Brass Buttons and Black Trim

Did my best to go straight to work on the coat today, which meant I got started around midday. *Headdesk*. In any case today's job was to hand sew on the details on the front of the coat. Sewing on the trim was very time-consuming, the buttons far less so, but for obvious reasons. I'm quite pleased with the way it is looking. At the moment I have two buttons left to attach... and I'm considering whether or not to add a fifth row of trim... right now I'm kind of leaning towards not, because of how long it will take and if I don't that means there will be more buttons left to use on the cuffs. The latter reason is why I'm really leaning towards capping the trim rows at four... I swear.

And a preview picture:

(I took it on my laptop under a very strong light, so yes, it's a pretty bad picture, but it gives an idea.)

Pirate Palooza?

Okay, so I'm running out of clever names for these entries. Annyway, I accomplished quite a bit of costume work this weekend.

On Saturday we made a trip back down to Chinatown and I picked up the fans and parasols for the daughters. I also picked up material for my cuffs. I went to the Fabricland by my house first, but I was so depressed by their selection of black fabrics that I could not commit to any of them. After that we went to the Fabricland where I originally bought the fabrics for the Pirate King coat - and lo and behold they still have the same black fabric I purchased the first time around.

I also did some more work on the coat. I cut out and attached the sleeves to both the top and lining layers of the coat. Everything worked out fairly well. Next I need to hand sew down some trim to the front of the coat and add the buttons. After that I'll attach the lining to the top layer, make the cuffs... and it'll be done!

Sunday was a little more cosplay-centric. Well, first of all I was able to pick up the last straw hat bases I need to use for the main daughter hats. One of them doesn't even need decorating... it's pretty covered in lace and ribbons... so much the better, I guess. As for cosplay... I was able to pick up some supplies for my Franziska costume. First I picked up a riding crop from a local equestrian supplies store... I didn't know there was a local equestrian supplies store, but hey! what do I know! Hehe. It was under $7, also very surprising considering it is a real crop. It's burgundy and black, however, which is a little bit of a down side. I'm considering spray painting it, as it should be brown, but it may not really be that big of a deal.

Afterwards, I went to the mall in search of white leggings. I was originally planning to get white tights from Ardene (currently selling tights for about $5 or 3/$10), but that didn't really pan out. Once I got there the tights were waaay too see-through. It wouldn't be such a big deal if I wasn't planning to wear them as pants.... Following this I decided to make the most of the trip and check out the rest of the mall for white pants and/or tights. Eventually I found a pair of white skinny pants. They were quite a deal more expensive than I would have liked... but they are in fact pants and they work much better than the tights ever would have. Despite the price, I'm very excited.

A Belated Update

Tuesday was a pretty intensely crazy day, I have to say. I did manage to get quite a lot done on the Pirate King coat, despite the craziness of life. Heh. I started by disassembling the mock-up, to use as a sort of interlining. The body of the coat, including side skirt inserts, were then cut out of the top fabric and lining fabric and assembled. The lining hasn't been attached to the outside of the coat yet, because I haven't yet started work on the sleeves.

The one down side is that I ran out of the fabric I was originally intending to use for the cuffs and pocket flaps. The reason this happened is because when I bought the fabric I had not yet decided to put in the contrasting side skirt sections, it was a design element that came to me after I'd found the perfect fabric. I am going to have enough fabric for the pocket flaps, and they are going to be very fun and decorative! I'm excited about those. But there isn't going to be enough left for cuffs. I'll have to go and pick some more fabric for those cuffs this weekend so that I can finish it all up by the beginning of next week. I probably won't be able to find the exact same black fabric, but that's alright, if I find something more plush that would be equally fabulous.

ETA:
Made the pocket flaps. They were a little more challenging to make than I expected them to be... sewing black fabric with black thread, trying to make out the fabric design through the wrong side... er... not easy, not fun. I think they'll look really good from far away, even if they don't look perfect up close. Heh. But I'll still try to fix them up a little.

More Pirates

Last Thursday I finished two of three medals for the Major General, one of the frilly hats for the daughters, and added a cuff to the coat mock-up. I don't really like the cuff though, and I've come up with a different design that I'm going to make up when I do the final coat. Then took a little bit of a break over the weekend on costumes for a weekend getaway. Very nice.

Today we had a lunch meeting at the school to get a few more measurements and to test out the mock-ups. The Pirate King fits the kid very well... even better than I expected it to, so I'm very, very happy about that. There is a little tightness under the arms, so I'm going to just shave off a bit from the armscye and take in the shoulder a little... I knew when I finished the body block that his shoulders couldn't be that broad. Sigh. But minor details.

The hat for the Pirate King on the other hand, is too small. I don't even want to think about what I'm going to do right now, probably trim down the brim and make a tricorn for one of the other main pirates. I'll worry about that after I finish the coat.

And as soon as the coat is finished I should be in a position to get back to work on my ballgown. Huzzah!

Fun with Feathers!

Today was spent working on Pirates of Penzance costumes. Overall, it was fairly productive.

We dyed the ostrich feathers for the Pirate King's hat and Ruth's hat. I decided to go with yellow of the Pirate King. Ruth's feather is a very interesting (though slightly desaturated) mix of yellow, orange and red. It's very cool, I think. For the yellow feather we used tumeric, which worked out fairly well, though it didn't give as much colour as I expected it too. I expected it would produce a slightly more golden yellow, but what I have is nice, so I'm not complaining. Ruth's feather was dyed using Tropical Punch kool-aid and a little bit of tumeric thrown in for the hell of it. Heh. It was a sciencey experimenty day, obviously.

The flower headband spares are all completed. I put pink flowers on one of the hats for the main daughters, but I'd like to add some more frills and ribbon, which will have to wait until tomorrow. I'm also going to put together some medals for the Major General... which reminds me... I want to paint some buttons tonight for those! Heh.

The mock-up of the Pirate King coat is finished now. Today I finished sewing all the pieces together, made the skirt inserts and put together a sleeve. It's a slightly gathered sleeve, which looks a little stupid on me, but that's because my shoulder is too narrow, so it sticks out oddly. I still need to add a cuff, but that'll be quick and done tomorrow. I'm trying also to decide if I want to add a slit up the back of the coat. I think I'm going to wait and see how it flows on the actor before I can make the call though.

And that's about all. Not bad for a day.

Ahoy!

Decided to do some more PoP work today. I wasn't quite ready to go back to the sleeve pattern drafting, so I decided to do some work on the Pirate King's hat instead.

When I was making the costume design, I thought that the Pirate King needs something a little bit atypical. I decided to give the Pirate King a cavalier style hat, instead of a tricorn. The tricorn is a staple, obviously, but a lot of the other main pirates (main is relative here, of course, in comparison to the Pirate King) are going to have tricorns, and he should really have something to make him stand out from the pack! A cavalier hat will take up more physical space, has more options for flamboyant accessorizing, and will attract more attention. That's my rational anyway. The director said she liked it, so I'm clinging to that as well.

I decided to make it out of brown vinyl. The coat design I've planned has a lot of black, so I wanted it to still be a realistic leather-looking piece, but not to overbalance the amount of black already present. It will not compete, however, with the black I think, because of the tie-in to similar colour tone of the gold. Again... that's my rational anyway.

At this point the hat is mostly assembled. I still have to the finish off the edges of the brim, and then attach the brim up, creating that cavalier look. I think it will also need a black band of some sort... or maybe even gold? To break up the brown, which is very intense block of colour.

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Anyway, so far the hat is going well, perhaps even better than I expected! Hurrah.

Accessories! Accessories!

I was out and about again today, in search of specific items for PoP costumes. Found the ribbon I needed for those unfinished nightcaps -- they're all finished now. Yay! I also found ostrich plumes for Ruth and the Pirate King's hats. They're nice and huge.

Also, still fresh from setting my cosplay list for the upcoming months I popped into a nearby Danier and found a pair of black gloves (Yay for winter sales!) for the Franziska Von Karma cosplay.

Fun times are ahead!

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And I realized I haven't posted a picture of Franziska, so here we go, to keep this blog nice and colourful, picturific fun. Yay!