Tag Archives: costume

Stripes.

Applications for graduate school are due tomorrow –most of them anyway. This has, of course, resulted in a lot of stress which has in turn led to a lot of knitting breaks to maintain a certain level of sanity.

And so I present you with a progress photo.

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I’ve got the ribbing done on the other sleeve. If I finish this today (and by “if” I mean “when”), I’ll have made 2.89 sweaters in three weeks. I think I have problems.

Andd here’s one of me wearing my cabled Hermione hat. I ended up adding some elastic to the ribbed part because it was really just too loose. Now it’s slightly too tight. Might have to adjust the elastic so my ears don’t fall asleep.
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Harry Potter apparently leads to knitting obsession.

Usually sewing is my thing. Usually knitting is something I do when I’m away from my sewing machine and so bored I can’t survive without making something, anything.

But then again before three weeks ago, really the only thing I knew how to do was knit, purl, and decrease. I had only a vague idea of how to cast on properly (I used to crochet a single chain and pull loops onto a knitting needle. Embarrassing, amirite?), a vague concept of something that slightly resembled k2tog, and not even the faintest clue how to add stitches. Needless to say, I mostly stuck to scarves and the occasional lumpy hat.

But somehow in the past three weeks, I’ve watched loads of online tutorials and read all kinds of diagrams, and not only can I do all of the above, but I’ve also mastered cables! (Seriously, cables were a bit of a mystical beast before.) I’m even dropping phrases like “k2tog” in a blog post, apparently I also gained quite a bit of coolness in the last three weeks.

Anyway, I place all the blame of this recent surge of inspiration on the latest Harry Potter movie. There’s no other explanation.

I start on Halloween costumes ridiculously early.

I somehow managed to get the bodice right on the first try. This literally never happens.

The headband took me about ten minutes to make. I literally just took a thick plastic headband and attacked it with thick red ribbon and a glue gun. There was minor stitching on the actual bow part though but minimal.

For the gusseted sleeves I used Aranel’s tutorial, same one I used to make my Susan Pevensie archery sleeves. I just made the holes bigger. I can’t tell you how many tutorials I read where people cut corners by just sewing on strips of red fabric, or cutting holes without finishing them. One person even described painting red ovals on. o.O

</snob>

I also made a petticoat with two layers of tulle. I have two more strips cut out but it’s already so fluffy I want to try it on under the finished dress before I decide if it needs more poof.

I already can’t wait for Halloween! …..Maybe I should work on the part where I don’t have actual plans yet.

Buttons!

Dammit, it’s 2am. So much for getting to bed early.

In other news, I finally attached the stomacher to the bodice (I got tired of poking myself in eight places every time I tried it on) and put in button snap closures on the other side. The sleeves are still pinned on; I’ll get to that tomorrow.

Next up is just embroidering the crap out of the bodice and the skirt. Luckily there’s no embroidery (that I can see) on the polonaise overskirt. There’s just the front edge on either side of the underskirt, the peplum, and the little sticking-out panel that frames the stomacher (which I started earlier).

This whole project has actually been saving me quite a bit of money. I already bought everything for it, other than the $3 I spent on crochet thread, plus I’ve been working on it so much that I never feel like going out and participating in activities detrimental to my bank account.

I don’t think that previous statement could have made me sound more like a loser.