Purple Overdress Part 2

This is part 2 of a random sewing project I did inbetween costumes. Part 1 included information on the fabrics and the pattern. As well as the cutting of the fabric pieces. What I did not mension was that for this project I also followed a tutorial on the sewing process like that of the one I used for my Toothless jacket. Here is a link to the tutorial - Simplicity Pattern 1773 - Medieval Dress - Overdress. On this post I will be going over the steps I took to sew the overdress.

Taking the two front bodice pieces and the ribbon I cut 14 pieces of 4cm ribbon.

I then folded the ribbon in half wrong sides together and pinned 7 to each side according to the dots marked on the pattern pieces.

After this I sewed a length of ribbon vertically from the top of each fabric piece to the bottom. I made sure the long piece of ribbon covered the raw edges of each loop. Though I love the colour clashes I think using the crushed velvet was a bad idea, because sewing the ribbon on the stretch fabric made it pucker a little and not sit very straight. Note I am mostly self taught so this was a learning experience for me on the properties of fabrics.
I then sewed all the bodice sides together to make one long piece and then separately did the same for the lining pieces. Then on both pieces I pressed the seams flat.

Next on the lining piece I measured out the boning strips. I trimmed 5mm off the boning and curved the ends so that the wouldn't poke in my sides. I chose to buy boning with pre-made sleeves to make the process easier.

I then pinned all pieces on the lining and sewed all the way around leaving the top end open.

I had some trouble with the tension while sewing. It turned out that at some point when my bobbin snapped a small piece of thread got caught on the inside and stuffed up my tension. I was easily able to clear up the problem by removing the caught thread. I then re-sewed over the existing lines.

I then inserted all the boning back into the sleeves and sewed the top ends closed.

I sewed the sleeves right sides together to the front bodice pieces. Then rights sides together I sewed the bodices lining and fabric together and turned it right side out. I then sewed the skirt pieces together following the patterns instructions and added it to the bodices then finally hand sewing the back of the sleeves to the bodice after adjusting the length.

I added the final touch of the ribbon that holds the bodice closed which was too long in the photos I will trim it later and my side project was done. Next post will be another side project which is a black dress.

Purple Overdress Part 1

I wasn't sure what to call this post because I didn't make this for any particular purpose I just had a pattern lying around and just bought some nice new fabric so I made it. The pattern I had was a medieval dress pattern by Simplicity, the number is 1773. The fabric I used was a dark purple crushed velvet and a cheap dark blue cotton. This project also needed boning and light weight fusible interfacing. I probably spent about three or four days on this dress because it involved boning and I had never done this before.

This is what the dress looked like when it was finished. I am not going to keep the excess ribbon that I wrapped around my waist in the photo. I accidentally over measured how much I would need.

Here is what the dress pattern looked like. I made the over dress which is pattern B on the package. You can also see an example on the front of the envelope my dress was the brown over dress. As you can probably see I altered the pattern so that I would just have shoulder straps instead of the whole arm loop things.

These are the fabrics I used (plus the interfacing)

The crushed fabric looked like this. I was kind of a purpley-blue in real life.

I used this cheap $3 cotton for the lining because lining is just as expensive as  the main fabric. Plus it does a fine job anyway.

This is the 1/4 inch ribbon I used. I wanted the colours to really clash and stand out. That is why I picked a fluorescent green.

Following the patterns instructions I cut out the pieces for the overdress bodice and skirt out of the main fabric. I then did the same for the interfacing and lining. But for these I did not cut out the skirt patterns again. then on the interfacing I trimmed about half an inch off of the perimeter and then fused the interfacing to the corresponding lining pieces.

That is it for part 1 of the over dress post. On the next post I will talk about the sewing part.

Toothless Cosplay Part 2 - Jacket

Ok onto the Toothless jacket, this is the main feature of the costume I wanted to kind of look like I was a human toothless. So in order to make the jacket I needed the right materials. I took the long drive to Spotlight and bought a fake leather fabric. This particular fabric was black and had a big scale pattern. It was fairly expensive fabric and I needed a lot of it so I was glad that I was using my birthday money to pay for it. Next I drove to Lincraft and found a crushed velvet fabric that I wanted to use for the lining of the jacket. (Note for future reference don't use a very stretchy fabric with a fabric that doesn't stretch at all. Though the end result looks nice I am afraid to wash it because I think the velvet will over stretch and hang loose from the fake leather.) I bought two different colours a black and a light red. This was to symbolize Toothless' tail when he gets the new fin, you can only see a small part of the red so I think it looks fabulous. Though if I make this jacket again I would go with a woven red and black fabric.

Using the pattern mentioned in the Toothless design post I cut out the pieces for the jacket. But in doing this I altered the pattern so that it would suit my character and fabric. I got rid of neck ruffle and altered the sleeves so the fitted part of the sleeve finished at the elbow. Then I measured the end of the sleeve marked it on the fabric and made is flare out into a wide tube. I did this to symbolize the thickening of Toothless' arms.

If you plan to make the jacket this way you'll need:
- paper clips
- zip foot/roller foot (I found for most of it though my normal foot was fine)
- patience

These are all the pieces cut out. To sew the pieces together I followed a tutorial on YouTube. I did this because at the time I was not very good at sewing. I am mostly self taught. Here is a link to the tutorial if you are interested - Simplicity Pattern 2172 - Steampunk Coat it is a very good tutorial and you can find other tutorials that help follow through the rest of this pattern, showing the bodice and the skirt.

These are pictures of most of the jacket sewn together. It is still missing the lining and the sleeves. Since I was using fake leather I could not use pins so I researched online and found that paper clips work and no they! They are the best way to pin leather together especially if you have a box with different size paper clips. Note, since my fake leather was patterned I could not iron the seams down without damaging the pattern. In order to overcome this I did something like a jean seam stitch where I reinforced all seams with another stitch to get it to sit flat. On the side seams I sewed them down facing toward the back and on the back seam I laid the seam flat and sewed on either side.

Here is a picture of the lining installed. Though I do not like leather and velvet together I think that the velvet by itself would have made a very nice jacket or dress. This is because it had a nice flow and weight to it.

This is what I have finished of the jacket I still need to add the other sleeve. I plan on added the other sleeve and then shortening both because they are a little too long and adding Velcro instead of buttons to the front. I think that this will look neater for the cosplay and buttons I think just wouldn't work with fake leather. This is probably the most frustrating costume I've made because the jacket is just too heavy for the machine. This is why I have been procrastinating on finishing the last sleeve.

Anyway I plan to have it finished for when the second movie is released in cinemas. I might have some pictures after that. I am currently starting to work on the head piece and should have that finished soon. My next few posts will be on random sewing projects that I have been working on lately. So yeah, I am really happy with how the jacket looks even if is was a pain to make and is uncomfortable. Well if it is FOR COSPLAY! I can deal with being uncomfortable as long as the costume is pretty.

Discord Photos

Here are photos for the full Discord costume. I would like to credit Alphonze191 for taking all the beautiful photos. She is one of my closest friends and is an AWESOME photographer! Also in some of the photos there is another cosplayer dressed as Queen Chrysalis she is another of my close friends. Here is her Deviant Art BeeBee561.

That's that for Discord I hope showing the process of my costume helped people with their own or was just interesting. I hope some of the techniques I used will be useful for other other people. Once again all photo credit goes to Alphonze191. Thank you for the fabulous photos! In the future I plan to have a photo shoot with my Toothless costume. But since the costume isn't finished yet it may be a long while until then.

Toothless Cosplay Part 1 - Design

The is my next costume which isn't fully completed yet this is my Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon. I was inspired by the Toothless character to make this costume and my friends wanted to do a group cosplay and wear it to the premiere of the second movie. I don't know how nor do I want to go through the process of making a quadsuit so I designed a humanoid version of Toothless.

Here was my first design which was based off some of the other humanoid cosplays of Toothless that I had seen. I also at first wanted this costume to be similar to my Discord costume. But then I got a sewing machine when it was on sale and decided I wanted to make this costume a littler more fancy.

I personally like this costume a lot better. I planned to make this costume using a patter by Simplicity. Which was a steam punk pattern 2172.

I altered the pattern so that I could use my chosen fabric which was a black fake leather with a scaled pattern engraved into it. It would kind of look like I was wearing Toothless' hide as a jacket.

My next post will be on how I made the jacket and I will note this now since making the jacket I will forever hate fake leather. It is really annoying to sew with.

Discord Cosplay Part 8 - Extras

This is the last post for my Discord costume. In this post I will talk about all the extra accessories that I added after the costume was finished so that I had a completed look in photos. I will be uploading pictures of Discord from a photo-shoot my friends and I had a week ago. They won't be uploaded until Monday though, my friend is still editing the photos.

So for the extras I had:
- Cosmetic eye contacts
- Make up
- Nail polish
- Fangs

Discord has weird eyes that are yellow and red I wanted my costume to look more authentic and creepy by buying eye contacts. I decided that I wanted to wear solid yellow contacts instead of yellow because the yellow colour pops more in photos. I bought mine from youknowit.com I chose this site over others because after some research buy watching contact reviews on YouTube a lot of people were recommending You Know It. Here is a link to the lenses i got - Yellow Contacts This link is to eye contacts that last a year and have a full set including a case, solution and tweasers, so this would be perfect for people who are new to eye contacts.

(Youknowit.com)

When I wore the Discord costume to a small event I wore both contacts but a couple of months later I hadn't checked on my contacts or changed the solution so one eye contact dried up. I don't deem it safe to wear anymore so for the photo shoot I wore one yellow and one blue contact. I think this suited Discord since he is so mismatched. Here is a link to the blue contacts that I got from the website Pinky Paradise - G&G GBT (Aqua) Blue Contacts These contacts looked really natural on my eyes because my own eyes are a grey blue already.

Discord has one very big tooth so I needed fangs to complete the look. I found my fangs on Scarecrow Vampire Fangs.com here is a link to the fangs I used - Sabers extra Long Deluxe Fangs

(Scarecrowvampires.com)

For make up I had a smokey eye look and nude lipstick to draw attention to the eyes and make them look more menacing. Last but not least was some nail polish on my non gloved hand. I bought a cheap $4 BYS gold shimmer nail polish from K-Mart and put a couple of layers on. This was so my nails matched my golden sleeve and just added a nice finish to the outfit.

And that's it for how I made Discord. Like I said I will be posting some pictures from the photo-shoot next week. I hope someone found it interesting and feel free to leave any comments. My next costume that I will be post is my Toothless costume.

Discord Cosplay Part 7 - Shoes

Hey Guys! This is my second last post for the Discord costume! Over the weekend I should be getting good photos of the full costume so I will post them on Monday. So onto the shoes. Originally I was going to do a lot more with the shoes as in following tutorials on how to make a proper hoof shoe and a foam base paw for the other. This didn't happen but I think they still turned out great.

For the shoes I used:
- A pair of cheap, black high heels from K-Mart
- Short fur fabric that matches the furry pant leg
- Hot glue
- Cheap green fabric
- Fabric paint, in light green, white, black and dark green
- Mod podge
- Glad-wrap
- Masking tape
- Needle and thread


Left Shoe (Horse Leg)
Starting with the shoe that will be on the horse leg side. Putting on the shoe I wrapped it glad-wrap (the same way I did the arm) making sure to cover the shoe back and my foot until it was as high as my ankle. Then I covered it with two layers of masking tape. Before I carefully cut the making tape of my shoe and foot I marked the different pieces of the fur direction and how I was going to put it on.
I then placed the pieces on the fur according to the directions I drew and cut them out.

I sewed the two front pieces together along the front seam using a blanket stitch. I also sewed any place where the fur was higher than the shoe so that it was all one piece. Then I hot glued the fur onto the shoe and done! I made the length of the shoe and the length of the pants so that they overlapped seamlessly (thanks to the length of the fur.

Right Shoe (Lizard Leg)
The other shoe didn't turn out as well because the fabric turned a little stiff. But this is how I made it. Using the same process as the last shoe I filled the pattern and traced it onto the fabric. But I cut out the pattern out of a cheap green cotton fabric that I had lying around the house. Sewing the pieces together I then attached it to the shoe using hot glue.

I then mixed the white and light green paint together until I had a matching tint to my pants. I then did several layers in order to get the base colour. Then using the dark green I drew three lines that would be the crease in between the toes. The I created a gradient lallet of paint and began shading around the toes to create depth in the toes and make them look realistic and shapely. I made sure while painting that I kept repainting the toe lines and when I was finished shading I got the dark green paint and a little bit of black and painted an even thinner line inside to make it look deeper.

Last but not least I added a couple of layers of mod podge so the sole of the shoe to prevent the paint from chipping and protecting it from the weather. I was a little disappointed with this shoe because it was stiff with paint. If I remade it in the future I would try to find a fabric that was closer to my pant leg colour. Or better yet buy another pair and cut it up into pieces for the shoe.

This was the last real post for Discord. The next post will be on finishing touches for the cosplay such as eye contacts I used and fangs. Please stay tuned to my blog because on Saturday I will be posting the start of my Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon costume.