Tag Archives: costume

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Kaylee progress

Kaylee progress

Kaylee progress

Not gonna lie guys, I’m freaking out a tiny bit. PAX is in two days and while I’m very close to finally being done with this dress, I’m not quite close enough to total done-ness that panic isn’t starting to crawl up my butt a little bit.

Things I still need to do:
-Back zips on both the top and bottom
-Peplum, plus peplum ribbon trim
-Ribbon waistbandy thing
-Neckline lace
-Finish the sleeve trims and iron the sleeve hems without burning said sleeve trims
-Figure out how to seam the back of the skirt
-Figure out how see-through the skirt is and whether I need another petticoat

Yep.

The good news though, as some of you may have seen on my Instagram, is that I managed to cobble together a decent looking hoopskirt! I was thinking of posting a tutorial but mine came out kind of derpy so it’s going to hide under that giant gorgeous fluffy mess in shame. I’m happy to post links to the many many existing (and much better made) tutorials I referenced though, if anyone’s interested. If anyone’s interested in learning how to make a derptastic hoopskirt I’m happy to post about that too.

Speaking of hoopskirts, now that the cape is back, can be make hoopskirts be next. They score basically a zero in terms of practicality but omgsomuchfun.

Anyway, I promise I’ll post a more detailed post with more explanation and detail shots (and maybe even some of me in it!) when it’s done.

In the meantime, check out the awesome giveaway one post back.

 

Peggy

Peggy dress

Peggy dress

Peggy dress

Peggy dress

Peggy dress

Peggy dress
dress: self-made, pattern here // shoes: Chelsea Crew

So a few weeks ago I was catching up on Mad Men and saw this dress.

peggydress2

And then Julia Bobbin announced yet another Mad Men Challenge. Um, yes please!

So then I had to figure out what pattern I wanted to use and whether I wanted to go woven or knits. At first I was thinking of using a wool blend and one of my go-to patterns, but then I realized I had the perfect double knit in navy and scarlet and that my trusty Lady Skater would be perfect!

I made a few adjustments as usual (omitted the neck band, shortened the sleeves, added the waist tab thing and the skirt panels), and I actually took some photos for a tutorial post I’ll put up later this week.

And as an added bonus, if I ever go to see a Barcelona soccer game, I’ll be all set in the wardrobe department!

Now I’m craving a cupcake

Kaylee layer cake dress

I’ve taken a bit of a break from my Layer Cake dress but with only 90-something days to PAX, it’s probably time to dive back in. Although the skirt was pretty simple (just a bunch of math and ruffles), I was a bit terrified of starting the bodice since I have yet to run into a pattern that would work for it, which means self-drafting.

Kaylee layer cake dress

I was able to visit The Black Hole of Endless Fabrics, also known as Fabrics ‘R Us while I was at home and found this lovely organza (or is it organdy? I feel like I should know the difference) that is pretty similar to the original pattern. I needed it in white for the bodice and pink for the sleeves, and I’m assuming this stuff is polyester so I bought some iDye on Amazon.

Kaylee layer cake dress

I also picked up some pink ribbon to make a ribbony hair clip and half a yard of a tassel trim. I wish I had taken a picture of the look on the lady’s face when I told her I wanted half a yard of the trim. She was very skeptical and kept holding it up and double-checking that I, in fact, only wanted a measly 18″ of the stuff. I tried to explain that it was for a sleeve trim but I don’t think it helped.

Kaylee layer cake dress

Anyway, I had kind of given up on finding a trim with the right sized tassels but then I came across this one! It has both pale cream tassels and slightly olivey gold ones. I’m thinking of dipping the cream ones in the iDye as well to make them a little pinker. I have 33 tassels and I’m thinking I’ll put 16 on each sleeve puff with one spare. Perfect!

Ok, enough stalling. I’m going to start the bodice today. I swear.

Things I still need:
-Hoop skirt stuff
-Organza(dy) ribbon for bodice seams
-Pink lace for neckline (or ribbon?)
-Chainette fringe (tutorial here)
-Satin covered buttons

We’re getting there!!

The Impossible Dress

Clara Oswald dress

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Clara Oswald dress

Clara Oswald dress
dress: self-made // shoes: Clarks

Actually this dress was pretty simple to put together, despite the collar taking two tries. The post title refers to Clara Oswald, the Impossible Girl. Yes, I’m nerding out, Doctor Who style.

Sometimes when I watch TV shows or movies I admire costumes and whatnot and it’s not until later that I go back and think “Hmm that one would be nice to make someday if I run out of projects..” And then there’s the costumes that sort of kick you in the butt and cling to your creative centers whining “Make meee IMMEDIATELYYYY.” Ahem. This was one of the latter.

I’d been searching for a fabric for this dress (and one other one, which I FINALLY* found and is being shipped to me soon!) and couldn’t find a single thing remotely close to it anywhere.

The original dress looks like this:

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It’s a Vaudeville and Burlesque dress with a collar added. But what the hell do you call that kind of a print?! I searched endless combinations of “red floral geo”, “red dotted geo”, “red floral abstract”, just “red” etc. on eBay, Etsy, fabric.com, and even Jo-ann and found absolutely nothing that looked remotely similar. Le frustration.

But then I went to my local fabric store last week and there it was! Just sitting there on the shelf waiting for me. I have absolutely no idea what this kind of fabric is called but it’s a slightly textured chiffon-esque fabric but it’s almost opaque and slightly thicker than chiffon would be. Crepe? No idea. Anyway, it had wide horizontal red and magenta stripes so I figured I could just cut the pieces I needed out of the red stripes and if I really needed to, I could dye the magenta bits redder.

I immediately knew I was going to use Burda 7309 for the top, but while the bodice turned out beautifully, the sleeves were a bit wonky. Note to self: B7309 has crappy sleeves. So I re-cut them in Burda 7739 and they turned out perfectly!

For the skirt, I cut out a 54″ wide by 20″ long rectangle and pleated it (using my standard math-idiot eyeballing method) to fit the width of the bodice. I lined the bodice, but decided not to line the skirt and just to wear a slip or another skirt under it because the fabric is so gorgeously flowy and I didn’t want to ruin that. Also because of lazy. I also hemmed it like 4″ so the skirt’s on the shorter side.

The collar was surprisingly simple, once I realized that I had to match the length of it to the circumference of the dress neckline. I used this tutorial and just added one snap closure to the back of the collar and one to the front bit (with the opposite snaps on the inside back of the dress and inside middle front of the dress respectively) so it would stay put. I’m contemplating just sewing the collar in because realistically I think the collar makes the dress and I don’t see myself wear the dress without it.

Basically, I want to live in this dress. Unfortunately, I wore it out last night and around today and it was in the high 80s and low 90s and I almost passed out several times. Totally worth it though. And now I have an outfit to wear whilst I watch the 50th anniversary episode. By myself. In bed. In November.

Whatever. Dresses are cool.

*Apologies for all the caps. I hate caps. I’m just that excited.

Prepping

Codex

Codex

PAX East is this weekend so I am a busy bee.

I was originally going to go as Zoe Castillo, but then my lovely dear kind seester who I now owe my firstborn child trekked home and mailed me this lovely costume that I made a few years ago.

Except I was quite the impatient slob about seams back then, so I get to take apart quite a few seams (re: most of them) and redo a lot of this.

But yay PAX!