Cosplay progress photos!
Nov. 21st, 2004 09:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
moonwiseIt's official: I'm out of bobbins. Time to head out to get some more, tomorrow.
I find it pleasing to look at all my full bobbins in the box, though. Each color is a different project - from the Christmas stockings that were my first project with the machine, to the signal flag pillows, to the Amalthea outfit, to Anna Williams, to Seung Mina, to Tenten, to the baby quilt, and last to Diao Chan.
Diao Chan's sleeves turned out to be more of a problem than I had anticipated, and Murphy is alive and well and living in my apartment. My first shot at her sleeves, working from a McCall's sleeve base, was a complete botch. I wasted both time and a good portion of my charmeuse, which has been a complete bitch to work with from day one.
Back to the drawing board, and this time I decided the only way to go was to make my own pattern, and get the divisions between colors mapped out with the French curves. That went fairly well, but sadly, another yard of fabric was required. Note to self: measure twice, cut once. Even then, the charmeuse walked on me during one cut and left the edge of one sleeve completely out of whack. Happily, the white part of the sleeves had been deliberately left long, and I was able to slice off the most whacked-out part.
I had not anticipated having to ease the white part into the pink part, so that was irritating, and the bottom seam had to be pulled out anyway because the gold strip is topstitched on. >_< Talk about executing steps in the wrong order. I like the way the bell of the sleeve turned out, though.
Without further ado...
Sleeves and tunic
(sorry about the funny perspective, I couldn't get the right shot from the other side of the table, and I was too lazy to rearrange.)
Closer shot of the sleeve
Doesn't look like much work, does it? :)
Next project: Diao Chan's butt-drape. The dupioni silk I chose for it is such a shocking pink that it wears my color receptors out, no joke!
I find it pleasing to look at all my full bobbins in the box, though. Each color is a different project - from the Christmas stockings that were my first project with the machine, to the signal flag pillows, to the Amalthea outfit, to Anna Williams, to Seung Mina, to Tenten, to the baby quilt, and last to Diao Chan.
Diao Chan's sleeves turned out to be more of a problem than I had anticipated, and Murphy is alive and well and living in my apartment. My first shot at her sleeves, working from a McCall's sleeve base, was a complete botch. I wasted both time and a good portion of my charmeuse, which has been a complete bitch to work with from day one.
Back to the drawing board, and this time I decided the only way to go was to make my own pattern, and get the divisions between colors mapped out with the French curves. That went fairly well, but sadly, another yard of fabric was required. Note to self: measure twice, cut once. Even then, the charmeuse walked on me during one cut and left the edge of one sleeve completely out of whack. Happily, the white part of the sleeves had been deliberately left long, and I was able to slice off the most whacked-out part.
I had not anticipated having to ease the white part into the pink part, so that was irritating, and the bottom seam had to be pulled out anyway because the gold strip is topstitched on. >_< Talk about executing steps in the wrong order. I like the way the bell of the sleeve turned out, though.
Without further ado...
Sleeves and tunic
(sorry about the funny perspective, I couldn't get the right shot from the other side of the table, and I was too lazy to rearrange.)
Closer shot of the sleeve
Doesn't look like much work, does it? :)
Next project: Diao Chan's butt-drape. The dupioni silk I chose for it is such a shocking pink that it wears my color receptors out, no joke!
no subject
Date: 2004-11-21 08:55 pm (UTC)Do you have a big cutting mat, a rotary cutter, and pattern weights? If not, I highly recommend you pick them up to save your sanity. They make it way easier to cut fabrics that crawl. (I don't think it's even possible to cut stretch fabric precisely without a rotary cutter unless you're some kind of ninja.) Also, if you're cutting multiple layers of slippery fabric at once, I found that it really helps to pin the layers together in a bunch of spots first to minimize crawlage.
I feel your pain re: cutting mishaps. I was cutting out the lining fabric for Xiahou Dun's surcoat today, and after I started to cut the second pattern piece, I realized that I hadn't placed it high up enough and it was sticking out over the fold at the bottom of the fabric. D'oh. At least the lining is cheap (it cost me $1/yd on sale w00t) and I had enough to cut out the pieces properly. I am dreading cutting into my brocade because it's expensive and matching up the pattern properly will be very tedious. (It is going to look continuous across the vertical seams, not just get mirrored like the pattern on the pants. It would have been nice if I could have just made each side as one wide piece so I only had to do one seam...but no...the fabric is only 29" wide! Argh!)
Oh yeah, and Fray Check is mexcellent when it comes to working with this sort of fabric. I put it on the surcoat pieces right away so they won't decide to lose entire threads before I get a chance to baste the lining together and check the pattern.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-22 06:59 am (UTC)Why yes, I do have a rotary cutter, a mat, and weights! ^^ (I quilt a bit, am learning from my mother-in-law.) The mat is large for a quilting mat but not nearly big enough for a pattern piece. Are you talking about one of the big cardboard mats when you mention cutting mat? Wouldn't the rotary cutter go right through it?
Oh noooooo! Isn't that just the worst feeling? At least it was the lining, though, and not your $10/yd brocade. You're very ambitious - I'm not nearly advanced enough to do things like pattern matching. Do share your experiences. :) Where do you tend to shop for your fabrics? Do you go to a big place like JoAnn's, or are there some good mom-n-pop shops out there in PA?
Thanks for the advice on the Fray Check. So far I haven't had a huge problem, but brocade does fray like crazy if you don't stitch it immediately. Hence, the threads all over the kitchen when I was making Seung Mina's outfit. >_<
Good luck finishing up Xiahou Dun! :)
no subject
Date: 2004-11-22 01:43 pm (UTC)Aw, thanks. ^_^ The type of pattern matching I've done so far (lining up my pants cloth so the pattern wound up mirrored around each seam) really isn't bad. It's just tedious. For the pants, I used the "with nap" layout (which has you cut the fabric in half and rotate one piece around so you have the right sides together and the nap facing the same way on each piece) and placed the top piece on the bottom piece such that the patterns on both matched up. I found it easiest to have the bottom piece stick out on the top and one side, match up the top along those sides (it was easy to tell whether the pattern was matching because it's apparent on the wrong side of the fabric and when you match it correctly, it appears continuous across the edge of the top piece), pin the crap out of it along both sides, and then do the other sides. I laid the pants piece down so that each side cut through motifs in the same way. Since the cutting lines are diagonal, that's really all you can do. The pants pattern pieces are symmetrical (they're simple pajamas), so when all was said and done, I wound up with the pattern mirrored around all seams. I was going to finish them yesterday and take a picture, but I was a nimrod and bought too wide twill tape for the drawstring, so they had to wait. D'oh.
To get a continuous pattern, you have to cut one piece at a time and lay each piece down on the fabric before cutting the next and pin it along the seam allowance so you can fold it back and preview how it will look when it's sewn. If the pattern doesn't match, move the piece so it does and try again. Google for information on matching plaids for diagrams and instructions that are probably better than my babble. =P It really isn't bad...you just have to be patient and anal-retentive and check everything about forty-eight times before you cut it.
Out here, we have a JoAnn's and that's really about it. Central PA has good mom and pop stores for some things, but in my experience, fabric is not one of them. >_< I can buy notions and random stuff at JoAnn's (sometimes I get really lucky - I got my gold pants fabric there on sale, and I once found a remnant of white Lycra that I used to make cuffs for another costume, and they're the only place that sells swimsuit liner that matches my skin tone extremely well), but I do most of my fabric shopping online because their selection of costuming fabrics is generally teh sux. I bought duchess satin from Fashion Fabrics Club, dyeable cotton twill from Dharma Trading, and rayon/silk brocade from Thai Silks. I am so jealous of people who live near garment districts. =P