Sorry For My Long Absence

Sorry I've been away from my blog for so long. Tonight or tomorrow I should have that long promised wing tutorial up. I also have a lot of new projects to add that I've been working on over the past few months. Stay tuned.

Coming Soon! How to Make My Little Pony Craft Foam Wings

 
So I did end up making a quick costume for New York Comic Con. I really enjoy the cartoon My Little Pony, so I decided to go as a human version of Fluttershy. Yes I know, it's a show for little girls. I don't care. It's a quality show. It was pretty fun, though some of the bronies (adult male fans of the show for those not familiar with the lingo) I got attention from were a little frightening...... Any who....

Want to make your own MLP wings? Well it's fun, easy, and cheap. I'll have a tutorial up in the next day or so, complete with a wing template! Woohoo.

How I Made my Glinda from Wicked Costume

So things have finally begun to settle down in my life, so I can now get back to updating my blog regularly. I promised a while back to list the resources I used to make my Glinda dress. It does require some pattern making, but with a measuring tape, paper, pencil and a little bit of patience, it wasn't all that difficult. It was definitely time consuming in the end, but not hard.

First things first, how did i make the bodice? To me the costume looks like a fully boned underbust corset, so that's exactly what I made. I found this wonderful blog with detailed instructions on how to draft an underbust corset to your measurements. She also goes on to explain how to construct it. Here are the links:

Pattern Tutorial
Construction Tutorial

I bought my corset materials from two places. First, the boning I bought from corsetmaking.com. I also used coutil in the construction of my corset. Coutil is a fabric made specifically for corsets, as it does not stretch and it really is the best thing you can possibly use. I adhered the yellow satin to the coutil using Pellon Wonder Under prior to cutting the pattern pieces. The best price I found for coutil was on Etsy.

After I completely finished the corset, I added the top portion of the bodice. Here I did use a store bought pattern, but it was something I already had on hand. Butterick 5029. I believe it's out of print now, but it's readily available on ebay. I slightly modified the top and then sewed it directly to the corset. If I did this again, I would go head a make an entire dress and not attach it to the corset. It would have been much more comfortable. In other words, I would just construct this pattern, but change the skirt to a handkerchief skirt.

Finally, I did make a skirt. I followed the instructions in this tutorial, but instead I used 3 layers of fabric instead of 2. I made the swirly design by cutting a slightly darker chiffon into approximately 1 inch strips. I found if I cut the strips on the bias they would fray less. I then ran the strips through my sewing machine on the widest stitch possible and then gently gathered them. The gathered strips I then pinned and hand stitched to the skirt.

The fabric I used was all bought online from New York Fashion Center Fabrics. I have used them several times and their quality is excellent. I bought about 4 yards of the silk chiffon in light yellow, 1 yard in lemon, and about 4 yards of the polyester crepe back satin in bright yellow.

One quick tip this project taught me about chiffon having not used it before. Cutting is best done by first laying out the fabric on tissue paper and then pinning it to the paper, to allow layers to be cut as one. Otherwise your chiffon will move and become deformed as you cut it.

Obviously there are some little construction details I've left out since this was more of an overview, so please do not hesitate to ask me questions. :)

Costumes, Costumes and More Costumes!

Whoa! It's has been waaaaay to long since I've written an entry. The end of Summer/beginning of Fall has been/is very busy. (can you tell I like slashes today?). At the end of August I had Dragon*Con 2012, so the lead up to that was a bit of a whirl wind. The weekend before that I had to go to a wedding in Michigan. Last weekend I went on my yearly pilgrimage to PA Renn Fair. But of course that's no excuse for not writing.

I have some fun pictures to post. Dragon*Con was incredible and I fully intend to go again next year. Everyone's costumes were amazing. There really were many Hollywood quality costumes. And of course the 24 hour partying wasn't bad either. I'm already contemplating my costume for next year. I'm really hoping to turn it up a notch. As for this year, it was a blast dressing as Glinda (Wicked) and Kaylee (Firefly). Only a few people got what my Glinda dress was, but those that did were really into it. I also got a fair amount of compliments for my Kaylee. Here are some pictures from the festivities:

My Kaylee costume :)

The jacket I made myself from an out-of-print mandarin collar jacket pattern (McCalls 4782). I slightly modified by pattern by making very plain sleeves. It called for buttons and other stuff I didn't want. The patches I found at NalaSerenity's shop on Etsy. She was nice enough to assemble all of them in one place thus allowing me to be lazy. The coveralls I bought online, removed a pocket and cut off the sleeves. The parasol I found in Chinatown in NYC and painted myself.

Wearing Glinda at Dragon*Con 2012

Here is the Glinda costume I made completely from scratch. I will be writing a "how to" post when I have more time, so I'll save the details of this dress for later. :)

Look the Emerald City!

And what would Dragon*Con be without your friends. :)

On the far right in my boyfriend dressed as the driver (Ryan Gosling) from Drive. The other two are characters from the game League of Legends.

Oh, I also mentioned Renn Fair. I finally got to debut my newly completed Renn dress.

Trying to look regal

Phew. I need to write more often so my posts aren't nearly so long! There will be much more very soon. Amazingly, I'm not quite out of costume season with New York Comic Con approaching. I decided at the last second to whip something together. You'll just have to wait and see.. ;)

New Etsy Pillow - The Armadillo

So after a total redesign, it's finally ready for Etsy. Here it is, my new armadillo pillow:

I really miss seeing armadillos out in my yard. So I thought I'd bring a little of the south to New Jersey by making my own. He's inspired by a little carved and colorful armadillo I have on my bookshelf. If you enjoy him as much as I do, you can find him here. :)

Progress Report

So some of you have perhaps been wondering where the heck I've been. Well... it's been a busy month. First of all I was on vacation visiting Florida for a week, so obviously I didn't get any work done during that time. Also, I've been working on designing a new pillow to add to my Etsy store. I wasn't happy with the first try, so I've redesigned it and hopefully will have that up soon here as well as my store. I continue to add details to the skirt of the Glinda dress. I'll have some progress pictures of that within the week. I'm really hoping to have the dress completely done very soon, it's just turned out to be very time consuming to add the swirly design. Anyway, I hope you'll bear with me. I'll have some new stuff up really soon. :)

Almost Ready for the Emerald City :)

So I basically finished the construction of the dress last night! Woohoo. Now all I have to finish is some detail work. I'll be adding rhinestones to the bodice and there's a swirly design that needs to be added to the skirt, but this can be done at a leisurely place while sitting on the couch and watching tv. Ha. I also decided to make Glinda's purse. I have a fair amount of experience making purses, so I thought "what the hell, I'll just add one more thing to work on." :) I couldn't find a purse that I was happy with already made. Anyway, check out the dress!