Oh my, it's a costume!
Soooooooo
...
I suck at journals, and keeping in touch, and well, none of this is news, really.
Anyway, part of my silence is that I don't really like blogging about sewing or writing unless I have something finished, and... well, I think you can figure it out ^_^
However! I've actually got something finished!
It's Butterick 4954, something I've had my eye on for a while before finding a reason to actually make and wear it. If you've seen my Pinterest you might recognize this as well from my Sacharissa Cripslock cosplay inspiration board. 'Cause, ehm, that's what this is. A Discworld cosplay! In honour of the Discworld-themed Midwinter Fair back in December.
I think this marks my first real cosplay - the Skyrim thing was never a character, per se - it's difficult to get across you are playing your own character, with how much customization you can do, and that dress isn't even one of the more iconic items (or useful, unless you do the Restoration potion trick and enchant the hell out of it, but I digress).
So, Sacharissa Cripslock. I'm lacking some of her more... noticable traits, though I was able to fix that with a push-up bra (or two). But about this costume: The moment I saw this pattern I knew it was perfect for Sacharissa. The old-fashioned, high-collared, sheer properness of it just really spoke to me. I hesitated for a bit because the accordion pleat in the back scared me. (Spoiler alert, not without reason.)
But nothing else did it for me quite the same, so I bought it, and scored a big, 3x2.5m curtain at a thrift store - incidentally, out of the same fabric I made the medieval dress from! There was a tag this time, apparently they're HEMA curtains. Go figure.
Cutting the pieces proved tricky; I think this fabric is a duck, is that what you call it? The warp and weft are not immediately recognizable from back to front. They seem to be at an angle and caused me to pin and repin the pattern twice before finding that one of the curtain edges was a selvedge and I could just place everything parallel to that!
There was some headdesking involved.
Unfortunately the curtain was made up of three panels, two the same size and one narrower, and only one of the big ones had a selvedge, so I just had to assume that each parallel seam had had a selvedge at some point (I mean, professional curtains wouldn't just switch the grainline from one panel to the next, right? Right?).
I had some of the silky fabric left from lining the sideless surcoat, so I built the lining out of that. I didn't have quite enough to cut the back pieces in one go, so I had to stitch together some of my remains before cutting the back panels.
The jacket went fairly easy, until I got to the accordion pleat in the back and sewing the cuffs. The instructions on these patterns are always as spare as they can be, to save space, which doesn't help if you're a visual learner like me. I can visualize almost anything, but these instructions were escaping me. Luckily I found someone who'd written a review of this pattern, and taken some progress pictures as well. In the end I just tried to recreate what her pictures showed, and I think it worked out.
After the jacket was put together (apart from the buttons, I didn't find buttons until, like, two days before the event) I started on the skirt. It has two pattern pieces aside from the waistband, one cut on the fold and one cut as one, twice. They're basically identical, though, just with different markings to show which is front and which are the back pieces and where the zipper and waistband are attached. The review I found mentioned just cutting three of the folded pattern piece, and after looking at the fabric I had left I decided to do the same, though one of the three I could not cut on the fold. So I gave it an extra seam allowance and a seam down the middle. It's one of the back pieces, and the whole thing is gathered so it won't stand out. Using the pattern pieces as they came would have meant putting that seam down the front piece, and I didn't want that!
I paired the dress and jacket with a thrifted and laced-the-shit-out-of white shirt and a notepad and pencil, and put my hair up. I found a cheap, simple fascinator at a budget store that I covered in more scraps of the silky fabric, and added the feathery stuff it came with and a bow made out of more scraps of silk. (And wire! I sewed wire into the edges to help it keep its shape.)
Funny story, I spent weeks beforehand looking for a notebook to carry with me; I really wanted something I could keep in my purse, but anything that fit that criterium was too modern looking. Finally I realised I had this cardboard-covered sketchbook lying around that fit the sort of look I was going for, but it had a big, colourful company logo on the front. So I blocked that out with black marker, and then inspiration struck and I added A.M. Times and the slogan "The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret" (sic). It worked quite well!
I really like the end result, though the jacket ended up being a size too big, and it shows a bit (no time for mock-ups, alas!). I think a couple people at the Midwinter fair recognizes me, though Sacharissa isn't one of the immediately recognizable characters, not like Rincewind of Vimes or Sybil. The first guy to recognize me was before I even got in, he asked if I had a ticket yet and if not he had one extra and would be 'more than happy to offer it to the head editor of the Ankh-Morpork Times'. So that was fun!
I also wore this on a costumed outing to an open-air historical museum with some friends, though without the notebook. I'm going to use the skirt on a 16th century outfit as well (see a future post) I will be wearing in June.
...
I suck at journals, and keeping in touch, and well, none of this is news, really.
Anyway, part of my silence is that I don't really like blogging about sewing or writing unless I have something finished, and... well, I think you can figure it out ^_^
However! I've actually got something finished!
It's Butterick 4954, something I've had my eye on for a while before finding a reason to actually make and wear it. If you've seen my Pinterest you might recognize this as well from my Sacharissa Cripslock cosplay inspiration board. 'Cause, ehm, that's what this is. A Discworld cosplay! In honour of the Discworld-themed Midwinter Fair back in December.
I think this marks my first real cosplay - the Skyrim thing was never a character, per se - it's difficult to get across you are playing your own character, with how much customization you can do, and that dress isn't even one of the more iconic items (or useful, unless you do the Restoration potion trick and enchant the hell out of it, but I digress).
So, Sacharissa Cripslock. I'm lacking some of her more... noticable traits, though I was able to fix that with a push-up bra (or two). But about this costume: The moment I saw this pattern I knew it was perfect for Sacharissa. The old-fashioned, high-collared, sheer properness of it just really spoke to me. I hesitated for a bit because the accordion pleat in the back scared me. (Spoiler alert, not without reason.)
But nothing else did it for me quite the same, so I bought it, and scored a big, 3x2.5m curtain at a thrift store - incidentally, out of the same fabric I made the medieval dress from! There was a tag this time, apparently they're HEMA curtains. Go figure.
Cutting the pieces proved tricky; I think this fabric is a duck, is that what you call it? The warp and weft are not immediately recognizable from back to front. They seem to be at an angle and caused me to pin and repin the pattern twice before finding that one of the curtain edges was a selvedge and I could just place everything parallel to that!
There was some headdesking involved.
Unfortunately the curtain was made up of three panels, two the same size and one narrower, and only one of the big ones had a selvedge, so I just had to assume that each parallel seam had had a selvedge at some point (I mean, professional curtains wouldn't just switch the grainline from one panel to the next, right? Right?).
I had some of the silky fabric left from lining the sideless surcoat, so I built the lining out of that. I didn't have quite enough to cut the back pieces in one go, so I had to stitch together some of my remains before cutting the back panels.
The jacket went fairly easy, until I got to the accordion pleat in the back and sewing the cuffs. The instructions on these patterns are always as spare as they can be, to save space, which doesn't help if you're a visual learner like me. I can visualize almost anything, but these instructions were escaping me. Luckily I found someone who'd written a review of this pattern, and taken some progress pictures as well. In the end I just tried to recreate what her pictures showed, and I think it worked out.
After the jacket was put together (apart from the buttons, I didn't find buttons until, like, two days before the event) I started on the skirt. It has two pattern pieces aside from the waistband, one cut on the fold and one cut as one, twice. They're basically identical, though, just with different markings to show which is front and which are the back pieces and where the zipper and waistband are attached. The review I found mentioned just cutting three of the folded pattern piece, and after looking at the fabric I had left I decided to do the same, though one of the three I could not cut on the fold. So I gave it an extra seam allowance and a seam down the middle. It's one of the back pieces, and the whole thing is gathered so it won't stand out. Using the pattern pieces as they came would have meant putting that seam down the front piece, and I didn't want that!
I paired the dress and jacket with a thrifted and laced-the-shit-out-of white shirt and a notepad and pencil, and put my hair up. I found a cheap, simple fascinator at a budget store that I covered in more scraps of the silky fabric, and added the feathery stuff it came with and a bow made out of more scraps of silk. (And wire! I sewed wire into the edges to help it keep its shape.)
Funny story, I spent weeks beforehand looking for a notebook to carry with me; I really wanted something I could keep in my purse, but anything that fit that criterium was too modern looking. Finally I realised I had this cardboard-covered sketchbook lying around that fit the sort of look I was going for, but it had a big, colourful company logo on the front. So I blocked that out with black marker, and then inspiration struck and I added A.M. Times and the slogan "The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret" (sic). It worked quite well!
I really like the end result, though the jacket ended up being a size too big, and it shows a bit (no time for mock-ups, alas!). I think a couple people at the Midwinter fair recognizes me, though Sacharissa isn't one of the immediately recognizable characters, not like Rincewind of Vimes or Sybil. The first guy to recognize me was before I even got in, he asked if I had a ticket yet and if not he had one extra and would be 'more than happy to offer it to the head editor of the Ankh-Morpork Times'. So that was fun!
I also wore this on a costumed outing to an open-air historical museum with some friends, though without the notebook. I'm going to use the skirt on a 16th century outfit as well (see a future post) I will be wearing in June.