Late but Lucky: Completed

 The second to last step was the bunny paws that hang down from the bow at the back of her dress.

 The bunny paws are made by drawing a paw shape, cutting out two of them, sewing them to make a tube, turning them right side out, stuffing them, creating the toes, gluing on claws, and sewing it all up.

The tail is a circle that I gathered, stuffed with scrap fur, and sewed up.

The final step was to sew the velvet 'apron' at the back of the costume. 

I will try and get some good photos of the costume. Carnival is coming up soon, so I should have a chance to get photos.

Late but Lucky: Ears and Paws

The Hat is done. It was made using the Threadbanger Mad Hatter tutorial. The brim is wired, to give it some panache. The ears are a little smaller than in the reference pictures, but I don't have that much fake fur available, and wanted to keep most of it for the foot paws.

 The base shoes are canvas lace up shoes. They were too battered to wear, and leaked a lot, so they were perfect for this project. I hot glued foam pieces to the shoes, glue the tongue of the shoe to the inside of shoes, and cut a little of the tongue off so that I could fit my feet into the shoes.

 I used scissors to shape the toes, cut a little foam away at a time to get the right shape.

 Trimming, trimming, trimming.

 I then began to cover the paws in fur. I glued in the claws first. There are small holes in the fur so that the claws could fit through.

 Furring, furring, furring. 

The completed foot paws. Not bad for my first go. 

Next is the bunny bow paws and tail. I hope i have enough fur left over.

For Sale: Babydoll Costume and Gun

Just in time for Carnival!

Babydoll Costume

Babydoll Gun

Late but Lucky Jacket

The Late but Lucky jacket is done - finally.

 The collar took the longest to make. Burda 121's instructions for making it are difficult to follow, particularly if you've never made this kind of jacket. I ended up winging it, but the result doesn't look too bad.

It closes with two hooks in the front. 

All in all, I'm pleased with this jacket. I've never made anything like this before, apart from the leopard jacket, but I think I've progressed a lot since then.

Next are the fuzzy shoes, paws, and ears.

Late but Lucky Top Hat

 The top hat is done: just needs the ears.

I used Threadbanger's Mad Hatter tutorial to make this. It's very simple: you make a cylinder with an open end, glue cloth on to it, stretch the cloth down to the open end, tuck it under and glue it down. Then you make a big doughnut shape from the cloth, glue that to the body of the hat, then stretch it around a wire rim, and sew it down.

2012: A Summary

Clothing/Fashion:

Spent some time learning to make kanzashi flowers, and learning how to take macro photos.

Learnt to make bags and brush rolls. I'm trying to make enough of these to sell on etsy. I also started to appreciate topstitching and ironing everything.

T-shirt recons! I think this one was inspired by a Threadbanger tutorial. I hope I'll be able to do more of these in 2013. 

Lolita style Alice apron. This one is still for sale.

Victorian-esque chokers. I love how elegant these turned out. I sold one at Comic Con, and gave the others away as gifts.

Oh God, this tulle monster. Now I understand why petticoats are made from bottom to top, and not the other way round. Even though I made construction mistakes, this petticoat still gives a lot of volume to dresses and skirts.

I think this might be the best piece of clothing I made in 2012. I really made an effort with this: all the seams are finished with a zigzag stitch, and it looks quite professional. This was one of the pieces that I managed to sell in my etsy shop.

I made a lot of pillowcase skirts. These were more successful than I thought they would be. 

Another apron, made from an old dress.

Costumes:

This is the leotard I made to wear under Sweet Pea's costume. I think she's actually wearing a bikini, but I prefer to be more covered up.

Arwen: This dress was quite simple to make, because I already had a base dress. However, I didn't realise that non stretch fabric and stretch fabric should not be sewn together like this, because it stops the stretchy material from stretching. Oops! Still, it looks pretty.

Alice: Silk Maiden: This was an attempt to use up some of the material I own. As a result, it was not very accurate. Having said that, I learnt a lot making this dress: how to alter patterns, how to draft out darts, and how to make an obi style bow. This dress has been sold.

This is one of the prettiest costumes I made: what a shame I didn't get a chance to wear it (I sold it to make money for university). This is the second time I've made a corset-like garment, and the bodice of this costume is a lot better than my previous attempts. I also tried my hand at fabric painting.

I remade the apron from American McGee's Alice. This mostly involved altering the previous apron's shape, adding blood and pockets, and attaching a bow. 

Bizenghast Dress: This was a very inexpensive costume (15 Euro or less!). The dress isn't quite accurate, but the apron looks pretty good.

This costume was finished in 2011, but this is the first time I've been able get some photos of it, with the wig. Simple costume, made of scraps that I owned.

SyFy's Alice: This is the first time I've really messed up the sizing of a dress. This costume is at least a size too big. I also had trouble creating the back pleats.

Costumes for other people! First time I've been 'commissioned' to create costumes. These were done for my friends in Pilot, who needed Medieval style gowns.

This dress was the hardest one to make, because of the fur trim. Very tricky to work with.

Ling! This was a labour of love. So much armour!

The latest costume: Alice's Late but Lucky dress. This will be the first time that I need to sew a jacket.

Props:

Babydoll's gun. I also made a holster for it. This gun was quite simple: a normal toy gun, with polymer clay charms on gold chord.

Sweet Pea's bullet bandolier. Just a strip of material, a bucket, card, and coloured tape.

More bookbinding adventures. I'm trying to use up this marbled paper.

Owls! These two have gone to good homes.

Sally's wig. This was a labour of love. I had to make a wig cap, then create wefts from wool, then sew them on by hand. Phew!