Since it's my first full dress, I decided to go with one of her simpler looking outfits that doesn't require special printed fabrics. I also chose a very Lolita styled dress so that I could make good use of the tutorials floating around the Lolita sewing community on Livejournal, plus maybe be able to actually wear the dress for something other than my cosplay! Hence, I went with this outfit:
I couldn't find any actual colored reference pics, but based on previous cosplayers, the consensus seems to be that the dress is pink with a white apron on top, and then white socks and shoes. So that's what I went with as well. I needed a matching thing-carrying device as well, and Miwako conveniently has an adorable Happy Berry backpack to go with this outfit!
So there were four main parts of this cosplay that I had to do: dress, apron, wig and backpack!
Scallop-Edged Dress
This was quite a big project, since it's the first full dress I've ever made! I had to draft patterns for bodice and sleeves, as well as a skirt with a scalloped hemline. For the bodice and sleeves, I used this awesomely helpful tutorial from the Livejournal sew_loli community.
I decided to do a fully lined bodice, so I basically had to make 2 bodices (inner and outer layers shown):
And then sewed them together in the final assembly (front and back - with elastic channels):
The skirt was also fully lined (with polyester lining) and has 2 pockets. Just the outer layer (before lining was attached) is shown:
And the final assembled product?
Yaaaaaaaaay! Okay, so I had to dart in the waist because my waist is noooot as big as my bust, so next time I should just draft the darts into the pattern instead of doing them ad hoc. Also, I should've been more careful with the skirt gathering, because it's actually slightly skewed offcenter relative to the bodice, but oh well... Now I know.
Apron
The apron was pretty easy to draft. I basically just made a rectangle for the upper part, and a circle skirt (with a cutout in the back) for the lower part. Waist ties are attached at the waist and neckties run through the top of the upper part (to make the gathers).
Tadaa!!
This one also wasn't perfect. I should've used more like a trapezoid or something, because it tended to hitch up in the side/back and droop in the front. I fixed this on the fly by just safety pinning the top edge of the apron to the dress so it wouldn't droop anymore. Oh, and the neckties needed to be longer.
Wig
I started off with an "Innocent" wig in pink from Amphigory:
I took out the original ribbons + rubber bands and redid the ponytails a little higher with matching pink baubles:
And then proceeded to make a partial bun twist with each pony, and pin the remaining dangling curls into place over the bun part.
I'm actually really please with this! Yay for successful first wig styling!! Not that it was complicated, but, still...
Happy Berry Backpack
Aaaaand the part I'm most proud of... my backpack!! It's fully functional, with a drawstring closure and a hook to keep the top flap down (I'm going to switch it to something better soon), and is lined with silky pink lining on the inside! The green part is actually a removeable pin, if I ever wanted to remove it, and the wings are stuffed so they're actually 3D!
After full assembly with outer and lining, but before wing-stuffing and drawstring (front and back):
Ugly grommets are ugly, but hey, I did it! It was kind of a pain putting them in by hand, but it actually worked pretty well, and they seem sturdy enough.
Green thingy pin:
Made of 3 layers of green felt (top layer is lighter green than the bottom 2), and the spiral is yellow paint.
The adjustment buckle on the strap is made from Shrinky Dink (painted pink):
Aaaand the final product:
I am very very completely pleased about this backpack, and it was plenty roomy to carry water bottle, program book, snacks, 20 calling card goody bags, camera, makeup, and more!
Pics of it all worn!
I need to learn how to put on wigs better to hide my stupid sideburns, but other than that I'm pretty pleased since it's only me second time cosplaying!!
Wooooooow, you look SO Miwako, haha =) I am completely in love with your backpack. Have fun cosplaying~
ReplyDeleteOn a similar note... have you ever considered doing commissions?
Hehe thanks!!! I wouldn't really consider my sewing good enough to do large-item clothing commissions yet (cf the weird mistakes I made in the dress/apron ^.^;;) but I'm opening an Etsy shop as soon as the quarter is over, and I'm considering also putting things like bags/backpacks and smaller things in there, in addition to jewelry :-P
ReplyDeleteHowever, if somebody *wants* me to sew something larger for them, and is okay with the fact that I'm really very much a novice seamstress, then I would definitely consider it :-P
I would totally buy bags from you; they look so cute X3 And of course, I want some adorable Kyttyee-made earrings too~
ReplyDeleteHaha yay!! Well, now that the quarter is over, I'm planning on putting more things into my etsy shop, and actually posting links to it around on my internet crawlspaces, so there'll be things to buy soon! Or if you have some specific designs in mind, I'd be fine doing some commissions too ^.^
ReplyDeleteokkkkkkkkkkkkk! so i am in love with your miwako cosplay! would u bee so kind as to lend me the pattern for the happy berry backpack?! i am like dieing to sew it...but i cant make it right...V.V
ReplyDeleteAww thank you, I'm glad you like it ^_^ Unfortunately, I actually really suck at following patterns, so it was made basically on trial-and-error basis. I can try to describe what I did though:
ReplyDeleteThe bottom of the bag is basically a circle with a bit lopped off it (so kind of like you take a circle, and make one fold straight across it to make it a circle with one flat side). The body/sides of the bag itself is just a big rectangle that is about 1.5 times the circumference of the base, and gathered evenly to fit the base. The cover/flap is just a half-circle (use the same diameter that you used for the bottom circle. The green thingy I just eyeballed by hand based off of pictures (it's just sort of a "daisy" shape). I used a drawstring closure, so I had to punch holes around the top of the bag body and just ran a pink shoelace through the holes to close up the bag. The flap is intended to sort of hide the drawstring closure and make it look nicer and more like Miwako's bag actually looks ^_^;;
I used a diameter of about 6~7 inches for my circles, and a height of 9 inches for the bag body. The green thingy is sized accordingly to cover most of the top flap.
Sorry I don't have anything more specific than that, but maybe that will help you get a better idea? ^_^;;