Wearables, Sewing Wearables, Sewing

New Pansy Fabric!

I'm pleased to announce that I've released a new floral fabric on Spoonflower! Pansy Field is also available in a gift wrap and at a smaller scale.front of pansy field fabric shirtI was inspired to make this fabric when I went to the garden center and saw all the different flowers they had there. The fabric pattern is made using my photos of some of my favorite pansies.back of pansy field fabric shirtI had the fabric printed onto Sport Lycra in order to make my sister a crop top. I was a little worried about the print appearing faded or washing out, but these pictures were taken after the shirt had already been through the wash. The print is just as bright as when I got it! close up of pansy field fabric shirtThe shirt itself is simply two pieces of fabric zig zagged together at the sides and shoulders. The neck, armhole, and bottom hem are folded over and zig zagged in place.If anyone ends up using my pansy fabric, please send mp pictures! I'd love to see what you make!

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Wearables, Sewing Wearables, Sewing

Elastigirl Cosplay

Elastigirl Ground PoseI just completed Elastigirl in time for LFCC! I watched the Incredibles 2 and immediately began working on this. This was a super spur of the moment cosplay, so a lot of the material was made from leftover fabrics. The silver was leftovers from Stocking, the belt is from an Amy Pond scrap, and the gloves are from an old pair of leggings. The whole thing was surprisingly easy to make.Elastigirl FaceI made the leotard by looking closely at knit leotards and shirts that fit me and drawing that shape onto the fabric. This fabric is always a bit of a pain to work with because pins make holes in it, but I can get away with putting the pins through the seam allowance so it worked out. The fabric also doesn't fray, so I left the edges raw around the leg holes and wrists. I made the Elastigirl symbol in GIMP and applied it the same way that I applied the stripes to my 13th Doctor shirt. If you want your own, here's a link to the one I made.Elastigirl SittingIn the Incredibles 2, Elastigirl wears elbow length gloves and boots that go up to her thighs. I, unfortunately, was unable to find boots or gloves that were that long. I decided to make the gloves and leave the boots for now, the leotard was warm enough already and I wasn't about to add another layer. The gloves are made from an old pair of leggings that had ripped by tracing around my arm and sewing with a narrow zig-zag stitch. I do not recommend this fabric. They barely have any stretch to them, and because of this, I had to add length to the fingers for my long nails. They're also very difficult to get on, and the fabric rips very easily. It probably would have been worth buying fabric for these.Elastigirl Face 2I recorded a video of how I did my makeup and styled the wig and will have that up next week!

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Wearables, Sewing Wearables, Sewing

Lup from The Adventure Zone

I recently completed a cosplay of the character Lup from the podcast The Adventure Zone. The Adventure Zone is an adventure comedy D&D podcast hosted by the McElroys. Lup is an accomplished elf wizard and is one of the first inter planar explorers.Since The Adventure Zone is solely audial, I based my costume on glowbat's art of the character. The maroon shirt and ears I bought specifically for this costume, while the earrings and shoes are items I already owned. I didn't have a sweatshirt that worked for this costume, but I did have a red pullover, so I cut it in half up the front and sewed the pockets closed. The gloves are just plain black gloves with the fingers cut off.The wig and shorts were probably the most time intensive part of the wold project. I dip dyed the wig using sharpie ink and rubbing alcohol in a spray bottle, which I documented here. I made the shorts by cutting a pair of jeans at the knee, painting on the flames, and rolling up the raw edge of the shorts. The paint I used for the flames is a 50/50 mix of acrylic paint (for color) and acrylic fabric medium (to set the paint into the fabric). I actually really like these shorts, and have been wearing them out of cosplay quite a bit!It was so bright the whole weekend, all the makeup I did didn't show up an camera! Luckily I took this picture of my makeup inside, where all the freckles show up! Unfortunately, in this image the ears I bought are very obviously a different color than my skin. Whoops!I wore Lup to London MCM May on both the Friday and Saturday. It was super cool to get to go to meet ups on both days and see everyone's interpretations of the characters. I'm looking forward to changing pieces of this cosplay and wearing it again to a different convention! 

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Wearables, Sewing Wearables, Sewing

Star Butterfly

There was a huge Disney meet on the third day of London MCM, which I went to dressed as Star Butterfly. Star Butterfly is a character from the Disney show Star vs the Forces of Evil.Star Butterfly FullFor this cosplay, I made the dress and the headband, painted the shoes, and styled the wig. Making the dress was much more of a pain than I originally thought it would be. I had to shape the front of the dress by curving each of the front stripe pieces just right, but I had a lot of trouble doing this. I finally got the shape of the front right and attached to the back, when I discovered I'd somehow made the front piece much wider than the back piece. The bodice somehow still fit, but the front panel wrapped around further than I wanted it to. The skirt went on with little fuss, although I did somehow catch extra fabric in the hem a few times. I lined the bodice of the dress with darted teal fabric - I wasn't about to try and stripe the inside too!Star Butterfly WigThis is the first time I've properly styled a wig for a cosplay. I styled it using craft glue, which meant the front of the wig didn't move at all during the day. The headband was made by hot gluing fabric over an alice band, then hot gluing stuffing filled fabric horns onto that.The shoes I painted with multiple layers of acrylic paint to match Star's shoes in the show. In the show she wears rabbit faced boots instead, but I had to work with what I had. I also sewed, painted, and glued on little rabbit ears to the shoes, but those fell off very quickly. The paint on the rubber soles of the shoes scraped off pretty quickly. I unfortunately didn't think to take pictures of the shoes before the convention.Costume Crew HalloweenThis cosplay was so cute I ended up wearing it for Halloween! Since I'm on a costume course, many people wore really, really good costumes. This costume was lots of fun, and I plan on wearing the dress again as normal clothing.

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Wearables, Sewing, Knit Wearables, Sewing, Knit

Nardole from Doctor Who

On the second day of London MCM, I wore a cosplay of Nardole from the Doctor Who episode Eaters of Light. I'm starting with the second day because I neglected to get pictures of the costume I wore the first day, but hopefully I'll get some soon.The Nardole costume consisted of a hand knit hat, a sweatshirt, pajama pants, and a kilt. The kilt was simply a huge piece of fabric with serged edges. Unlike how the kilt is worn in the show, I wore mine the same way that one would wear a great kilt.Nardole full bodySince the sweatshirt was fairly simple in design, I opted to modify a blue zip up sweatshirt I already had instead of making one from scratch. I started by taking out the zipper and the hoodie cord. Then, I added buttonholes and large wooden buttons down the front of the hoodie. Even though I'd taken out the bright white hoodie cord, the eyelets in the hood were still visible in bright silver, so I buttonhole stitched all the way around them.The hat I wore is one I've already posted about, and have actually written up a pattern for, so be sure to check that out!This is, by far, one of the most comfortable cosplays I have ever worn. I basically got to walk around in pajamas all day, it was great!

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Wearables, Sewing Wearables, Sewing

Floral Skirt, Bandana, and Pencil Case

Floral Skirt FrontOn Tuesday afternoon I headed out to Fabricland to purchase a zipper I needed for an upcoming project. While there, I spotted this floral fabric for £4.59 a meter and immediately knew I wanted to make myself a full length skirt.Floral Skirt BackThe skirt is made from two quarter circle panels with an invisible zip on the side. I think this is the first time I've thought ahead when making a skirt and added two inches in length to the back before sewing the panels together. Usually when evening out the hem of a skirt I'll have to trim down the sides and front, but not this time!Floral Skirt Hem DetailThis skirt was the first time I've ever used a rolled hem sewing machine foot. It was so much easier to use than I thought it would be, and created such a neat hem! I want to use this foot for every single project I make from now on!Floral Bandana Close UpI thought the skirt would use up almost all of the 3 meters of fabric I bought, but I was wrong. With about 70 centimeters of fabric remaining, I was able to make both a bandana and a pencil case. The bandana was pretty much just an excuse to use my rolled hem foot, as I hardly ever wear bandanas.The pencil case was a bit fiddly to make. I needed one that would fit all my uni supplies in it, and I wanted it to be fully lined. I didn't take any pictures of the making process, and it's difficult to describe how I made it. However, if anyone is interested, I would be happy to make a tutorial on how to make your own.Airborne Floral Pencil CaseI am extremely happy with everything I made, although I doubt I'll wear the bandana with any other outfit. The pencil case has already proved very useful and hasn't fallen apart yet. I want to make about a hundred more half circle skirts with rolled hems, they're so simple and so comfy! 

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Sewing, Wearables Sewing, Wearables

Phases of the Moon Skirt

side of moon skirtI designed this fabric, Phases of the Moon, a couple years ago, with no real plan besides releasing it on Spoonflower.phases of the moon dress unfinishedI bought myself two yards last year with the intent of making a dress. It didn't work out and I can't remember exactly what happened, but pieces of the fabric remained in my fabric box up until this Thursday.When I pulled the fabric out, I found I'd already cut out the perfect base for a high/low hem skirt. I couldn't find the top half of the dress anywhere. All that I did was sew a narrow casing and put a bit of elastic through it. Since it was a knit fabric, I didn't even hem it. Ridiculously simple!The fabric is amazing! My design looks great, and the fabric I chose was Modern Jersey. There are some small design details that do not show up on the fabric, but that's my own fault. I had written the names of each moon phase under the corresponding moon in a light grey. The words were too tiny to show up against such a dark background.I I'm kind of disappointed I wasn't able to make the dress I wanted, but I'm happy with what I made. If I do ever find the rest of the moon fabric, I'll probably make a matching crop top.

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Wearables, Sewing Wearables, Sewing

Icecream Crop Top

I've had this icecream fabric sitting in my fabric box for over a year, and I finally decided I needed to  make something with it.Since I only had two fat quarters of this fabric, I knew I wouldn't be able to make something very big, but I new I wanted to make something I could wear. I copied the the front and back of a tank top I liked the shape of and cut these out. This didn't work as well as I had hoped, and I had to modify the front piece a lot in order to get it to look nice. I took out about 2 centimeters from the center front and added in bust darts that I angled towards the front seam. I folded over the sides of the front and back pieces and hemmed them. Next, I added small pieces of stretchy elastic these sides to add some stretch and interesting detail to the top.When making this, I really wanted to showcase the icecream fabric. I think this top does a good job of this, despite having more seam detail than I wanted. The bust darts aren't very visible, but I'm not happy with the center front seam. I do think this top will get some wear out of it, but it's not my favorite. At least I was able to use a fabric I already had!

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Wearables, Sewing Wearables, Sewing

Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt

For the last day of MCM London, I partnered up with my friend Ruth to cosplay Panty and Stocking from the anime Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt. Both of us made our own costumes.I sewed my skirt, my shirt, my corset, my sleeves, and my leg warmers from white cotton, purple cotton, and a stretchy metallic fabric. The bracelets I painted with silver paint, and the shoes were originally white, which I covered with silver metallic fabric. Ruth patterned the wings, but we both made our own set out of wire, fabric, feathers, and hot glue.The metallic fabric was such a pain to use because it was very stretchy and pins would leave permanent holes in it. The corset was particularly difficult because the metallic fabric had to be backed onto a stiff muslin. Hopefully I'll be able to write a more in depth post about how I made the corset despite neglecting to take photos of the whole second half of the process.Luckily, that Sunday was the coolest of the days, meaning the costume wasn't too warm to wear. I did have an issue with the shoes, but that was mostly due to my own poor use of glue. Bits of hardened hot glue jabbed into my heel, and the fabric slowly peeled off the shoes. If I were to cover shoes with fabric again, I'd probably do it over the course of a few days using some kind of super glue, or maybe modge podge.group panty and stockingWe also met a couple of lovely cosplayers who were cosplaying the same characters as us! I only have a link for the Panty cosplayer's Instagram, but she has some super cute cosplays on there, so definitely check out her page! I especially loved what they used for the hearts on their outfits!Photos taken by Daisy Tweed

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Doctor Who - The Fourth Doctor

Last weekend was London MCM 2017! I went all three days and had a fantastic time. I didn't cosplay the first day, but I wore my french fry dress and got a surprising amount of complements as well as a photo request! If I am able to track down the photo, I'll be sure to share it here!tumblr_oqs37rABJI1ustsfxo8_1280On the second day of MCM, I dressed as the fourth regeneration of the Doctor from Doctor Who.Most of the outfit is store bought, but I made both the scarf and the skirt. I knitted the scarf in fifty hours over the course of 5 months, starting on the first of January and finishing just last week on the 6th. My research for the scarf design was a combination of this site and meticulous combing through yarn websites. The scarf is a replica of the scarf worn by Tom Baker in the first half of season 12 of Doctor Who. I think I was able to find a very good color match with the yarn. It took a bit longer to make than I thought it would, and I made a few tiny mistakes, but I am very happy with it. I made it using US size 8 knitting needles.The skirt is actually one I made for my costume course at uni. It's an Edwardian skirt with center back snaps and hook and eyes. I did a very good job of pattern matching each seam, which is especially evident in the back panel. The synthetic plaid fabric is backed on a black cotton, and every seam is piped with the same black cotton.I met many lovely people at the Doctor Who meet up, but unfortunately I didn't take many pictures. I'm not really sure who took the above photo or who some of the people are in it, so please tell me if you know!If I end up going to LFCC this year, I'll be wearing this cosplay on one of the days. I plan on adding a waistcoat and possibly some nice shoes to the costume before then. 

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