Included Seam Allowance: Optional

 I taught myself how to sew from commercial patterns, and then from self-made patterns that imitated the model of the commercial pattern. When I started taking classes in my university’s theatre department, it was from a desire to learn how to do things differently, more efficiently, and more accurately, not to learn how to do them in the first place (needless to say, I didn’t see myself continuing as far as tailoring at the time).

 And I embraced everything I was taught immediately, except for one thing: I held onto the method of including seam allowance in patterns for cosplay. I understood why it made sense for theatre, but I figured that since I was only making the pattern for myself, I could keep doing that much my old way.

 So I noticed when I drafted my last pattern and I didn’t include seam allowance. But I didn’t miss it. Even though it takes longer to add the seam allowance—granted, by about two minutes per piece with a decent $6 transparent ruler—having the seam allowances marked instead of just assumed makes it easier, for me, for the garment to fit exactly as the pattern intends. It also helps with pattern matching (something pretty important for Kuroshitsuji, amongst hundreds of other cosplay), since I can immediately distinguish which sections of the fabric will end up visible and which will be pressed and trimmed out of sight. 

 And when it’s four in the morning before a convention, it’s way easier to pin and sew a straight line when there’s a marked seam allowance telling me exactly where I need to stitch, without having to strain my eyes at those 1/8” notches on the machine.

 Much love,

 greyrondo

Product Review: Laughing Moon and Mercantile California Pants

 I bought it here: http://www.longago.com/victorianmen.html

 Pros: I liked that they included both women’s and men’s patterns in the same pattern, since that worked best for my purposes. At the time I made the California Pants, I had never made a pair of pants any more complicated than Duo Lon’s yoga/elastic waistband/whatever they were pants, which I can safely say prepared me in no way whatsoever for tackling these. As long as you go patiently—different from going slow—the pattern and directions will see you through very nicely. Also included is a thorough explanation of the trousers in regards to the period, which granted isn’t so much useful as incredibly interesting. I also liked that the directions included some hand-sewing techniques.

 Cons: I don’t have any complaints with the pattern itself, except that I hate commercial tissue paper patterns with a fiery passion. But I understand that it’s the only way to get all of those different sizes into a packet smaller than a shoebox. The only thing keeping me from going back to this pattern again is that after I made them for Animeland Wasabi, I learned how to tailor trousers from the same period but much closer to what Grell would have actually worn, and the process and results weren’t similar at all. When they say ‘California Pants’, they mean it.

Overall: I would recommend this pattern. It’s a great pattern to learn from, and isn’t more challenging than the cut of the garment requires. One thing: the pattern uses buttons in the fly, which is period accurate but kind of annoying for cosplay when you have suspenders and a period shirt as well. I don’t think anyone would begrudge you for switching in a zipper as long as you know that zippers weren’t ‘really’ used until the 1930s or so (then again, if you’re cosplaying Kuroshitsuji like I was, you can just say that zippers were ushered in half a century early along with Ciel’s TV).

 Much love,

greyrondo

Product Review: Laughing Moon Mercantile’s Men’s Victorian and Edwardian Shirts Pattern

 I bought it here: http://www.longago.com/victorianmen.html

 Pros: I learned a lot from making this shirt. I learned how to flat-fell a seam, do a narrow hem, and distinguish between many of the collars and cuffs used for different situations in the time period. This pattern is great to keep around, too: apart from including two different largely encompassing styles of shirts, it has the option of a couple of dress fronts, and multiple detachable collars, detachable cuffs, and neckwear (though Grell’s bow was somehow mysteriously not included. Can’t imagine why.)

 Cons: This is a men’s pattern, so the smallest size dusted my knees when I held up the pattern piece. Shorten carefully; the yoke made the shirt shorter than I planned (but thankfully not too short). Count the stud quantities carefully as well: I ended up with one short without time to order another one.

 Overall: I would recommend this pattern to someone else. It took less time from start to finish than I thought and while I had to look up a few terms, I take that to be lack of knowledge on my part. A machine that does buttonholes will really make this process easier: handworked buttonholes get a bit tiring after about fourteen or so.

 Much love,

greyrondo

Wig-Styling Paralysis

 About a week and a half ago, I took out my wig that will eventually be Fang’s, put it on my head, stared at it, and put it away again. For some reason, of all the styles I’ve done before, Fang’s I-don’t-believe-in-hairbrushes-ever style is the one that scares the heck out of me.

I ordered this one in Espresso, and I have some loose dark brown wefts at home.  http://www.cosworx.com/product.php?productid=16486&cat=2448&page=1

I feel like with Fang’s wig, the most important thing to do is to get started, but I can’t even do that.  I don’t get it. But it left me with a thought: what is styling a wig versus messing it up? It depends on if you’re doing it on purpose or not!

Much love,

 greyrondo

Drafting a Pattern: An Alternative Method

Over Spring Break, I attempted to draft the Capricious Reaper’s skirt. Since the skirt looks like it’s supposed to be created from crystal facets and my only references were on my tiny PSP screen, paper didn’t work so well for being able to create the whole picture. I did this instead:

First, I laid out one of my measuring tapes and yarn in a grid (the yarn gets pinned straight into the carpet), and then outlined the borders of the skirt. Then I stared at my tiny little PSP  screen for about three hours and pinned everything out. It mirrors, so now that the whole skirt is laid out, I think the next step will be to transfer the individual facets to pattern paper, and keep this around for reference while making the skirt.

Ever have to do anything out of the ordinary to get a pattern drafted?

Much love,

greyrondo

The Lining That Wasn’t Meant to Be

 There’s a certain lack of progress going on with my vest for Romance Collection Grell. It should be quick because it doesn’t have pockets or a collar. Because it doesn’t have a collar, it can’t double as his standard manga vest. But quite honestly I wouldn’t mind making another vest after this one.

 Maybe I would use the fabric again just because I have enough scraps to make another vest, but not this lining again. Not this lining again if you paid me. Total waste of a 50% off coupon, which is a crime this close to A-kon.

 I’ve dealt with some pretty uncooperative lining (so I know how to treat lining, press cloths and lowest heat possible and everything else) but this just beats out every other candidate for most hated lining ever. Beats it out by a mile.

I would do a formal pros/cons review, but the only pro was that the color went nicely with the vest fabric. It’s currently sold at Joanns for $8.99 a yard, and has this running along the selvage edge. Don’t do it.

 Much love,

greyrondo

Budget, Quality, Time

It’s getting to be that time of year where I stop caring whether my tea is decaf or not. I have a ton of things to do outside of cosplay, and when it comes to cosplay, I’m getting close to the one month mark before my cosplay planned for A-kon need to be completed and ready to go.

 I took a break to do two things: to revise something I wrote for the new Cosplay in America site (go check it out!) and to draft a supplies list for Capricious Reaper.

 Wool felt, CR palette ~1/4 yd.

450 individual…leaves? Fronds? Whatever they are. 6-10 in.

1 small can white spray paint

1 small can lavender spray paint

1 small can black spray paint

1-2 cans violet spray paint

7 bags tiny mirror tiles, varied sizes and shapes

5 bottles cheapest drug store nail polish you can find CR palette

Twice as many beads as you already have

2/3 that amount in flat-backed acrylic crystals (clear, violet)

 That’s just a portion of it. But as you can see, it’s not exactly a grocery list, the kind that you’d send someone else to go purchase and expect to get exactly what you wanted back (what, you didn’t read my mind all the way from the Michaels on Westheimer? Seriously.)  

 I have a monetary budget and a time budget that I keep in mind, and they fight with the perfectionist in me all the time. This way, each item is prioritized in terms of those three. For some, it’s most important that I get them as soon as possible; for others, quantity and price are most important. This part of the list doesn’t have too many of the items that had to be exactly perfect, but there’s a reason for that—I started looking for them months ago to allow time for the money side of priorities to have some attention. Shopping on a budget shouldn’t have to make a cosplayer totally compromise on quality!

 Much love,

greyrondo

Blister Prevention

I have a bit of a problem with my feet.  It’s called “prone-to-blister-and-bleed-and-make-mamaesme’s-mother-freak-out” syndrome, and I’ve been plagued with it my entire life.  No matter what type or style of shoe, I get horrible gaping bloody wounds all over my feet.  For example, when I played volleyball in high school, I would have to go get my feet wrapped in medical gauze and tape because the running shoes left my feet so torn up after three hours of practice that I would have to limp away. Court shoes usually did worse to my feet, and I have enough bloody socks to prove it.

How do I prevent this in everyday life?  I normally don’t.  Usually my feet will toughen up enough that the blisters will stop developing so quickly, or I’ll simply wear think socks with my tennis shoes or flip flops.  Because of the latter, my feet are unusually soft, and seem to blister after wearing heels for thirty minutes, as seen today.

What does this rambling have to do with cosplay?  Some costumes call for the most ludicrous shoes that prove to be the Achilles heel to…well, my heel.  I’m making sure to wrap my feet in medical tape, because if I’m going to wear ankle boots for Madam Red or wooden platforms for Yuuko, I want to be able to make sure I a) don’t bleed through the shoe itself (this has happened) and b) don’t end up limping after thirty minutes.

So, safety tip of the day.

If your feet are prone to blisters, or your shoes aren’t the best, put band-aids on the potential problem areas, wrap medical gauze (the colored plastic stuff!) across your feet to cover the band aid, and then wrap medical tape on top of the gauze.  (side note: make sure to adhere some of the tape to your skin so everything will stay in place.)  Make sure the tape isn’t too tight, slip on your shoes, and have a great day.

Any other safety tips I should mention?

❤ mamesme

Walkthrough: Grell’s Ribbon from Fabric

This is the process I followed to make Grell’s standard ribbon, with a few notes from the Romance Collection ribbon’s assembly. 

Pictured: Grell’s standard ribbon, Grell’s Romance Collection Promo ribbon.

I prefer cotton-based fabric to typical ribbon for this piece of Grell’s costume because it’s heavier and doesn’t even give a hint of being weird when it gets tied into a bow. The difference between the fabric and purchased ribbon is, of course, that the edges aren’t finished for you.

 I made the standard ribbon from calico and the Romance Collection ribbon from a shirting that had to be ironed into submission after I bought it. Although it might come off as a waste of fabric, I bought at least ¾” of a yard for each. In both cases the stripes ran parallel to the selvage edge, and the only place I wanted there to be a visible seam was in the center of the ribbon. That spot would fall on the nape of my neck, and so wouldn’t be visible thanks to Grell’s long tresses. Fabrics like these are pretty versatile, so they’re not bad scraps to keep around.

 After deciding on the final width of the ribbon (I used between 1.25” and 1.75”), I picked a seam allowance (because you don’t have to stick to the commercial pattern 5/8” standard) and doubled both measurements and added them together. I just clipped and ripped after determining these widths.

 At this point I pieced two lengths together to get the final length necessary for the bow. This had to be done before the next step. Folding in half with right sides together, I stitched along the length of the fabric, making a casing that I then turned inside out after trimming seam allowance down to 1/8”.

 I finished the standard ribbon’s ends by folding in the raw edges, pressing, and closing with a slipstitch using clear nylon thread, and the Romance Collection’s ribbon with a machine edgestitch. Personally, I recommend the slipstitch. It takes a little longer, but it looks much nicer in my opinion.

Much love,

greyrondo

Getting Back Into the Swing of Things

 After every convention, I have a lull in which I can’t get anything done, cosplay-wise. Part of it’s dealing with post-convention communication, and part of it’s the fact that I haven’t quite switched focus from the latest completed cosplay just yet.

 This works fine after conventions like NDK, but for summer conventions like A-kon it’s a disastrous frame of mind for me to get into because there’s so much to get done for the rest of the season.

 I have three favorite strategies to overcome this: two that I pray work, and the other I use in case of emergencies. The first actually involves going back and looking at the latest cosplay from a different perspective. There’s always something that catches my attention during the convention that I’d like to fix, and going back and doing that gets things started. From there, I start with a small but character-specific piece for the next planned cosplay. For example, I finished making Grell’s ribbon for his next costume.

 If neither of those work, then I revisit why I’m cosplaying that character in the first place. I’ll watch a few key scenes, daydream about fabric and color palettes, etc.

 Any other tips for getting back into a costume-making mood?

 Much love,

greyrondo