash, and let’s be honest the publicly available designs are kind of a hack. But I’m going to try. (Full disclosure, I’m making full use of some wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey … stuff, here: I actually wrote this post in late September! So I’m not as hugely time crunched as you might think. EDIT: once we decided on only one day at Comic Con, though, this became a “work at your own pace” project – for good or ill, only time will tell.)

So for our first pair (yes, there’s at least one more coming at a later date), Jeff and I are going to go as Jaime and Cersei and loiter in corners and hopefully really amuse people. Starting with Cersei:

I would have loved to do one of her high collared brocade dresses but my stash doesn’t even come close. Even the blue or pink wrap dress would be a little less popular, and I don’t really like following the crowd. But reds I’ve got, so red it is. (McCall’s 6940, of course.) The base red from my stash is actually a bit deeper, and the fabric a bit thicker, than the reference photos I’ve seen suggest. In terms of quantity, I’m limited to just the body – bodice and center front and center back – out of the deep red, which might be a silk. It’s got a lovely visual texture to it (though probably not so nice on the skin, and the bright spots that pop from those pin lines match a gauzy, slightly shiny red curtain I thrifted that I’ll be using for the sleeves. (I did manage to save some of the deep red for the peekaboo on the inside of Jaime’s collar, so that’ll be a fun touch!) I’ve also decided to forgo the recommended ties, since you can’t see them in screenshots, and will probably use more of the stick on velcro dots in my stash. I also don’t actually have any red thread, so am thinking I will try to make do with brown; it’s fairly light and shiny, so shouldn’t be that far off.

I’m satisficing on the contrast color, too. Again, from reference photos, it looks like a lighter and darker gold (but not shiny) brocade, whereas I’ll be using the “inside” of a pair of gold satiny curtains for the side fronts and backs, bodice lining, and the sleeve lining and trim. The pattern doesn’t call for it, but I’m using it for a collar as well, plus scraps from my gold bridesmaid’s dress as a darker contrast at the outside edge of the sleeve lining. I do at least have beige thread for places where that matters.

I refuse to use the enclosed lion appliqué as intended (and the fact that I’m out of dark red actually doesn’t have anything to do with it!); I’m determined to simply use the shape to mark the space in which to embroider them (as well as the sleeve hems and neckline). I’ve done a decent amount of cross-stitch and some needlepoint (though all very slowly), so I think it’s at least doable, if not in the time allotted. I did find a photo of one cosplayer who appears to have used puff paint for her sleeves, which I think is very clever, and if timing does become an issue I may go that route for some of my detailing.

I’m not intending to use the pattern at all for the belt. I have some dark gold trim that I think might be an okay substitute for the back of it (since I don’t have any gold chainmail lying around); I’m not sure how I’ll handle the leather or metal buckle yet. Maybe painted cardboard? At least there are some really nice reference photos.

So, caveats made, I can report that I have cut out all of the fabric for Cersei (making strategic use of the curtains’ hems for side front, side back and sleeves). I’ve probably set myself up for more of the trouble I had with the Sherlock vest and renaissance man‘s doublet, since I cut to the largest size but am once again going to be fitting different sections to different sizes. At least I have a dress form (should probably go spin the dials to match my current measurements…) and of course 100% access to putting the thing on my own body as I go.

I did order a $5 replica of Cersei’s lion necklace off eBay, because with all of the embroidery plans, and my lack of carving/molding skills, that seems like the best way to make sure I actually have one. I’m not sure whether she should have a signet ring in this costume or not. I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

The Doctors Who

1382367_940713949696_505067360_n — My last iteration of the Tenth Doctor.

Next up Jeff and I will probably be headed to Grand Rapids Comic Con. We’ll reprise Sherlock and Irene, of course (ideally with the vest snugged up and somewhere to hang the pipe). And we’ll spend some time running around – if they allow running – as a pair of Tens. Um, that’s the Tenth Doctor, from Doctor Who, in case you couldn’t guess from the title.

Edit: We’re only going to spend one day at Comic Con. So the Doctors will have to wait for Halloween. But since it’s basically Halloween party season already, it won’t be a long wait.

Anyway, to get back to your regularly scheduled post: These costumes are completely thrifted.

– Thrifted blue suits (pinstripe, for him)
– Thrifted dress shirts (actually, mine might be a leftover from choir)
– Thrifted ties (mine’s a clip-on!)
– Thrifted Converse (of course)
– Thrifted trench coats
– Thrifted khaki headband (for me, because what does a female Doctor do with her hair?)
– Thrifted pair of K-9 slippers (which we randomly ran into and how could we not?!)

And I lied. Mostly thrifted. We bought the sonic screwdrivers. Plus a couple of items of forgotten provenance:

– Psychic paper (I think it was a tiny wallet, once upon a time)
– Brainy specs (for him. My eyes suck so I have glasses all the time)

1_854723854536_619378964_n Still. Not much sewing here. (Even the WWII coat I hacked together for a Jack Harkness cosplay from a lady’s jacket didn’t have much – adjust the collar here, cut off the cuff straps there, sew them onto the shoulders for rank insignia instead… And paint the buttons gold. That was a pretty fun project, but Jeff wants to pick up a vortex manipulator before we bring it out again.)

Steampunk Irene Adler

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So Irene. Irene was a bit of a hang-er on, but I like couples’ costumes. So with steampunk Sherlock Holmes on the docket, what else was I supposed to do?

(I did actually end up thinking of a fun little narrative that blended real life and our personas: Irene’s supposedly given up her wicked ways and turned tailor to Sherlock. Of course it’s all just a ploy to get close enough to slip him something nefarious. *turn to look at him* “You didn’t hear that dear, just go on and investigate that odd thing over there.” Etc.)

Most of the outfit was already made. The skirt was actually the second version of that set I had made, since I sewed (except for the hem) a shiny brown version for my friend’s wedding outfit (which she combined with a lacy white shirt and beige corset to look amazing). Here’s the best part: it’s a mash up: bolero skirt (without loopy trim) from McCall’s 7071 and train from McCall’s 6097. My skirt was a dull green covered in black velvety flowers with a dark green velvet waistband (from the stash!), and my train was a darker shinier green (which I may have purchased). The only thing I actually had to do for the ren fair was add buttons to attach the train to the skirt. So…repeat semi-freehand note from Sherlock’s vest.

The top I’ve had for a long time; it was a hand-me-down from my mom. I searched antique shops for a cheap cameo for a long time, and the result has been hanging from the top button hole for quite a while as well.

I could’ve just used the good black leather boots I’ve owned since high school, but I ran into a pair at the thrift store with silver buttons on the side just before the ren fair and couldn’t resist. This. Was. A. Giant. Mistake. They were way too big and I had enormous blisters starting on the balls of my feet before we even got into the ren fair because we parked at the back of beyond. I thought about buying shoes from a vendor, but they were ridiculously expensive. So I begged a wad of napkins off a pickle vendor and stuffed them into my shoes. It helped enough that we could move around a little, and kept the blisters from getting worse. But I’ll be cleaning the mud off those shoes and sending them back to the thrift store. Lesson: always, always walk around in your shoes. *sigh*

How how else did I dress it up? I bought half a yard of cheap black velour and built a steampunk hat and fingerless gloves (McCall’s 6975 again) and a cummerbund or waist corset (patternless!). The hat turned out to be good practice for Sherlock, and the gloves…I had to think hard about those gloves – which side was up, which hand was which. I ended up pulling some shiny black fabric from my stash to line the thumb and wrist, and to make a flat version of what was supposed to be a crinkled connector to pin the palm side shut. And I did all three in an afternoon! The amazing thing about the hat is once I pinned it on top of my head, I completely forgot it was there.

We also borrowed a parasol from the theatre props in our basement, but didn’t end up using it. I think eventually I might like to build her a matching one with a more period-appropriate profile. And I’ll admit I saw a poison ring at the same antique shop where we picked up Sherlock’s stick pin that was quite tempting.

I keep wanting to transition from costumes to historical clothing, though, and having the costume contest judge say it was only “kind of” 1890s really drove that home. I read on a historical clothing blog that the important thing is starting with the right undergarments to build the silhouette. I can improve this costume while setting the stage for future outfits simultaneously. I’ve got a pattern for chemise, drawers, and corset already, and clearly it also needs couple of petticoats and possibly a bustle. So we’ll see where that gets it.