Maid Outfit

I was recently accepted as a member of a maid cafe, and I created this look for my character!

The entire outfit took about a week or so of on-and-off sewing to complete, and consists of a white ruffled underskirt, a black overdress featuring a scalloped hem layer and a sweetheart neckline, and a half-apron with a ruffled hem. Additionally, the traditional maid ruffle katyusha is trimmed with blue rickrack (because I am a member of the blue team), and coordinates with a matchingly trimmed ribbon choker. I did not take progress photos of this project, as it is actually quite similar to the construction of the Miwako cosplay dress (I used the same pattern with some sleeve and skirt length modifications for the overdress).

But onto the pictures!!

White ruffled underskirt:


Black overdress:


Scalloped hem with over a straight underlayer:


Sweetheart neckline (made by ruching):


Apron:


Katyusha and choker:


And of course, the dress modeled by me!!



The design of the underskirt/overdress combination was to have a cutaway style. Originally I planned to have just the scalloped hem, but with the apron, the lower half of the outfit just seem overly dominated by white in the front view, so I added the straight layer of black to lengthen the overdress a little bit. However it is only tacked on, and can be taken off or folded up when I want to wear the dress as not a maid outfit, since I designed it such that I could be comfortable wearing it as a normal Lolita dress.

The rest of the outfit is completed by black/white dotted stockings (with a white satin bow at the top, but it's hard to see), a long curly wig from Gabalnara, which I love. I'm not wearing makeup or my gray contacts in these photos, since I'm waiting for the contacts to arrive. The shoes are also just stand-ins, but similar to what I will be wearing.

The bodice is still somewhat loose on me, although I did try to use darts to shape the waist. I'm considering adding a crisscross of black elastic across the back to make sure the sleeves stay up during dancing. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the construction of this dress, although I've learned that I should make the side seams of my bodices straight, and not try to do any shaping through the side seams, since that just makes for some weird puffiness at the sides. Lesson learned. Also, my machine requires the needle to be inserted with the flat side FACING AWAY from me... I unnecessarily broke so many needles because I had somehow reversed it in my memory >_<

And even more pictures of me being silly!

ACEN 2010 Cosplay - Miwako Sakurada [Paradise Kiss]

I decided to cosplay one of my all-time favorite manga/anime characters - Miwako Sakurada from Paradise Kiss *o* Not only is this series among my top two favorite series, this character is herself one that I especially like and feel like I can identify with.

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!!

Strawberry Frenzy - Wristcuffs and Sock Toppers

Aaaand here's part two of my strawberry frenzy! And at this point, it really is a frenzy, what with ACEN looming, piles of schoolwork, unfinished cosplays/goody bags... T_T

As mentioned before, the awesome lady I'm modeling in the fashion show for asked me to bring some strawberry-related accessories to go with the outfit. I made this set of wristcuffs and sock toppers with felt stuffed strawberries. Unfortunately, this is really short notice, and apparently Vogue Fabrics has fantaaaastic fabric selection but really rather... meager... lace selections. I realize this lace is "bad lace" (I'm going to be itching like crazy) but it was the best I could do (it had to be a beige, not white) in the time and resources that I have T_T I think they'll be fine from onstage though... Yay 20-feet rule!

Anyways, onto the pictures! I was in such a rush I didn't take any progress pics... oh well :-P

The wristcuffs! I decided to just have a single strawberry directly attached, so that it's not too busy/overwhelming for wrists:




And the sock toppers! These have cute dangles, since my legs are big enough for them to not look ridiculously overpowering :-P




Aaaand I finally managed to finish my complete Miwako cosplay (although, I'm waiting on shoes to hopefully get here in time), but Amulet Spade's shirt seems like it's not going to get redone anytime soon. At least I'm (hopefully) getting new boots that I will spraypaint brown, so that I'll have correct boots this time around.

Strawberry Frenzy - Jewelry Set

I'll be attending Anime Central 2010 this year (it's coming up soon!) and I'm walking in the fashion show. The designer I'm working with has me wearing a Country Lolita outfit with a strawberry motif. While she is providing the dress, a matching purse, and a necklace, I was asked to provide some other accessories of my own.

So I decided to start off by making a ring and some earrings to go with the outfit!

I've been experimenting with making plastic jewelry from Shrinky Dinks, and while I've had varying levels of success, I figured they would be the way to go for making some simple plastic strawberry pieces. It took a couple of tries to figure out which colors to use (because they get darker when the shrink plastic is cured) as well as how much to scale up the final size that I wanted (because it's not exactly 3X like the instructions say it is).

Here's the final setup, with one cured piece and two pre-cured pieces:


I used Sharpie permanent markers to draw and color the pieces first. Then I cured them in a toaster oven, and drew on the seeds afterwards using a black Sharpie. The holes in the earrings were punched before curing, using just a single-hole puncher.

I then added some wire and earring findings (wire was to make the strawberries face the right way), and glued a ring base onto the back of the unpunched strawberry.


TADAA!!

The backs are a bit rough, because the plastic got stuck to the paper I had it on in the oven, which had some lines. Those lines unfortunately transferred onto the plastic. And Shrinky Dinks sometimes end up curling up on themselves while they're curing, and while usually they unroll eventually, the Sharpie sort of melted off a little onto the backs, so there's random patches of red and green on the backs of a couple of the pieces. But nobody's looking at the backs anyways, especially not while I'm up on the stage.

So all in all, I'm quite pleased!

Next in line is a set of wristcuffs and sock toppers with felt strawberry dangles!

(And of course, I need to somehow find time to finish my cosplay(s)...)

Deco Pearl Headphones

So, inspired by Violet LeBeaux's deco activities, specifically this tutorial, I decided to celebrate my completion of all my final projects by decorating my own headphones.

I started out with an old set of over-the-ear headphones I've had for a couple years now.  They're Panasonics, and the sound is still nice, but since I carry them around in my backpack, they're a little bit beat up ^.^;;  I had some really pretty resin roses that I got from Etsy, so I decided to incorporate them along with some old "pearl" beads I had laying around.

And the result:


Now, in person, you can still see the original ring of blue that I put the pink pearls over, so if I did this again, I would paint that part silver to match the rest, or pink or something NOT NEON BLUE. But overall, I'm pretty pleased with how it worked!

I put the rose on first, so I could center it, and then put the ring of pink pearls around it (on top of the original neon blue ring). And then I filled in the space between the rose and the pink with small white pearls. I'm actually glad it didn't come out looking like a gloopy mess (yay for clear-drying epoxy ^.^;;) because it was a mess trying to dip each tiny pearl in glue and then get it onto the headphone. I finally decided to just put the glue on the headphone, wait for it to get tacky, and then pour the pearls on top and maneuver them into position. That worked much better ^.^;;

So yes... DECO SUCCESS!! Now I kind of want to do this to everything I own, but I used up all my pink pearls on this >.< Time to buy more!

Harmonies FTW!!!

Did I even mention how much I love harmonies? And how I enjoy being masochistic... by learning harmonies by ear? ^.^

Aaaanyways, AKB48's "Sakura no Shiori" was pure delight for me, because of... AWESOME HARMONIES!!! I first heard it by walking past K-Snow's room, and thought that they'd for some reason suddenly gotten into Japanese children's choirs. I adore choral music, and this song definitely has that sort of sound to it. Not to mention wonderfully intricate (well, for pop music anyways) harmonies!!

And of course, I just had to learn them... I spent two days picking out harmonies and finally arrived at my own 4-part choral arrangement of this song (for SSAA choir). I think I captured most of the original harmonies, and there might be a couple that I randomly made up XD In any case, I feel like it was reasonably successful :-P

So here's a beta version of me singing all 4 parts (which splits occasionally into 5-6 parts) :-P

Sakura no Shiori

Okay, so for some reason my alto parts are synchronizing weirdly such that they sometimes create horrible beats, but I don't think it's *too* noticeable in when mixed with the other parts ^.^

So yeah... hope you enjoy it!!

My Sweet Tooth

I participated in a Secret Santa exchange recently, in which my giftee requested sweets jewelry. Since my travel plans didn't allow for me to order something online, and they don't exactly sell sweets jewelry around here, I decided I would just make my own with polymer clay!

I was especially stoked because I'd recently bought a new crockpot for the express purpose of baking polymer clay things and hadn't actually used it yet. So yay! Sweets jewelry + christening of my polyclay crockpot = _>

First, we have a "Cake Slice Ring" (yeah... I'm a creative namer....):


A top view for the details:


And what it looks like on my (ugly) hand:


Next up, the "Triple Scoop Ice Cream Bowl Ring":


Top details:


Worn:


I sort of wish I'd had a glass marble of the right size available when I was making this one. I had to freehand the shape of the bowl, so it's not as perfect as my OCD self would have liked.

Thirdly, "Chocolate Cupcake Ring":


Top view... not very exciting for this one:


Worn (it was kind of tall for my taste, but definitely smaller than most cupcake rings I see for sale...):


And lastly, my "masterpiece". By which I mean a 2-piece set :-P

"Chocolate Ribbon Set":


Top view of the ring, just for the heck of it:


Back of the barrette:


The ring worn:


Phew, so many pictures!

Overall, I was quite pleased, despite how long it took me. And my little crockpot worked perfectly as a baking oven! Just pop it on the low setting, stick a thermometer in there to monitor the temperature, and it's ready to go in about an hour :-P Yeah... so it takes awhile to heat up, but then again, it takes me awhile to actually make anything, so it worked out well.

<3