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.

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

FABRIC and shoes (Part I)

T-minus 3 days until Pokoteng (minus 2) does New York City! We're trekking to the second closest large city to us to go fabric hunting for the senshi costumes. Technically speaking, we can go to the closest one, but I've been wanting to go back to the city and wander around for a bit and do touristy things again.

Plus I know where the fashion district is and spotted at least four large stores around there. ZOMG fabric.

Hopefully we will succeed. The Joann's around us doesn't really have a great of a selection of serviceable fabric that has a heavy enough weight and a slight sheen in enough colors. And yes, I've looked at fabric.com already. My experiences with them was either hit-or-miss depending on the costumes. I have a bunch of fabric stockpiled for various costumes, but the one costume that I haven't nailed, either online or in person, is the one right below this post. Hurr. I think I may have finally found the right fabric for the overrobe (technically speaking, I've already found one, but the problem is that I didn't get enough yards *SHAKES FIST*).

The under robe is going to be an adventure for NYC, along with senshi gloves and senshi fabric (Pluto, Mars, Saturn and Moon.)

I just dished out about 60 dollars on 6 yards of 58" wide violet gabardine suiting, 4 yards of olive green cotton blend broad cloth and 4 yards of medium weight white cotton twill. The latter two are the lining and main fabric for Nave's Syaoran Nihon-esque (or is it closer to Shara?) outfit. Thank goodness we don't really need to line his pants with the same fabric.. I'm putting him to work with stamping the fabric with the necessary designs. Oy.

Another item on the list at DSW is a pair of red high heeled pumps. I should get these so I can color match the red of my sailor collar and skirt when we wander to the City. There are two or three pairs that could possibly work.. I just need to test walk and break them in. Oh, oh! A pair of tan character shoes too ._. Akira mentioned a boot cover tutorial for her Pluto costume and how they slip on like socks. This is a brilliant Idea, now that I think about it, especially for women who have HUGE issues finding knee high boots that are remotely serviceable for a costume.

Buying boots and modifying them for every costume you make can get pricey, especially if you have a fondness for costumes like that. And let's face it: a pair of comfortable long boots gets expensive. And fashion designers don't go "HURRR let's keep the cosplayers in mind!" I have dancer calves from so many years en pointe, so most of the boots in my size? Yeah, they don't fit. Either the ankle is too baggy, or I can't even get the zipper 3/4 of the ways up.

So boot covers, over character shoes. This is a good solution. Please insert a sagely nod here.

Tomoyo Deconstruction

So I finally started poking at the behemoth of a head dress.



I'm not kidding when I use the word behemoth. I'm about 5'1" (if I'm lucky), which means that this head dress is between 2 feet to 3 feet wide. I'll have a better estimate of how wide it is once I figure out what everything looks like based on proportions and how it looks on me (edit: it's going to be just under two feet wide). In order to save sculpy and sanity, I'm using manila folders to measure and gauge how big things should be by sketching, cutting, taping, staring at a mirror critically, adjust or keep and move on.

So far, I have three attempts on the middle piece (two on the spikes alone) and working on attempt number two of the "bow."