Touchdown costume - Part 3, a trim story.

I got this far:



And then I stopped. I had this lovely trim:



Upon closer inspection it was even more wonderful than I thought:



See that!? See how the little metal parts of the trim coodinate with the medallions that I already have on the costume?? But I only had a couple yards of the trim and that's not acceptable. And I can't get any more. So I went to work with the scissors:



Perfection! I have since sewn some silver coins on, and have started with these teeny little mini-medallions. But I don't have pictures yet, so you'll have to be patient. I am very excited about this costume, can't wait to get my dance on in it!

Touchdown Costume - Part 2

Finally finished the never-ending black braid. The whole thing is trimmed and starting to look like something I might actually wear. I used just over six yards of trim, but my fingers feel like it's been about 20 miles.





Now the real fun part. This is where my brain gets to let go of the more technical thinking and let the design part go wild. I have small box of bits and parts to start with, but there will be more.



I started by adding the center piece to the top, I like to start symmetrical and build from there, so the middle is a good place to begin. Then I added medallions along the tops of each cup. I am now in the process of doing the same to the belt.





And! If I had panned a little to the right in a few of the above pictures, you would have seen this:



It is my Christmas present from my amazing, wonderful, magical boyfriend. Yaaaaaaay! I can. not. wait. Oh man. It's beautiful.

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.