Touchdown Costume - Part 1

I have been meaning to make a costume out of this fabric for at least 2 years. I finally decided to do it. It will make a fabulous renfest costume, and I think I'll be able to use it for most of my more fusion-y pieces. With different skirt/pant/accessory combos it should work for the Balkan music that I have fallen in love with and the "steampunk" choreography that I learned at GLBC.

On to the creativity!!

So when I started making this I didn't have this blog, so I didn't take pictures of the very beginning. I bought some molded foam bra cups from Joanns and cut up a pair of Firefighter's old jeans to make the base for the rest of it. I cut out my pieces and covered them in the fabric.





Then the hardest part of the whole process...making a dance top that doesn't make the tatas look really weird. It's a science and requires a lot of trying on despite the risk of death by pin sticks. Once I got everything figured out I sewed it all together into a top that I am pretty satisfied with.





Now that I have that figured out the fun part begins, embellishing. I'm starting by trimming the whole shebang in black braid. I may have lied two sentences ago when I said this was the fun part. This part sucks ass. The fun part happens after the trimming when I get to put coins and medallions and shiny things on the costume. This part sucks because I don't have a sewing machine at the moment, so every single stitch on this bad boy has been done with my poor little fingers. I'm almost sure this costume (like most of the things I make) will be composed of 27% blood and swear words. But that's also part of what makes a handmade costume wonderful.

I love it already.