Comic Con 2014

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I made Jordan's Comic Con costume. I spent a few weeks on it but I honestly should have spent closer to a month. It was kind of elaborate. 

Here is a refresher of what we started with, a video game character from Skyrim. 

I patterned the costume and wound up with over 50 pieces including pants, tunic, hooded over tunic and fingerless gloves. It took a really long time to cut out all of those pieces. 

Slowly, very slowly, the pieces came together. 

It was a pain to line up the seams but it was well worth it!

The under tunic had a majority of the pieces, so many seams!

I pinned a cut out of my hand on the hooded tunic, to check the size and placement for the painted hand. You can see it's starting to come together at this point. 

After that I had the decorative stitching to add. By hand. I could have taken a week on the stitching alone. 

My fingers were very sore. 

Did I mention I had an earlier deadline because we were going on vacation? Yep. We left the week of Comic Con. Luckily, Jordan is really laid back and compassionate. He was really appreciative of his costume. I really wanted to add some distressing so it didn't look so pristine. 

Here is Jordan at Comic Con. I neglected to take pictures when he picked up his costume. 

Shirt Dresses and Shrouded Robes

I realized recently that Mina, despite appearances, is growing. This realization came when I tried to dress her in her Easter dress and she couldn't move her arms.  Her beautiful, colorful plaid silk Easter dress was too small. I went to Hancock's and bought some printed cotton from their sale table. It had a bird print that looked vintage in an ugly/interesting sort of way.  I loved it. 

Patterning the dress was quick, I used her blouse pattern as a base.

I swapped in sharper collar and puffed sleeves. I made the skirt extra full and followed suit with the diaper cover. For a pattern that came together so quickly, the dress took a long time to finish. 

She wore it for the first time to Cooper's service. I realized after I finished it that it was really done, it needed pockets, belt loops and a belt. The body of the dress was too big, I got a little carried away with adding ease. Maybe that just means she will be able to wear it next year?

The extra fullness means it floats out when she twirls or rides on the teeter totter. 

I really want to make a few more! 

My current project is my brother's Comic Con costume. Last year he went as Henchman 21 from Venture Brothers. It was a really fun costume that turned out better than I anticipated. 

This year he is dressing as an assassin from the video game Skyrim. Initially I felt like it was going to be too big of a challenge, the costume is kind of complicated. 

But, then craziness ruled out and I agreed to make it. We met so I could take some measurements and we could talk about the specifics. 

Once we broke it down into separate elements it became much more manageable. 

I sketched and took notes while he showed me the character on the game. I took the information and made a mock up out of some polyester that had a good weight to it. After a fitting I finalized the pattern. 

Now I need to buy the fabric and make costume. I hope I don't mess it up!

The last few months

And once again I am updating a few months' worth of projects on my neglected blog. Is it really neglected if no one reads it? 

I made another coat for Mina because the first one was too narrow for multiple layers or even a sweater underneath. I decided to use box pleats to get enough room in the body of the coat. I love the bright turquoise lining and the way it peaks out when the coat moves. 

Mina wore it without closures for a while. I wasn't sure what to use or the color to choose because of the coat's color. In the end I used some silver filigree buttons. 

Excuse the funny red cast in the picture, the playground equipment is very bright. 

I fell in love with the cute double collar on a few items in the Fall/Winter Hucklebones collection. I bought a really pretty purple turtleneck at the DI and decided it would be a great dress for Mina. The combination of the double collar and cuffs has lead to a few funny comments at church. Namely, "school marm" and pilgrim. 

I picked up a large piece of light weight dark teal wool at the "give and take" table at Relief Society on night. I loved the color and the fact it wasn't overly scratchy. I used a BabyGap dress as inspiration for the jumper. 

This is actually the second version of the jumper, the first was too narrow and short. I think Mina will be able to wear this one for quite a while. She wore it to her first official day of nursery. 

I made this colonial dress for my friend's daughter. She picked out the pattern and materials. I think it turned out really well. It was a very fun project!

Last up, monkey wings. My Mom's school, Oak Hills, is presenting "The Wizard of Oz" next month. I was asked to create 8 sets of monkey wings for the winged monkeys. I brainstormed a structure for the form and then created a set of prototype wings. Last week I took the wings to rehearsal and luckily, they worked. 

My hands were so sore from clipping all of the curves on the scalloped edges. 16 individual wings means a lot of curves to clip. I made the framework for the wings out of a dry cleaning hanger because that type of hanger is lightweight and it bends well. After that I added the felt wing and stitched them together. I made a harness out of woven elastic, foam core board and Velcro. I glued everything together after that. 

I think it was a success. We'll see how they hold up during rehearsals and performances. 

I'm kind of embarrassed

I'm way behind on blogging about projects.
Here we go...
My Mom's Lucy Wilde costume.  I still haven't seen Despicable Me 2 so I watched the trailer a couple of times and I looked at pictures from the movie. Here is my sketch of the coat and the approximation of the pattern pieces.

 My Mom was hesitant to spray her hair orange so I styled a wig.  I really could have used my friend Molly's expertise with that part!

 Mina the Ewok.  I was pretty happy with the results.  I made little boots but they kept falling off and one got lost. So, pink tennis shoes were her footwear for Halloween.

 I threw my costume together.  The pants were made from stretch denim with ribbon trim on the sides.  I was going to include a side zipper but opted to make them like stretch pants. I figured that my poncho would cover up the waist so I didn't even bother with a waist band.  I was also kind of nervous about how the pants would fit due to pregnancy bloat.  They seemed to work out fine and the poncho covered EVERYTHING!

This next project took a really long time.  It wasn't any more difficult that anything I made before it was just that I felt so rotten.  I had some problems with the lining and the iron. I remedied both by using a larger pressing cloth.  I wound up cutting THREE SLEEVE LININGS for one arm because I melted two of them. In the process I of melting the first one I burned my hand. My patience went out the window during my first trimester.

In the original sketch the sleeves as well as the pockets and yoke were going to be cut from the striped sweater.  I didn't have enough so I used the gray for the hood, sleeves and body of the coat. I painted the toggles black with acrylic paint and added black buttons to the sleeves for decoration. 

Last up, Mina's coat for this winter.  She can still fit in her coat from last year but it's kind of short.  Okay, really short. I took her measurements and started patterning.  I hoped that her wiggles didn't mess up the measurements too much.  

I was inspired to use a double collar after I saw this adorable picture on the Hucklebones website.

The shirt isn't available now but I loved the look of the collar.  I think I'll revisit it for a dress or a cute top.  

 Mina's coat was once a cashmere sweater that I bought for $5 at DownEast in Logan.  I was a poor grad student and I couldn't believe my luck! The sweater bit the dust in the washer so I washed it a few more times and then dried it in the dryer.  I shrunk up nicely and now Mina has a cute new coat.

 It's closer to purple rather than bright magenta.  I'm still working on my photography skills.

Projects!!!

I've been pretty busy lately. I should blog more often. 

I made a baby shower present for my friend Courtney's baby boy-to-be. 

Shrunken sweater vest coat and wrap shoes. 

I lined it with an old tee shirt. I love stripes!

The next project I finished was an under the bust corset. 

Pattern and detail of finished front:

Next I made a costume for my brother for Comic Con. 

Henchman 21 from Venture Brothers. 

I altered a hooded shirt and pajama pants to make the bodysuit. Then I made the gloves, boot covers and "romper" out of gold cotton fabric. The wings, goggles and belt buckle were made from foam core that I painted after. 

We used red sunglasses as a base and added the foam core over the top. 

Jordan gave me an old pair of boots to build upon. I used Velcro to close the inside edge and I hot glued the fabric tops to the boots. Classy. 

James helped me test out the harness for the wings. He's such a sport. 

Ta-Da!!!

I'm pretty happy with the final results. Jordan said he took a lot of pictures with people during the two days he attended in costume. He appreciated that the pouch on his belt was functional so he could carry his phone and wallet. I also added Velcro to the belt buckle so he could remove it when he was sitting. 

Last up, a tree. 

It will hang on a blackboard and magnetized apples will hang on it. The apples will have songs on the backside. 

I'm tired. 

Pink

Sometimes I still get to make fun costumes in a really short amount of time.  I recently made a Glinda the Good Witch dress for a Girl's Camp skit. It was a really fun, quick project.  It was the first thing I completed in my new craft room!

The name of the game was cheap with this project so I used fabric from Walmart and stick on gem stones. Now that I have made a quick Glinda dress I kind of want to make a fancy version with lots of sparkly stuff.

 The bodice with the rhinestone stickers.

I made the crown out of three sheets of glitter foam.  I added shadows with black acrylic paint to give the crown more dimension.