Afternoon in Fabric, a photostory.

Today was something of a reconnaissance mission. I've lost 9 pounds since I started this fun, but still have 6-11 to my goal weight. I'm having visible changes now, and need to buy all new pants. Sigh. But while I can't start patterning or cutting fabric quite yet, it does give me time to research what fabric I want to use for the costume.

If you scroll down and stare at Haruhi's costume, you'll see I've got several different kinds of fabric I need to work with, and I need the colors (shades of black, mostly) to be friendly with each other.

There's the bra part of the top, which is white and needs to be gathered top and bottom and be able to have little buttonholes where the black rope will pass through in the top. I'm thinking white suiting for this, and basing it all on a white bra I need to buy but again can't until I'm the right size and all.

There's the base black fabric for the top and the part of the skirt which is not a ruffle. I think these should be the same fabric to sync the two pieces together. I was thinking of thick swimsuit fabric--slick and with a bit of stretch--for the skirt but I realized I don't want that much stretch in the top--I need to get that to fit right and stay put. I want a little 2-way stretch, but I don't want to play with much I found this today, but it was WAY too stretchy...

I may end up just using black suiting for these portions...it's thick and 8$/yard, has a bit of stretch and irons like a dream. We'll see.

I knew what I wanted to use as the top fluffy transparent layer for the skirt, and that's smoky chiffon. I'd like to find one that's brown/black but smoky seems to be what's available. I found this but wasn't sure how much I needed. I just get a foot for my sewing machine last week that finishes chiffon and other things nice and neatly which I'm kind of exciting about getting to break out when the time comes.
Snap, I lied, this is organza. But I'll probably end up with chiffon.


I'm torn on the big ruffly part of the skirt. I looked at duchess satin, (more structured but heavier) and taffeta (lighter and stiff, but too light? would it look silly?) but couldn't pick one to be really good. I'm considering the possibility of doubling the taffeta, and putting a stichery row along the edge of the ruffles and running cord or wire through it to make the ends heavier and maybe sway when I walk....not sure.

I also found satin taffeta at another store, which looked pretty good:


this was a cheap black satin that was 50% off, but there wasn't enough to get to play with. For 3.50/yrd I'd just like to have seen how it did, you know?


in the end I bought 10 yrds of the cheapest muslin I could find and will be playing with draping that on my dress form when I can get the right dimensions on it. I'll take pictures of that amateur hilarity when it happens.

So, the other part of the costume which I've been thinking about is the belt. It looks like an impossibly wide belt that will probably need to be in 2 pieces and glued together to get the angles right. It's got two layers, a gunmetal gray or silver layer on the bottom and a slightly smaller black layer on top that has diamond cut-outs every few inches along the middle. Those are going to be a bitch.

I looked at 2 helpful things today, a thick cord thing that vinyl in the right colors cold be wrapped around, and a thick silver belt-looking thing that is probably too thin, but looks really cool.



The last thing I found may actually be super cool. I found it in the fabric store closest to me which is awesome, but there were a million people in the store and didn't want to deal with it twice (once for the muslin before I found this.)
One of the things that worried me was that on the top there's black that goes up in between her boobs. What the hell is that? How does it attach?
So what I fould was a black velvet...tube. I'm thinking of ransacking an old bra for the underwire, sliding the underwire through the velvet tube, and then hand-sewing it to the top.
Should I mention now how very VERY bad I am at hand-sewing? well, it's all a learning process.


So that's what I've been up to. I'm also working on the guitar, but there's a thing in the works that will very probably fall through but would be super-awesome dance around crazy good.
That's why it probably won't happen.

~Raiphin

Rock Star(t) Haruhi

So you get to come with me through my next big project, which I'll try to write about as it's in progress and not just at the end. There may be a lot of swearing.

So as I mentioned, for Sakuracon 2010, my big new costume will be Rock Star Haruhi:


I'm starting now for several reasons. The first is that I'm working on losing 10 to 15lbs for this costume. It's the first midrif-baring costume I've worn since Black Rose which was a BAD decision at the time. I want to do this RIGHT and that means flatter tummy that jiggles less.

It also means I have to lose the weight, make the costume, and then STAY that weight for at least as long as I want to wear the costume. Sounds easy, right?

I'm in the losing-weight part right now, in addition to gathering supplies and searching for the right guitar componants. The guitar is an Italia Mondial Classic and she uses both a red version and one called "Tobacco Sunburst." They look pretty much like this:


Only, y'know, red and/or brownish black. The problem? That's a $600+ guitar there. For the record, I cannot play the guitar. So that's good! It means I lose nothing by having a guitar that doesn't actually play. Which is good since I think I'm going to jimmy the hell out of the thing anyway.
My plan right now is to buy a guitar neck that has that shiny inlay (or something that mimics it, like reflective tape maybe...?) and attach it to a guitar body. Now, I've discovered that NO OTHER MAKERS have that exact style of body, but some look like this:



Now, that pink one instead of having two horns, one on each side, has the complete curve o the left side. BUT I've got friends with powertools, and I'm thinking we could just slice on through that bit (carefully) and get something about the right shape. Guitars are mostly made of wood because that's the only thing that can withstand the stress of the strings, so I know more or less what I'll be working with. I'll talk about that more when I have the actual guitar to work with.

More on skirts and fabric and belt options later!
~Raiphin