A few weeks ago (in May) I decided to attend the Madman Anime Convention in Brisbane. Cancelled plans meant that I could actually go, and of course that meant that I wanted a new costume. Enter a frantic week of sewing, because yes I made this decision late on the Friday night a week out. I dug myself out of bed on Saturday and headed straight for my fabric stash. I had chosen to do an outfit of Sailor Venus (a casual one).
My fabric stash proved on point and I was able to pull out five pieces of fabric perfect for my plans. I needed to get together a t-shirt, a tank top, a skirt, a petticoat, necklace, hairbow and wig. I started by drafting up my patterns. Thankfully these were all simple pieces so didn’t require a whole lot of technical challenge. I started with the t-shirt and cut into my stash of white cotton lycra. Of course the first t-shirt I made has the wrong neckline, so I quickly fixed my pattern and cut out another one (to be later sewn on Monday evening after work).
I then stitched my skirt and petticoat. It wasn’t until I was almost done and I tried it on that I remembered the skirts might be too long, so I hacked off what wasn’t needed and rehemmed them, leaving the waistband hand-sewing and closures to later. I generally try to focus on getting my machine sewing done on the weekends. I then made the tank top (twice, because the first one didn’t fit right). I’m still not happy with the tank top and am planning to re-make it, but it just goes to prove that you really should spend the time doing a mock-up. The final piece to make was the hairbow. I cut up some pieces of red linen and made the pieces, adding some wadding into the top part of the bow to keep it structured.
Unfortunately I had to work on the Sunday, so it was a lost day for sewing. But in the end I managed to scrape it all together in time. And thankfully my wig was a previous cosplay wig restyled. I’m rather pleased with how the costume came together and it just proved to me that when I put my mind to it, I can get this stuff done in no time. (Doesn’t mean that I have started on the next project though).
