Catching up on lots of stuff - What I've been up to and upcoming Creative project plans

Hi Retro & Vintage lovin' friends!

Many apologies for the radio silence these past several months.  Time does have a way of sliding by pretty darn quick when you aren't expecting it.    By way of explanation, life has been a series of not-so-great events that have zapped much of my creative energy and put me on auto pilot.   My mom had an illness and hospital stay.  My son had a cancer scare that culminated with a surgery and removal of a large (thankfully benign) tumor.

Then there was the  Never-ending Winter, where we routinely had 8 ft. snowdrifts and were digging out until April.      

I am incredibly thankful that all my family members are on the mend, and winter is now behind us.

Creative Endeavors 2015

This year in sewing -  My daughter went to Anime Boston in March.   She wore her Elizabeth cosplay that we made for PAX last year for one of the days.  Then she and her friends had decided to do Steampunk versions of the DC Comic characters.  She was Harley Quinn.   I didn't unfortunately document carefully the fabrication process of the cosplay, as I usually like to do,  but here are some pictures of the finished ensemble.   (I made the skirt and frock coat,  she made the hat & hammer prop.  the bodice, gloves and wig were purchased).    

This is the Elizabeth Cosplay from last year, she is posing with "Booker," Her character's brother in the game. 

Steampunk Harley Quinn

The Girls of DC Comics:  Poison Ivy, Black Canary & Harley Quinn.

DC Comics' gang

I have plans to work on another dress for my 'adopted' daughter.   Our inspiration dress is one by Romanian design team Chotronette, comprised of Silvia Chiteala & Laura Cazacu.  Their dresses are beautiful and whimsical.  They have a 50's- (early) 60's vintage feel to them.   My plan is to use one of my vintage patterns and make modifications as I go. 

"Ivy Garden Sorbet" by Chotronette

Other crafts:

Earlier this year, I stumbled upon a video about lacemaking on youtube.  I have wanted to learn how to make lace for a long time.  (my ancestry is Dutch,  I love the beautiful lace that it made there. In addition to things like hankerchiefs, table covers, pillow edging, etc., there are the bonnets. In the 1700-1800's, traditional Dutch costumes included a bonnet or cap that incorporated lace. Each area of the Netherlands has a different costume.  My people come from Alkmaar, (one of the great cheesemaking towns) where the woman's dress is a blue & white striped one, red kerchief, and a simple flared bonnet.  Anyway, I bought myself a set of lace-making bobbins, and am slowly amassing the other items needed to give it a whirl.    

Reading

 So maybe not a creative endeavor, but definitely an individual passion.  For the past several months, I have been indulging myself in reading.  When I was younger, I almost always had my nose in a book. The library was my second home, so much so that when I turned of age, the librarian offered me a job there!    When my kids were little, I always felt guilty about stopping to read. There was always something to do - housework, shopping, kid wrangling,  all the mommy and wife and caregiving stuff. Maybe the mommy martyr syndrome had set in....we are really good at denying ourselves things.      Although I would catch a book here and there, it wasn't as much as I used to.

 I started reading more again awhile ago and it feels like part of my soul has been awakened again after a long slumber.    I am partial to historical fiction, sci-fi, fantasy & paranormal stuff. I  have discovered several new authors and am literally devouring books. At some poing I might create a 'have read' page on my blog with a summary and what I thought of the book.

Gardening

My son & I came upon the idea of creating a Carl Sagan tribute garden.   Not sure how the idea came about exactly, but Peter is a big fan of Carl Sagan, and astronomy in general.   The plan is to create a plant bed that includes several species aptly named flowers - 'comet gladiolas', 'stargazer lilies'  cosmos, sunflowers, moon flowers etc.   Along with several gazing balls that will be placed strategically as the solar system,  some ground cover flowers meandering down through the center to resemble the milky way (probably white alysium), and maybe some twinkle lights as the kuiper belt. We are still in the creation phase, and I expect that most of the things we do this year will probably not come to fruition until next spring/summer,  but it is a great project and we are having fun planning & doing it.

stuff we got for the Carl 'da man' Sagan Tribute Garden.

Also this year, we set up several birdfeeders next to our large window and have had a ball watching tons of birds and squirrels come daily to have breakfast  (and probably lunch & dinner!)    Gives the kitties something to watch too.  (I call it Cat TV)

Birdies!

That's most of what I've been up to.   Probably a few things I have forgot,  but I will try to get back in the habit of posting a little more regularly.     

Have any great summer plans?   I would love to hear about them!  Comment below :)

xo Yvonne

Rick Grimes from the Walking Dead Cosplay tutorial

In honor of the beginning of October, and one of my absolute favorite of all favorite holidays - Halloween -  I'm sharing a cosplay I made for my son earlier this year for Anime Boston (March).   Peter is a shy kid, however, and ultimately decided not to cosplay for the event.  But the outfit came out pretty darn good if I do say so my self, so I thought I would share it and the how-to's with my readers.  I have tried to include the pricing and source (where I found an item) 

The hat:

I ordered a cowboy hat from amazon.com for about $7 ($11 with shipping), but was a little dismayed when it arrived as it looked a little more like something Woody in Toy Story would wear than a gun-slinging zombie fighter sheriff's hat.    A little creativity and a lot of brown craft paint fixed that.  (Brown acrylic paint, large bottle (about $3) found in the Walmart craft section).

I applied about three coats to the hat along with painting over the white fabric edging.  I went up to the inside  (but did not paint the inside itself as I didn't want to leave any residue on my kid's head)  

Lotsa brown craft paint

Gold Braid:    I purchased a package of thickish gold cording from Michael's  (about $3 per packet which had 6 yards).  Found in the knitting/crocheting section.   I used a hot glue gun to tack down the cording, looped it around the brim a few times, and then made a couple makeshift tassels at the end. 

Yay Tassels!

Making the Sheriff's badges & Police shields:

The next part was adding the 'badge'  to the hat,  and I would also need a second one to go on the uniform, as well as the police shields for the arms & the nameplate for the breast pocket. 

  I looked a lot on the internet to see if I could purchase some pre-made ones, they had a few on ebay but were astronomically priced (like $80 a set)  and all the plastic ones I found looked kind of cheap.  So I ended up making my own:  I found some high quality pictures on the 'net of the Walking Dead sheriff's badges,  'Grimes' nameplate and King's County Police shields.  

 I printed them out onto  Iron-on Transfer Paper (most craft stores like AC Moore, Michael's & Joann's will have it.)  I used to use these sheets all the time for my kids making T-Shirts, and for Girl Scouts crafts.  (They are specific to your printer, mine is an inkjet)  and then once printed out, I ironed them on to a sturdy white cotton fabric.  I have to admit that the first time through I made a mistake - anything with writing you need to print the reverse out (mirror image)  and I was all ready to sew the patches on when I realized they were backward.  I ended up using a photo editing program to flip them so they printed in reverse  (Adobe photoshop,  MS Paint,  there are a bunch of them that can flip a picture) 

 Once you iron on the design, they come out right side round.  The two sheriff's stars I then hot glued to cardboard and then trimmed out the shapes.       I hot glued one star to the center front of the hat.

Finished hat:  the paint gave it a realistic rawhide look

 The shirt:

The shirt we used was an old Boy Scout one.  With my son being in scouts for several years, and myself and my husband being adult volunteers,  we had a bunch of shirts that one or the other had outgrown or become worn out.   If you don't happen to have your own scout shop in the basement,   you can also find them used at thrift stores (I ran across two not too long ago at our friendly neighborhood Good Will store (like $6 each) and I've seen them used on ebay as well.   Note- you could buy them new from one of the Council Shops or Scouting.org, but new shirts run close to $40, and for a costume that you won't wear more than a couple times, it is not cost effective.
I used plain Brown felt cut to sew over the breast pockets, and for the epaulettes (shoulder loops).

For the police shields on the arms, the sheriff's star and the 'Grimes' nameplate, see the Iron on instructions I gave above for the sheriff's star on the hat.   The two shields were just ironed on to the white cotton, trimmed for shape, and then sewn to the arms.   Ditto for the Grimes nameplate patch.   The star as with the one for the hat was glued to cardboard backing and then tacked to the shirt with some hot glue.

Pants:   For the pants, we did try to find some that matched the color at a thrift store, but alas, couldn't find any that were the right color and size (my son is tall!)   I ended up using a pair of his old khakis, then dyed them using RIT Brown dye  (used the stove top method and left them in for a good long time to get a really dark brown)    I had bought a few yards of gold trim (in with the ribbons from the craft section of Walmart)   and sewed it up the sides of the pants with my machine.  (note - sewing up the side of a pant leg is not for the faint of heart....  you can also use hot glue)

 

Finished pants

Kitty wondering what the heck i'm doing

 So here is the finished  Rick Grimes Cosplay costume.      You can accessorize or not (I found a pair of play handcuff's at Walmart for $3 that he could loop through his belt, they also had some play Cowboy gun sets (toy dept.), complete with holsters for $10 (did not get)

Finishing touches to add true zombie fighting reality:  

Cherry kool-aid I heard makes some pretty decent pretend blood - make up a batch and spatter away. This time of year in the Halloween section, you can also find some 'fake blood'   to smear yourself or your kid with.   

Andrew Lincoln as "Rick Grimes"

What will YOU be for Halloween this year?   Love to hear your comments below!

xo Yvonne

Cosplay for PAX East - Elizabeth from Bioshock

Hey Everybody,    I hope this finds everyone in good spirits!   We are wrapping up the weekend, one of the few left of summer.  The past couple of nights have been a little chilly - an early harbinger of fall?   It makes me kind of sad that summer is nearing an end.

This post is a bit of a throw back.  My daughter had wanted to cosplay Elizabeth from Bioshock for PAX East this year (this past March) We worked really hard on perfecting her look, but I was dismayed as she didn't get any pictures of herself at the event, and it was so busy getting everyone ready that I forgot to take any when it was completed.     She did say that many people stopped her and took pictures of her in cosplay while she was there which is always a sign that it came out well.

Since then,  we took some photos at home. She took some by herself on time delay with her Ipad, and some my son took with his Blackberry phone. (See below for several of them.)

The way we usually go about creating a cosplay look - first we find some inspirational photos on the web.   The character of Elizabeth has a couple of different costumes - this one that Autumn chose with the long skirt, corset and short jacket, and a simpler one that appears in a different part of the game that looks more like a school uniform. (not pictured here, but it is a simpler skirt, white blouse and ascot type tie/scarf)   

more "inspiration"

Example of an "inspiration photo"

For the next step, I try to find patterns that have similar shapes to the clothing pieces needed.  In this case, I used McCall's M6845 (bolero jacket)  and McCall's M5681  (50's style full skirt) Both the patterns were rated as easy. 

Autumn was pretty specific about the fabric she wanted - a dark blue velveteen/velour type, not heavy weight (it had to 'swirl' easily).   We bought about 5 or 6 yards at Joann's fabric.   ( A couple of side notes here:     I purchased the fabric for this project as well as another couple cosplays I was helping to make for  friends, and used a bunch of coupons.  If you are not signed up for Joann's coupons,  do it before you go shopping!  Also, sign up for email coupons and texts if you can.  I got about $300 worth of fabric and notions for $80 that night.

Another thing to keep in mind, and I think this is true for most sewing projects.   Whatever your regular size is when you buy ready-made clothes - Disregard them!   Take your measurements (usually bust, hip and waist) and go by the chart on the back of the pattern. In my years of making different clothes & costumes,  the size the pattern says you are has never corresponded to the size you normally buy your jeans or tops in. )

 This look was not as hard to achieve as I initially thought it would be.  Autumn bought the wig,  corset & hooped petticoat online.     The corset we added thin strips of dark blue bias tape to the create the stripes and outline.

I modded the jacket from the initial pattern shape which had a really loose sleeve that morphed into the sides/back of the jacket.                     

You can see here,  I measured where the arm would fit, then sewed a seam in and clipped the excess fabric off.        I also added a collar onto the back of the neck area, and edged the whole thing with double fold bias tape. (these steps not shown in pictures)

 The skirt pattern was actually one that was supposed to be a poodle skirt,- a 50's style full skirt with the decorations  (I left the poodle off!)   I made this skirt the shorter length of the two shown on the pattern, as we wanted the petticoat to be able to peek out from underneath it.  Also, I added some extra width to each of the cut pieces (this pattern was basically 4 large triangles with the tops scalloped off. These were sewn together on the sides with a zipper in the back and waistband on top)  By adding a few inches on either side of each of the pieces,  I got a little more flare, and a better fit over the petticoat.

So here is my beautiful Autumn modeling the completed Elizabeth Cosplay:

I think some of these are her recreating poses from the game

good view of the back of the jacket, and the bias tape striping on the corset

Pretty Petticoat

I also made an Victorian inspired bird necklace ('choker style' shown below) as part of the original costume.  You can see it in the inspiration picture on the right above.   The choker it was a bit scratchy on her neck and she ended up finding a little gold cage necklace to go with it instead. (there is a part in the game where you as Elizabeth's character have to choose between a bird or a cage, so her choice of necklace stayed true to the character which is very important to Autumn when doing cosplays)
To make this, I started with about 1/2 yard of 2" wide dark blue ribbon. Then the same amount (1/2 yard), but slightly less wide lace ribbon (go maybe 1 1/2" wide, this is so you can see the blue as a background when the lace ribbon is laid on top of the dark blue).  Both could be found in the ribbon section at Joann's).  The lace ribbon was sewn to the dark blue ribbon.  The bird charm was in the jewelry/craft section also at Joann's fabrics.   I made a cardboard circle, glued some of the excess skirt fabric as backing, and then glued a string of faux seed pearls around it, and affixed the whole thing to the center of the ribbon.  I put a small piece of velcro as the closure (measuring her neck exactly first so that the excess ribbon could be trimmed)

The whole cosplay turned out really nicely.  There are a couple of other Cons coming up she can wear it to as well.

I will post some other pictures of the other cosplays we did for PAX and Anime Boston this year.

Do you enjoy cosplaying?    Do you sew or create your own?  I would love to hear about it in the comments below!

Thanks for reading!
xo Yvonne