Violet Baudelaire cosplay: Boots and Bodice

So far I have finished making a template for the bodice. the idea is to make a cloth template then trace a pattern from it on to tracing paper. I started by following Dawn's Costume Guide to make a basic bodice shape. I then slowly began to add bits and pieces to make it look more like Coleen Atwood's deisgn, such as the sleeves . . .

The triangular points on the front of the bodice . . . . . . and on the back . . .

. . . finishing off by making the back a little higher with some horrendous neon cloth that used to be a pair of trousers.

These boots cost roughly 10 Euro to make: 5 for the boots and 5 for the buttons and thread. One is already finished, though it took quite a while, since I'm have to blanket stitch by hand. I have a feeling that somewhere in the manufacture of these boots glue or interfacing was used because my needle is decidley sticky after a few hours of sewing.

Star dress completed

At last the star dress is finished. Actually it's been finished since Staurday but I only got around to uploading the image today.

I also made a little handbag based on a tutorial by SecrteLife of a Bionerd, using cotton and some satin-like fabric. ( see tutorial here http://www.threadbanger.com/episode/SLB_20100701/silk-chiffon-flower-hand-bag-inspired-by-blugirl-handbag-secretlifeofabionerd )

WIP:

Cosplay decided and star dress: take 2

My costume for Comic Con 2010 is decided: Violet Baudelaire. I'm going with Violet mainly because this is a difficult costume: there are pleats all over the hem of the two-layer skirt, lots of applique, and the top part of the dress is a bodice, which I've never made before.






I think I will need to make that duct tape dressform after all.
Here's a rough sketch of the costume:






I'm starting off with Violet's boots, which look like this:

I have some boots that I bought for 5 Euro from a charity shop which can be remade into Violet's boots. I'll be adding buttons to make them look more authentic, as well as some straps. The buttons (all 14 of them) were about 5 Euro.

My other project is finishing the star dress. The first draft was a total and utter failure (see previous blog entries). None of the original fabric could be salvaged, so I used a long cotton scarf as my base fabric and a less complicated pattern. The skirt is made up of six panels, while the bodice was absed on a halter-neck t-shirt of mine.

T-shirt recon and skirt to handbag

Since my efforts at creating a dress did not go well (the dye went navy rather than black, the dress itself didn't change colour at all etc.) I needed a simpler project, so I remade a t-shirt. The original t-shirt was an ordinary boxy t-shirt that my parents bought in the Camargue, which I remade into a more fitted t-shirt with better looking sleeves. I'm particularly happy with this because I didn't use any tutorials, just the pinch and pin technique.

T-shirts are fun to reconstruct: they are very versatile and can be remade into a myriad of new clothes or accessories. I plan to do more t-shirt makeovers. One thing I want to try in particular is to make a blotchy looking t-shirt, such as this I'm not sure how to achieve this affect: is it

a) tie dye on a plain white shirt using red dye and black dye

b) tie dye using bleach on a black shirt

c) tie dye on a red shirt using black dye

d) tie dye using bleach followed by dying the shirt red

e) something else?

I've been experimenting with t-shirt designs, such as this:
but sometimes a printed design is a little boring on its own, so dying techniques and how to add embellishments are all going to be useful in making unique t-shirts



My other weekend project was making a skirt handbag. It isn't the first one I made, but it is the first one with a proper strap that won't fall apart. I hand-sewed this bag because I couldn't be bothered to change the needle on the machine. I used an enormous denim skirt that ended up in my fabric pile: in fact, I have enough material left over to make another skirt-or handbag.

I'm going to continue to think of way of creating my star-dress. I'm considering creating a corset-like dress, without boning, something like the t-shirt in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdmsPTLnhRA&feature=related . I don't think I'll put in any lacing; a zipper up the back is just fine. I just need to find the right fabric.
EDIT: I have to start thinking about what to cosplay for Comic Con. the Convention is mid-October, so it will still be warm. So far, Neytiri (Avatar), Masane (Witchblade: firast Witchblade transformation), San (Princess Mononoke) and Violet (A Series of Unfortunate Events) seem the best options.