The end result

I know I have been slow to update. There are lots of reasons including illness and pain, but let’s forget about the excuses and see the result, right?

Here is how the cosplay turned out on the day

I’m actually wearing the blue contacts here, before they started hurting my eyes. I’m sorry that this is the only real photo I have but I’m terrible at taking photos of myself.

I do, however, have photos of other people who made their costumes for manifest too.

 

 

Every single one of these cosplays was made by the people wearing them. Some of them managing to do so within a few days!

With a basic knowledge of sewing, you can make your own costumes. Especially because some of the Ebay bought ones are quite expensive. I think the Zelda twilight Princess one for $350.00 is the most expensive I’ve seen.

Not to mention the pride you feel when you say that you made the costume yourself. The first attempt my not be the best but you can only improve!

Good luck

A wild blog post appears!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I am finally updating. Sorry everyone!

This post is to show the process of making the skirt. However, there are not a lot of pictures so a lot of it will be described, or else you may have to look up yourself.

 

This is the other layer of the skirt. I have used a blue suiting material that I also used on the jacket. The best thing about this cosplay is that a lot of the same colours and materials were used.

The outer layer consisted of 3 large sections. There would be a seam (where the two pieces of material join) on The left, the right and at the back. The back is special that it has a zip in it.

Here in the photo, it shows the notch. I was required to stitch up to the notch and leave the rest open as the zip would be stitched there.

This is the three pieces of material folded to make the size of only one. When spread out, it was quite large and I couldn’t fit it all into the photo.

So I started making the waistband but I quickly found out that I had to make it bigger and that it needed to be made of the blue material, not the ivory one.
The waistband consisted of three pieces shaped like this.

Here is another variation of the waistband done in the ivory lining. I used the lining to create the petticoat.

This is 1 segment of the lower section of the petticoat. There are 5 more of these segments.

Here is the 6 segments sewn together. It is incredibly large, but it needs to be.

Also, the lining is quite a light fabric to prevent being weighed down and too hot.

This is a thin hem. I had to look it up on youtube just to figure out how to do it. Turns out you need to just make the hem 6mm and double it to make it neat.

The rest isn’t documented so I’ll try to explain it as best as possible.

With the bottom ruffle completed, I had three sections, similar to the outer skirt but much shorter, together. I then had to stitch the bottom ruffle with the upper one using a technique called gathering.

If you are interested, watch tutorials on how to gather on youtube as there is many different ways to gather and sometimes it’s best to decide which is easiest for you.

Here’s an image of a small section of the petticoat.

The two tiers was then stitched to the outer skirt, matching up the seam for the zip.

The zip was sewn in and I began on the waistband.

This is the front of the waistband. The waistband exists to make the skirt lay flat under the corset.

The white stuff is boning, to sturdy the material.

This is the side/back section of the waistband.

Here is the side waistband ready to be turned over (It’s possible I did this the wrong side, I sometimes get confused)

Here are the three pieces together. If you think that it looks a bit small, it was. I had to re-do the side sections to add an extra 10cm. It was then a bit big at the top, but it’s easier to take something in then to make something bigger.

This is the waistband being sewn together to make it nice and tidy. The side sections are inside out and have to be pulled the right way around.

Here is the waistband finished

 

Once I had completed a waistband that actually fit me (there was no sizes on the pattern for some reason), it was sewn to the rest of the skirt to complete it.

No image of the completed skirt as yet, hopefully next post

 

I’m really sorry /o\

Unfortunately during the time between the last post and this post, I had to complete the costume as the event was on during the 3rd weekend of august.
I will still go through the process of making it, but there will not always be photos. It’s during this time that I will try to have some kind of image to explain things better.
I’m not completely happy with the bolero or the corset so I may adjust those for next years conventions.

Hopefully I will update with more posts soon.

Bolero:Aka, the jacket

So it was time to work on the jacket.
This is the part of the pattern I cut out and pinned together. The material is for suiting.

This is the lining that will go inside the shell from the previous picture.

Here is the shell and the lining side by side

This is the sleeves when they’ve been flattened. These also need lining.

Here is the sleeve, folded over so the little triangles (notches) match up


Here is the sleeves and sleeve linings all ready to go

This is how the Shell and the lining will line up together.

This was actually awkward to do. I had to turn the lining and shell inside out, sew along the edge (not including the sleeves) before turning it the right way around by pulling the rest of the garment through the arm holes.

Here is the jacket with right sleeve shell attached. When I say shell, I mean it’s only the suiting material with no lining inside.

Here you can see that the lining isn’t attached.

Sorry about the blurry quality. Here I’ve attached both sleeve shells.

I was awkwardly trying to attach the sleeve lining here.

The lining isn’t attached on this end, even though we’ve attached it from the other. To make it look neat you are meant to fold the lining and shell the fold is on the inside. this was incredibly hard to do so I ended up using an iron binding. The one I used for the corset. The finish is pretty much the same.
All that was left after that is the white cuff

This was my first attempt at trying to do some neat and tidy cuffs, but it ended up being to short so I did it again, but this time I just tidied up the edges, figuring that no one would see the other side anyway.

And here is the finished product! Almost. I have bought some buttons to go onto the cuffs, but I’ll do that later as there is more important things to do! (Such as the skirt!)

Bonus stage!

I found these shoes at Betts for $40. They were originally $80, so score! They looked at close as I could get to Elizabeths shoes.

I’m not dead!

I’m just letting everyone know that I am still working on this, i just had another project I was working on.
Hopefully I will be able to update soon with something more interesting

Linings. They’re a pain but you need them.

Here is a small flash file in case you don’t understand what is written below.

Find it here https://www.dropbox.com/s/lenaejmmusettlr/sewing.swf

If you can’t, I will try my best to explain it in text.

Place the lining and the corset front to front so that the hems are on the outside and can be easily seen.

Sew along the top of your corset, leaving a standard 5/8’s or 1.5 cm of material for a hem.

Left the lining up and place it so that the Corset and lining are back to back so that the hems are no longer visible.

From there you need to fold the lining and the corset up to make a tidy hem. Usually you would hand sew it, but I created and used an iron on binding.

If you do not understand what a hem is or have questions please feel free to ask in the comments.

I tried using Hook and eye tape as a fastener, but I don’t really like it, so I will most likely remove it and put in singular hook and eyes. Don’t worry, images of them next time I post about the corset.

The hardest part is done, so I will move onto the jacket next. It’s best to get the bases done and add the details later.

Warning: large post incoming

Here are some photos documenting the pattern making process. Even though I explained it in the previous post how I was going to do it.

This is the pattern as it comes in the packaging. I was tracing it while making some guesses at alterations

The pink piece of fabric is the practise piece. This help me figure out where it was too big or small.

I then traced the practise piece so that I could make the final pattern.

Final pattern pinned down

Cutting it out

Two front pieces

Here it is again. As you can see there are two different sides, a right side and a wrong side to the fabric.

I completed the corset using the same techniques shown in previous posts. I will show you the boning process though.

This is two variations of plastic boning. It’s possible to get it in steel and other materials but plastic is the cheapest.

On the left is sew-through boning and on the right is the poly covered boning.

This is a close up of the sew through boning, sorry about the terrible quality. The camera refused to focus.

This is the poly covered boning. It has a polyester cover on it.

I have sewn along the hem to create a channel for the boning to go into.

First we pull the cover off, it’s not needed as I have created a channel for the boning to go into. If I didn’t have the channel, then the cover would be required to sew the boning to the material.

Now the cover is off, it can be inserted into the channel

Once it is in, I continue to do the same for the rest of the hems. (Hems are where the two pieces of fabric have been sewn together).

After the boning was completed, I started on the lining. You basically recreate the corset, but don’t need to include the boning.

The top part is the satin corset. The bottom one is the lining.

The two fabrics were then placed front to front (sorry! No photos.) They were sewn at the top and then flipped over so the top would be tidy.

I will update again with illustrations explaining the process used of connecting the lining and corset and also of the finished product.

 

Creating the final pattern

 

A toile is a practise piece of clothing. In this case a practise corset.

 I pinned in the parts that were too big so i was able to get a pattern that would be completely suited to me.

I am also creating lining for the pattern and will include how I did that.

Now it’s serious

The reason I have focused on the corset is because it is the hardest part of this cosplay. Once it is taken care of, then I can relax a little bit. ^^;;

Anyway, here is the process of the practise corset.

This is piece one. It’s folded in half as requested on the pattern.

Here I’m showing you that it is indeed folded in half.

Piece 2. There are 2 of them =P Confusing I know.

Piece 1 and 2

Using the triangles to match them up. This lets you know how the two pieces are meant to fit together.

This is what it looks like pinning the two triangle pieces together.

It doesn’t sit properly at the moment but that’s okay

It didn’t match up at the bottom, I had to pin it so it did.

This is piece 1 with the two piece 2’s attached.

All pinned up, ready to sew \o/

Piece 3’s are added on here.

Inside the corset, showing the extra fabric which is the hem lines

As you can see there are two lots of extra fabric.

I’ve sewn along the hemline to create a tunnel for the boning to go into.

Here is the boning inside it’s casing. The casing is not required for this pattern.

That’s the boning being pushed into the hemline tunnel/casing

Here is the corset right side up with all the boning placed inside \o/

This is an invisible zip.

Here’s a picture outside the plastic. Basically when it’s sewn up, you’re not meant to be able to see the zip at all.

I did add the zip to the corset and I have a picture of me wearing it but it’s not safe for the internet. I will be using this practise part to adjust the pattern I have.

Here is an illustration to explain things

The hardest part is changing the panels. Once that’s done the rest should be easy.

Good news everyone!

I searched at Lincraft for a better corset pattern due to the previous one being the wrong shape. I managed to find one but unfortunately they sold out. They didn’t know when they were going to get any more in, which was rather annoying.

Eventually I went to Spotlight and found they not only had the pattern, but they were half price! \o/

So I bought not only the corset pattern, but also the bolero as well.

The Corset is from New look, pattern number 6480. It’s normally $10.95 Aus

http://sewing.patternreview.com/cgi-bin/patterns/sewingpatterns.pl?patternid=9160

The bolero pattern is from Butterick, pattern number is B4731. Normally $20.95 Aus

http://butterick.mccall.com/b4731-products-4681.php?page_id=152

Hopefully I’ll be able to update with the actual making process soon \o/