Plans Made and Plans Cancelled

As it is the last week of October, Goose and I have been making some decisions. We've decided to cut out four of our six costumes we were planning for Otakon 2012. With time, money and general lack of workspace, it would be better to focus our attention and time to one costume for each of us per year.
That also means, unfortunately, that we won't be able to be in a group cosplay with Kaye and Nave, but that can always wait for another time when we have less things to buy and more space for a workshop. (We will be in between apartments soon.)
So for this year, Goose and I will be dressed as Milo and Ilo (respectively) from the Xbox arcade game Ilomilo. *fanfare*

Ilo - blue; Milo - Red: Image from: link

 

We loved the game and we love any excuse at all to make couple cosplays. We have some fabric that I bought at Joann's for 50% off (thanks to awesome coupons at the register). I just need to see if the paint we bought for it will get the effect we're looking for. We already are imagining how hot these mascots will be but it should be a fun process from building the frames, to making the skins to learning the dance. (Yes, they have a dance.) We've already decided that we will have to invest in some Camelbak packs to strap on while we're inside and install exhaust and intake fans anywhere we can. We're just excited about the new construction possibilities and that there will be pieces for both of us. Goose will work on the structure, design and building of the frame, as well as figuring out how we'll hold these on our bodies. I will be working on the design of the body and skins as well as any props we decide to bring along. Hopefully, it will come out well and recognizable.
Wish us luck!

Almost October!!!

Hello, no one in particular!

Well, it's almost October and very little has gotten done on our side. Goose and I have bough materials for our mascot costumes, but things have been put on hold for life stuff. Stupid life. Can't ever just sit back and let us do our hobbies.
We just need to wash the fabric and test with our paints for it to see if we can get the look we're going for. Then build frames and buy a ton of high density foam (which costs a ridiculous amount, by the way) for softness. There's a lot to do for Otakon 2012 (Yes, we already have a full docket of costumes) and so little time to do it. Kaye and Lira are both coming to visit in February so Goose and I have really about four and a half months to get things at a point that we can start working together. And really we won't be able to do much in April since Goose and I will be unavailable. (But that's not costume related.) So essentially we have nine months to complete six costumes and three props.
Hopefully, we can continue to put into our savings and buy all the materials we need. (Might be a pipe dream.)
Currently, we will be working on two mascot costumes. Since it's getting closer to Halloween, Joann Fabrics should have some sales on patterns, fabric and materials and those cheap costume shops are all open meaning it might be an easy time finding cheap prop bases.
Also, hopefully this year we can avoid late night final costume sewing at Otakon by starting early. That way it will be a relaxing (at least, as relaxing as Otakon can be) vacation for all of us.
Right now our list of responsibilities is as follows:
Goose has three big props to work on and engineer, and two frames to build for the mascots. That prop count may increase if Lira decides to join the group next year.
I have six costumes to sew for Goose and myself. Kaye and I are collaborating on materials and build technique, but both of us will have to sew the costumes separately since we are so far apart.
Madhouse (from my last post) wants to join us again next year and is making her first cosplay. Hopefully, we'll be able to document that progress as well.
Here's to hoping we can finally get started on our things.
*fingers crossed*

Otakon 2011 - Sleep Deprivation, Sardines and Silliness Ensued

We're back from Otakon 2011. On my part, I must say it was very enjoyable. The drive down from MA to MD was very fun with Kitaku and Madhouse. We left very early in the morning and got to Baltimore in time to pick up Lira from the airport. Our hotel room was smaller than last year by quite a bit. The only thing it had going for it was that we didn't have to go outside into the 95+ degree weather. Kaye had a photoshoot outside in her GORGEOUS Tomoyo-hime cosplay and her poor crown couldn't handle the heat. She had some beautiful shots all the same!!

The Garnet Rod that Goose and I put together did not make the trip very well. It broke in half at a rest-stop in NJ despite Kitaku and Madhouse trying to be careful around it. Goose tried to fix it up once we got to the hotel with many layers of epoxy and gorilla tape. It seemed to do the trick, but again during another shoot in hot weather, the epoxy melted and the only thing holding it together was the tape. It lasted a few shots, then Goose and I decided there was no salvaging the poor thing and he snapped it into eight pieces. No more soft wood for long staff pieces. And we need to make things sectional. Our Sailor Senshi costumes did come together (even if it was last minute) beautifully. Kaye and I worked tiredlessly through the night on Thursday while Kitaku, Lira, and Madhouse tried to help. They were very diligent workers. Mostly I did machine sewing while the other three worked on wigs (specifically Kitaku's beautiful Sailor Moon wig that Kaye put together), collars, ribbons, etc. Kaye was working on finishing her crown for her Tomoyo costume. The room's consensus was that it was beautiful and amazing and we all were very impressed.

We walked around the dealer's room and found a lot of stuff we wanted. Then around artist's alley and I got a few things from webcomic artists I follow like Bill Holbrook of Kevin and Kell, Gina Biggs of Red String and Caldwell Tanner of Loldwell and Collegehumor.

SWAAAAAAAAAGGGG!!!!!

Goose and I brought back our Portal 1 cosplays from last year and got a lot of pictures and recognition with it. It's so comfortable, but it's time to revamp the jumpsuit and the gun. The gun is becoming very temperamental, fixing itself only right before photoshoots, while I shake it and bang on it until the electronics set themselves right. The jumpsuit is fraying since the cotton I used for it was very thin and LOVES to fray. Not to mention I want to try my hand at making a full jumpsuit that has sleeves so I can use it for Portal 2 Chell. That's for another year though as we already have our line up for Otakon 2012. (And we've had it ready for about half a year now already.)

Goose and I are already browsing the forums and will be looking at finding a bigger room around. Passkey opens August 8th, so we'll be up late the night before looking at possibilities.

Still tired after a great weekend and looking forward to working with Kaye and getting ready for next year.

Garnet Rod + Update

I'm getting very excited. Not only because I'll get to see a bunch of otaku and awesome cosplayers, not only because of all the guests and premiers, but especially because I get to see my friends who I haven't seen in a few months to a year and spend some quality otaku time with them.

Warning: Image Heavy Post After The Jump!! (PC, you've already seen these images on Google+)

FABRIC (aka how my kitchen table looks right now)

Going to be a huge loser and buy/return a sewing machine. all of the red fabric is already cut & prepped as desired...cut freehand without pins. aslkdhdgshdfj. Need to do something about the Fire Nation emblem on Azula's top, too. Probably just going to do a winging-it-all run at Michael's & Joann's tomorrow.

Trimmed down the green t-shirt to mod, sliced open the shoulders along the seams, and am probably going to be hemming eyelets FOREVER to thread ribbon, like I did for these shorts for a music festival last month:



...except about 5x the number of eyelets... sigh. (whipstitching the slits I cut into that denim was also annoying, but I didn't trust a sewing machine to be as meticulous as I wanted to be. I'm also just getting my feet wet again...let's face it, I'm still a giant sewing noob and don't trust sewing machines for anything but hems & straight seams for now x_x)

speaking of which, here's the first t-shirt mod I did, last month:



9 days!!

Weekend Update

Goose and I worked very hard this weekend, trying to get things done.

First off, we finished making the Sailor Sleeves, which I have lovingly nicknamed "arm tacos" since the fabric is shaped like a taco shell and then filled with a bunch of quilting batting.

On Saturday, I worked alone on them, but the technique I was using wasn't working on the fabric I was using, particularly because the darts wouldn't crease neatly like 100% cotton would.

So that was a day of work that didn't amount to anything.

The next day, Goose joined me and helped me measure out the taco shells based on my, Lira's and Kaye's measurements. Then we cut the quilting batting to shape for each taco shell, stuffed the shells and pinned them together like wontons. Then I sewed them, hoping that they wouldn't twist too much and that the lines would appear properly.

Left to right: Completed arm taco for Akira, stuffed wontons for Lira, shell and stuffing for Kaye

They came out better than my first five or six tries, so hopefully this will be the last time I make anything arm taco-y.

Left to right: Akira, Kaye, Lira (I left extra room for Kaye and Lira to stitch onto the leotards)

Goose finished sanding and painting the Pluto earrings we were working on. He sprayed the fronts with the Cherry Red auto paint. After they dried, there were a few air bubbles, so he sanded the surfaces with very very very fine grit sand paper. Auto paint is awesome, because it dries into a hard layer that sands as well as the resin. So he sprayed a second layer onto the front and after that dried, one on the back to make the color look uniform.

Here are the earrings after drying the second layer. I love the shine that comes off them.

All of the Garnet pieces are done drying, so I'm working on the heart shapes to sand them down to the proper shape. Goose says that he can do measuring and cutting based on measurements and stencils, but he hates freehand work, so I'm working on the shape with a dremel and a respirator since I'm still getting over a chest cold I caught in June. Blech.

While I work on those, Goose is working on making the details for the staff part of the rod.

Our Portal costumes are both ready to go and Goose just needs to fix a small electronic problem in the Portal Gun for that to be ready.

Right now, our only focus is on the rod and it's only time consuming because of the drying times we have to account for the Bondo, primer and paint.

More pictures as we make more and get closer to Otakon!

okay, real update instead of just a flailing update.

I'm hoping that I can have a majority of Tomoyo done by the end of this weekend. By majority, I mean that I only need to assemble the head dress dangles to the top pieces and only minor touch ups. I don't know how feasible it is at this point, but I finished stenciling (beading remaining) for the overrobe lapel, finished the damn ... weird... knot things; only have one last part to stuff and sew on to the main knot before it's attached to the belt. The masters for most of the head dress (missing the "bow") are sanded; molds to be done TOMORROW. PETTICOAT IS MOSTLY DONE WHY IS THAT THING SO EVIL. Then it's just.. the wig. And the rest of the sailor senshi stuff. Which I am not thinking about until Monday (two more hip pipings to sew, the gems, sewing most of Lira and Kitaku's boot covers and adding zippers to everything. ... And Kitaku's scary ass wig.).

Now here's a picture to round everything out. It's the last thing I was working on before I decided to go to bed. Masochism, I has it.

(sorry about the crappy photo quality. My phone doesn't like low lighting)

DO. NOT. HAVE. ENOUGH. TIME.

OH GOD TWO WEEKS

Quick update (pictures from prior hacks will come when I get home):

- Need to finish Azula. This requires a sewing machine. I do not have one. This requires me finding friends with a sewing machine I can borrow (or hours upon hours of hemming by hand, or buying a machine & returning it later). e____e;;
- I have light hazel contacts for Azula that I do not know how to put in properly. After several half-hour attempts (more than that and I'm afraid I'll go blind) and lots of eyejabbing, I'm still not quite there. They do, however, look AWESOME.
- Still to come: one more t-shirt mod, turning an old Threadless t-shirt into an open-shoulder crop top for the Otakon dance.
- I'll be walking in the Sixh. Fashion Show on Friday at 4pm and getting my J-goth on. (I don't even have an inner visual kei/gothic lolita fiend, so this is just going to be slightly bizarre, while interesting.)

If I remotely have the free time, I may make a last-minute run to a hardware store & see what I can improvise in the way of Sailor Saturn's glaive that doesn't look horrendously crafted. I do not want to be one of these...

but add that to a photoshoot on each of the two weekends between now & Otakon, and songs to finish, and the chances of me having the free time to do a glaive looks slim. I'm disappointed in myself. :x

Akira and Kaye's work looks rifucklously amazing so far, and I am EXCITED. Although apprehensive. I have no idea where I'll be this time next year, and while everyone + several other friends are talking about attending Otakon next year since they've gotten excited-by-proxy, I really don't know if I'll be here again. I'm doing it for the experience of enjoying this process with my friends, and getting really swept up by Akira & Kaye's skill and enthusiasm, but I myself am no longer an active anime fan nor much of a con-goer. Still.

...Maybe I'll do NDK next year!

14 More Days Before Otakon!!

I'm getting so psyched, but that also means that there is a lot to do. Goose is working hard on the Garnet Rod. We're making it out of MDF which we were routing out with a Dremel on a plunge router attachment. This was taking a very very very very long time as you can't plunge too deep into the MDF without a lot of resistance and the Dremel would overheat after one pass around the shape. We could only really cut out two and a half pieces a night (since we're working after work). Very slow, considering we need to cut out 15 pieces to make the 3D shape. Then Goose bought a DeWalt Jigsaw. And cut out two big pieces in the matter of minutes. It makes such a difference when you have the proper tools. He was kind of kicking himself. Now we're in the process of gluing them together and need more clamps for all the pieces.

Dry quickly, please!

I finished my Sailor Pluto Wig after much fighting with tangles. There's a reason people don't usually grow their hair that long. I was pretty pleased with how the odango came out. It was a fight with hot glue on the inside. I burned some skin off my fingertips, I'm pretty sure.

So nice and green! I had fun with this wig :D

I finished casting my Pluto earrings. I bought the starter kit Kaye mentions in this post. I made the master out of clay and cast the silicone in an old Motorola cellphone box we had kicking around after sealing all the edges with hot glue. Then cast the earring with the CR-600 Casting Resin after placing a large stud earring I bought from Claire's in the mold. After sanding and trimming the edges when it cured, we sprayed them with filler primer to fill any gaps in the surface. Now we're waiting for them to dry, but then we'll spray them with the dark red auto paint we're also using for the rod details. (I love auto paint. It's so shiny.)

It's a little heavy, but I just need to get used to it.

Also, I finished the tiaras for all of us and Kaye will be casting the gems to attach to them.

They're pretty shiny when you get them in direct light.

I finally got around to finishing the glove piping for each of us as well. I don't know why I was so unmotivated before.

Left to Right: Sailor Saturn (Lira), Sailor Pluto (Akira), Sailor Mars (Kaye), Sailor Moon (Kitaku)

And I finished one of my Sailor Pluto boots yesterday. It slips on like a sock and looks pretty form fitting. I have to figure out how to strap down the boot inside, or maybe just wear some heels.

Need to add traction to the bottoms as well since they're very slippery on the bottoms.

Whew, that was a huge update, but the glove piping and tiaras were done earlier and since Otakon is coming in about two weeks, it really has lit a fire under my ass.

There are still a bunch of things that still need to get done.

I need to finally get those f%$*ing sleeves completed. They fight me. Goose and I need to finish cutting and gluing all our parts so we can sand and paint the thing. I need to finish the other Pluto boot. Then I need to check over Goose's Aperture Scientist costume and my Chell to make sure it'll last another con. I foresee a lot of mending in my future.

Then it's purchasing supplies, packing and driving to Baltimore of a weekend of awesomeness!

Kaye and I still have a bunch of things to do once we get to Baltimore in terms of fitting, sewing and attaching pieces. It's the price we pay for making cosplays 2,000 miles away from each other with two other people who are both not located near either of us. It'll be an interesting and fun night!

Well, hopefully, the next updates I have are more completed parts of the Sailor Senshi!

Contacts Came In!! (Picture, too!)

The mail came in with the colored contacts we bought from Pinky Paradise.
Kaye bought a pair of the Super Pinky Violet and Super Pinky Greens for her various costumes.
I bought a pair of the Super Pinky Wine Red for Pluto and Super Pinky Greens for Athena Glory.
I like how the colors can be subtle but really show up in the light. 
When you use the coupon code HOLLYANN,  you get three free cute animal contact cases and some other free gifts. I'll include pictures of those when I get home today.

In other news, working on the tiaras, sleeves and gloves for Kaye.
Here is one of the bases cut out of .020 brass sheets. I need to engrave the edges and drill the ends to thread the elastic through. Then polish, seal and glue on some soft foam on the underside so it's not right on our head.

Must. Channel. Stoic. Pluto.

Athena's bases are done, but I'm still waiting for our work area to be clean, since paint + dust = FLAIL.
Less than two months to go!

Officially registered :)

update

Lots of progress today, even after waking up to go to work early :)

I finalized the pattern, cut and sewed the last of the overrobe piece out. I'll post the picture of the insane number of pins I used to keep everything together. I had to sew in psuedo guidelines so I can keep my beading straight, mostly so I know where the real edge of the seam is; so the guide is less than an 1/8" in from the seam, and then the line for the beading is about another half an inch in.

Currently beading the first line of the bottom accent (two lines of beading for both the top and the bottom accents). I need to figure out how this is going to stay attached to the rest of the robe, pattern the embroidery for that and .. keep beading. I'm using size 1 bugle beads in gold that I got in bulk from the NY trip. Just putting it out there right now, it took me the better part of an episode of Numb3rs to get maybe a foot of beading done.

Also, the tabards have lining pinned on and the actual size I want traced on to the lining with fabric markers. I still need to do two more embroidery pieces, interface and iron on the designs before I start beading THAT mess. I have figured out the sizing I need for the "knotted cord" decorations that are going to hang from the belt. I may start patterning that out tomorrow once I get back from my friend's house.

Then it's just the wig and the insane head dress. That's my late June/early July project.

Of the sailor senshi costumes.. it's resin casting, finishing the skirts and getting started on the boot covers. I'm mostly waiting for the sleeves from Akira before I really work on anything else for them. And then wigs. That's going to go with the resin casting time period. I'm mostly trying to get a lot of Tomoyo done before the middle of this month so I can work on Nave's Syaoran costume without panicking and worrying about my own. His is going to be way easier in terms of decorations.

Patterning paper that I didn't know I had...

So I took a drawing class in college during my first year. One of the things we had to buy was a huge pad of newsprint that we barely used in class. I completely forgot that I still had about 90% of the pad left over. Granted, it's a bit beat up and there's an oddly huge fold in it, but it's useful as all heck when it comes to drafting patterns. It's soft enough to be penetrated by the pins easily (granted, I use glass tipped quilting pins that I got for free when I got my sewing machine. They're super sharp), but sturdy enough it won't tear when I breathe on it :D

and thus appeared a Lira

hello, world! Akira & Kaye may have mentioned me in passing as a model, but I've been enabled by their talents into jumping back into the world of crafts, needlework, and winging costumes-- which I haven't so much as touched in at *least* four years. So here's to getting my rusty crafting neurons back into gear.

My starter projects are:

- at least two mods of old Threadless t-shirts & old shirts in general
- beachparty!Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender (I decided to bite the bullet & go for the slightly more complex version, to challenge myself) for Otakon

Possibilities, if I de-rust myself adequately with the above:

- accessories to add to my Victorian/steampunk wardrobe, also for Otakon
- Sailor Saturn's glaive

I'm a strong believer in winging...pretty much everything, so I'm going to need to rein myself in to some extent.

Oh, and I also have a tendency to be very OCD about geometric shapes, lines, parallels, etc...so I'm also going to need to rein that in lest I spend over 20 minutes pinning & cutting one t-shirt hem...like I just did... *facepalm*

progress progress progress progress

I keep having to tell myself this otherwise I flail too much. I still have a lot to do ... but at least my robe has a zipper! and.. SORT OF FITS.

Time to go make the petticoat with a huge bustle.

Kaye's awesome and we should all bow to her

Good morning!

Look at the lovely collars, courtesy of Kaye and her wonderful handiwork!

The lines are so nice and crisp!

The costumes are coming together and then Kaye can finally tackle her and Nave's costumes!
Only a couple of months now until Otakon 2011!
How exciting!

sharpies + ribbon...

... equals Kaye sitting and watching Numb3rs. I have about 101 inches to color for Kitaku's collar.

All of the bow bases are done. I just need to add snaps and tack the tails in place/add stiffener to the chest bows, and snaps to the butt bows. All that's left for my part after adding the ribbon borders on to the collars (Kitaku and Lira's left aside from mine. Akira took hers back to the east) are skirts and.. the weird sleeve things. Then resin bits.

THEN I CAN CONCENTRATE ON THE TSUBASA COSTUMES. And Nave's tetris block costume o_O;;;

Progress!

So after my April trip to Kaye and Nave's place, I have been very unproductive. I think it's just being back at home and getting through work.

Yesterday, I dusted off my beautiful machine and got to work finishing my collar for Athena Glory. Over my visit in April, I finished making the shirt base for the summer uniform and hemming the dress, which a ton of help from Goose. He's my pin-man. I don't have any progress shots, as Kaye has beautifully posted in her last entry, but I can tell you it's coming together.

Here's a list of what's left for me.
-Casting Athena's tie gem and making the tie.
-Painting Athena's shirt and dress (Paint scares me, just a little. All that hard work can be undone by a poor brush stroke.)
-Altering the rain boots I got for Athena. (More cutting and painting, then sealing)
-Making Athena's hat (cutting, sewing, fitting, figuring out how to form the foam in the hat, so it sits right.)
-Maybe making Maa-sachou, so I don't have to carry around an oar every time I put on this costume.
-The sleeves, gloves and tiaras for the Sailor Senshi (requires me to go to the craft and hardware store for properly matching thread and brass sheets)
-All of Chihiro Ogino's Bathhouse Attendant uniform from Spirited Away. This is my June/July task.
-All of Kaonashi from Spirited Away. This is another June/July task. The mask, body and props are my task.

Goose's tasks are:
-Athena's Oar
-Sailor Pluto's Garnet Rod
-Kaonashi's Frame

His list is shorter, but it doesn't mean he has less work.

A little over two months left, but I think we can do it!

Tomoyo's inner kimono in steps.

So I despise using patterns. It's mostly the pinning and cutting part. I ended up making up my own pattern for the inner kimono.. hence the odd placement of the darts to make it lie flat against my body. So here's the progress in pictoral format once I got the pieces cut out:

The two front pieces and the back pieces with the sides and shoulders sewn, and darting.

Flipped inside out

Sleeves pinned on

... beginnings of the collar. I know, it looks funny

And what it looks like now, after strategic darting of the collar. I need to hem, add snaps and sew up the sleeves still, but that took about five hours of work :)

Another update

Pictures are coming soon, I promise. Managed to cut and sew together most of the base of the overrobe. Tomorrow night should be the following, if I'm lucky and motivated enough:

1. alter the bust of the front piece of the dress and sew the front to the rest of the dress.
2. add extended back panels
3. buy a new zipper.
4. add the base for the huge .. sleeve things around the shoulders.
5. hem hem hem hem hem (and see if I can get away with wearing low heels or do I actually have to go with 4" heels for the hem clearance?!)
6. sew the sleeves up on the shirt, and start thinking of adding in the two decorative collars
7. .. make sure that everything fits with the layers?

Good thing reducing the seam allowance from 5/8" to the width of my sewing machine foot gave me the wriggle room to work with, but now I have to make sure that it still will fit, maybe taken in parts of the torso where it may be too long for me. I'm estimating about 2 more days of fairly solid sewing before I'm done with all of the basics. After that, it's the hardware, decorations on the robe and tabards, and the weird knotted rope things that DON'T MAKE ANY SENSE WHAT SO EVER.

Clamp, I love you and all, but man do your costume designs not translate well to real life ;; t-minus 2 months and 23 days until Nave and I are on a plane.

60% of Tomoyo to finish (including wig)
100% of Syaoran
50% left of my portion of the senshi costumes.
100% of Kitaku's Sailor Moon wig

Tomoyo Update

1. brought home a dust mask so I can start cutting the MDF board that I have for the masters of the head dress.

2. five hours of cutting, pinning, sewing, fitting, re-pinning, and bs-ing a pattern, the inner kimono is about 80% done; I need to hem it, sew up the sleeves and hem them, and add in the two inner collars before adding in the snaps/some way to keep the shirt closed :D

fdksfads

Insert lots of dark muttering here.

I also need to go to Joann's and get the right color thread for Lira's costume. The one I got was too red because I neglected to bring a scrap of fabric. BLARGH.

Somehow, I need to jury rig my garage into a temporary work space for sculpting/carving/what have you of my Tomoyo head dress.

Excuse me while I go off and mutter some more.

Progress? Maybe?

So Akira and I have managed to figure out why 95% of senshi costumes aren't quite right; either there's something wrong the the skirts, the collars (Akira used up a lot of the muslin I have to make templates because I was that picky about the shape of the front), the bows, the piping... there's quite a bit that can go wrong. I'm having issues with the freaking skirt piping. Tomorrow is going to be trying to finish all four of the skirts (attempt number THREE at making the piping properly and actually cutting and pleating my skirt), applying the grosgrain ribbon to the collars and .. maybe the bows?

I also maybe sort of really need to look into purchasing a dremel. Derp.

My Tomoyo cosplay is limping along somewhat. I pretty much said screw it to hand embroidery and am going to draw out the design so Goose can make patches with Akira's embroidery machine and go from there. But I have solved the mystery of what to do with the awkwardly and not realistic knot work that hangs from the belt! I consider that to be an improvement.

T-minus three months for finishing my parts of the sailor senshi cosplay (then mailing them to Akira for her final touches), styling Kitaku's Sailor Moon wig, about 90% of my Tomoyo costume and all of Nave's Syaoran costume. I am SOOOOO screwed.

Sewing sewing sewing...

So Goose and Akira are visiting me and Nave in our sweet digs. We're currently working on the sailor senshi costumes. Akira has two collars sewn out of four, and I'm working on pleating the third skirt out of four.

...

Silly Sailor Moon skirt is stupidly complicated.

End of January - Little Progress...

The end of January is quickly approaching and so far, I have made little headway with any of the things I said I would.

My Athena Glory costume has the dress made, but I have not hemmed it at the bottom and I have not painted the pattern on it. The shirt had a second iteration, but this version was also not quite right. I'm giving it another go, but also being extremely slow about it.

For the Sailor tiaras, I'm trying to figure out how to make the edging on the sides of the tiaras. I'm using brass and I have mapped out the shape of the tiaras. The edging is just holding me back. At first I was thinking of making some kind of stamp out of wood since the brass sheets were pretty soft, but it hasn't developed into anything.

As for Super Sailor Pluto's boots, I just need to get around to buying the fabric. I just recently paid off my Christmas present bills. That's just a matter of my cash flow starting to build up again.

So that's that. I have 5 more days in January and I highly doubt I will get a shirt made, a dress hemmed, patterns painted, tiaras stamped/folded/magicked into shape and polished, and boots made. If any progress does go well, I will post an update with photos soon.

My goal right now is to finish my shirt base, get around to hemming the dress, work out the stencils for the painting and getting to the store for some black stretchy fabric. (No, Goose, not for a slinky black dress, ya goof!) As for my previous plan, it all is getting pushed into February. This includes the completion of Athena's uniform, the Pluto boots and figuring out the edging of the tiaras.

I realize that these are more excuses, but I will do better next month.

umm..

I'd like to think that I have a fairly valid reason as to why I haven't touched any of my costumes, planning or otherwise, since early September. Long story short, I made a huge life change in October, which included changing to a new job in a state that's 2000 miles away from my old one. I moved in with Nave and things have been pretty hectic since then.

I'll post some progress shots of the embroidery once I get the first one finished and once we have internet at home. Stupid comcast.