On to the next!

The 13th fariy (as I have been calling her) is nearly done!

 It just needs a hem and the loop for the train, and well the hat, but I am taking a break from black for a bit. Tonight I have the model in for a hem fitting and then I'll go back to working on the next piece.

Which is a blast from the past!

 It's the ring leader of The Misfits from Jem and the Holograms.  I've been calling it Acidic rocker.  You may remember seeing it a few posts back when I was talking about mock-ups and pinning in to get a closer fitting pattern.

 Stay tuned for some pictures of this garment as it is being put together and for some pictures of Dark farie on the model :)

Cosmic Warrior Finished work

Finally some decent shots of this piece!

The costume itself is done, I fixed the ribbon detail on the front with Steam a seam and it looks 100% better then my hand sewing job.  Much crisper.

I still have to find supplies and a way to make her hair bobble gems and I will probably be re-doing the wing details with a stronger velum paper.  The ones I had suffered greatly in storage (most I was able to squash flat again with heavy books) but the hair ones, well I don't think you can see in the photo, but they discoloured slightly (I think the hair spray  in the wig yellowed them somehow).

The moral of this story?  Take your hair clips off your wig for storage and store everything flat in a box.  But enough with the mistakes!  On with the pictures!

Yes, the skirt is short, which is why I made hot pants to wear under it.  Actually, I am not sure how any of the sailor moon girls fight, its rather hard to move your arms up with those sleeve caps, and were not even going to talk about how unmanageable that hair is!  Really, I'd spend more time detangling myself from my hair then fighting Evil.

Many thanks to Point of Light Productions for these awesome photos! 

Collar that gown

Well, the garment is together and now its time to make and attach the collar.  It's a crazy standing up high collar, so originally I was going to follow Linda Spark's tutorial on how to build an Elizabethan wired ruff, but then I decided to try Buckram first.

This is just one layer of the rather light weight Buckram my school store sells.

 

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I couldn't stop thinking about how it looked like my 13th fairy was wearing a Pet collar so she would stop chewing her stitches. The 13th fairy does not like the cone of shame. :P


How it's on there:
 The  neck curve was already there on the pattern, but to get it to sit better I scored up the seam allowance.  One layer held the shape really well, but I was worried the fabric would bend it, so I ended up sewing two layers together, and low an behold, I didn't even need to do the wire support that was in the Elizabethan collar tutorial!

The next step was to take it off the garment/dressmakers Judy and attach the black fabric.

I pinned down the  bottom neck collar edge so it wouldn't slip when I sewed it and then I edge stitched the black fabric on with a sewing machine.

After the black was attached it was time for the purple lining, which I hand sewed to the black.

Here is what it looks like pinned onto the robe. It's a little wonky  looking right now.

And here it is from the side. There is an obvious bump there, but that will go when its sewn in.  Obviously

Testing how it looks when folded, which really didn't work with the pins, but you can get a general idea of how it will look eventually.

And that is all for today! The collar is on now, and I have started on the purple binding for the center front (which will conceal an invisible zipper).

We are official!

The new convention center has listed our fashion show on their website~

How exciting!

Further progress.

I actually did this on Friday, but didn't want to post it all at once.

Friday I drafted the train for the robe. I just folded my fabric in half and I knew the widest point of the train would be the width of the fabric, so after drawing  a slanted line (the length of which was the length of the back seam on the dress) I then drew another slanted line to make it longer, I later curved the edges to make it prettier.

It came out looking really great.  Below is the train pinned to the back of the robe, as well as the sleeves (also pinned).

Here is the top of the back train sewn in into the back seam. There is a little pleat in there for added effect/ volume management. My flash really lit up the fabric, and so it looks much more shiny then it really is, however it does show the black on black pattern really well.

The sleeves, now sewn in. Probably some of the weirdest sleeves to draft for me to date. I'm sure that will change someday.  They worked out great but came with a small problem:  The black fabric has a tiny bit of stretch to it and the purple taffeta lining does not.  So we noticed that it bagged down at the bottom, which looked awful.

We were able to remove the bagging by pinning small darts/seams. Thankfully there is a seam there already, so it's not going to be a major hassle to fix. It does however, involve me having to unpick the sleeves from the dress to get at the inside to alter it.

And here is the back of the dress in all it's glory.  I'm going to attach a small loop at the end of the train so the model/owner to be can slip it over her wrist for easier movement.

Next steps:  Fix the bagging in the sleeves, sew and attach the collar, bind the front/ put in a zipper and finally hem it.

13th fairy production shots.

Oh what could this pile or Organza be?

The organza is for the coloured vents in the front of the 1th fairy's dress.  The vents are 4 layers of two coloured Organza, a blue/purple and a red/green.  One layered over the other. The effect is great, it almost looks lit from underneath. (My flash really did a number on the colours, the one underneath is in fact the dark red/green. not orange).

Pile of organza, meet black fabric.  I pinned the triangle to one side and sewed it up, which gave me one straight line to sew, and then pinned it to the other side, it makes the top a nice sharp point instead of a rounded one.  It's actually all sewn in here, the pins are there to hold my fabric down for the next step :top stitching.

The finished vent, now top-stitched down ( have a weird compulsion to top-stitch everything) and ironed. In this case I figured it would look better and contain the seam allowances on the inside (by top-stitching) so they didn't flip over and show through the Organza.  It also helped weight the organza down a tiny bit so it wouldn't poof out.

No, you didn't see me bunch this all into a pile and leave it like that over night, carry on. :)

The side vent!  I am adding a train in this rose patterned cut velvet-y fabric in the back, but I didn't want it to just be there and no where else, so instead of organza in the side back vent, I put a vent of the rose fabric, the back of the high collar will also be out of this, you can just barely see it behind the purple fabric hanging from my board.

An almost dress!  Here is the dress on a Judy, it's waiting for its train to me made and the sleeves to be sewn and attached.  But we will save that for a different day!

Have a great weekend everyone.

Mock up fitting

I had another model in today for a fitting!  This time it's just the after shots, seeing as the previous post had the process of shots.  This time, the pictures are just quick ones I took with my digital camera (a Cannon power shot A560)  while I was working

So after you pin the mock up and fit it, you are left with a wonderful and attractive muslin sack with lines drawn on it.

In this first image it shows the concept sketch, fabric swatches and the new drawn on neckline for the dress.

 Similar to the first image, only longer.

The pins and lines drawn on so I know where to take it in on the upper bust.

I'm going to have to take in the upper bust and I am lowering the armhole a bit, just for comfort.  Also showing my pin lines for the under bust area I need to take in.

The  new back collar lines. On the final product, the back will be closed and a zipper will be hidden in a side seam.

Lines marking the highest and lowest points for the skirts hem.  I'll be drawing the shape in after I shorten my pattern.

Fitting notes.  Always take notes after/during a fitting so you can remember what you need to change.

Close up of my exciting fitting notes.