Day 19

I have been making a lot of progress, while attempting to balance my job suddenly wanting me to work 40 hours a week. (Which is you know yay money but is murdering my free time).

I sat down to start with the fabric pieces first. The cape was my first foray into using the freezer paper stencil technique and it came out like a dream! I will admit i rushed the second side so I got some bubbles because i wasn't as through with my ironing and seal as I should have been. Thanks to my wonderful partner and his drafting skills, i ended up with two fantastic templates for the greek key pattern, which looks like this!

This was my first time working with stencils, so I am thrilled with the smooth crisp lines I created. It still needs one last painted stripe on both sides, but I figured I can save that for later when more is accomplished. 

I also completed the Skirt, which ended up being an incredible easy circle skirt. No matter how hard I try I can never get the waist measurement correct, and this fabric ended up having way more stretch then I expected it to have. So in the end it needed a seam which took away a bit of its fullness. Once I assemble the leather over skirt I will be able to better see how long the skirt needs to be, and hem and finish from there. That will be the plan for the rest of my day. 

This weekend I have Sunday and Monday 100% off so I am looking to dive headfirst into my armor construction with plenty of pictures to follow. 

Now back to the machine!

Day 4

So a few weeks ago I was scrolling through my old pinterest page looking at the cosplays I pinned when I came across a wonder woman redesign.

 I immediately fell in love with every bit of it, especially the spartan sword and shield. Though my boyfriend was quick to point out if i wanted to do a spartan she eould need a spear too... so i decided why not be absolutely insane and start with a full suit of armor shield and sword in a month... that we re already a few days into. Yep.

So step one to making armour!! Body form!!. I borrowed an old tee shirt of Tims and gave him permission to wrap me in duct tape. I had made a duct tape form for him before that ended up being a bit of a challenge to remove. So this was payback for him in a way. We tried to make sure that it stayed well fitted and went down over the hips like her does. I ve decided to put the armour off for a bit, so i can focus on doing what i know i can do, which is the fabric pieces. I have off for three days next week so i ll be working on the fabric materials then. Until then the guys and i are going to magfest!!

 Back!

Front!!

Day 3. It begins

Cosplay Insanity

Day 3.

Today I walked into a Joann's with equal parts nerves and excitement. I have been a cosplayer for about three and a half years now. I discovered cosplay partway through my first (and only) sewing class in college. I decided that for our first convention I would sew costumes for all of my friends. In about a week. There were seven of us. This probably should have been the first clue that I have a tendency of throwing myself in over my head. There was panic, sleepless nights, and some shoddy hems, but they were done in time and I got my first taste of seeing my work walking around a convention floor. And in the car ride home that day we discussed what we were going to be doing next year. And then I promptly didn't make anything for almost a year.

Procrastination is my strong suit. Followed closely by an overabundance of exuberance, and a lack of time management skills. I work my butt off, burn out, and then can't pick up a costume for at least a few months.

The last costume I made was almost two months ago now. So when 2017 rolled around and my best friend gave me a calendar with Joann's coupons for christmas (Thank you Chryssi) I decided to reach the pinnacle of my own insanity, and make a costume a month for an entire year. This is going to stretch me in every way, time management, procrastination, financial management, my skills and my creativity. So of course I decide I need to blog about it. We'll see how this is going to go. Tomorrow I sit down to get started on the first costume, panicking more than a little the entire time. But hey, in the end hopefully I'll learn something, even if its just the next time I get a moment of cosplay insanity, I learn to say no.