C2E2 - Friday Costume Report

Costume extravaganza! This is only a tiny smattering of all the amazing cosplayers at C2E2...

My friend Jason as Tony Stark

Myself (Lorna Dane/Polaris) with an awesome Captain Marvel!

Impressive Nova Costume (thanks Matt for the ID!)

Jason with Lady Deadpool and She-Hulk

Classic Batman Group

There were SO MANY Doctor Who cosplayers! This was the only Oswin I found though!

Rockin' Star Wars peeps

Snazzy My Little Pony group!

J. Jonah Jamison!

Peter Parker! (he asked to take my picture first!)

Terrific Spike cosplay!

Tony Stark and Tony Stark

Me with my friend Mazzie as Rogue! (love her costume!)

Alicia and Mazzie with a Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch.

See more photos and a detailed write-up of the day over at my personal blog!

Cosplay Interview - Meg

I'm friends with a lot of people who love to pull together amazing cosplays. Every now and then I get to interview one of them... this time it's my friend Meg, who pulled together a simple but very effective Amy Pond cosplay that I'm in love with!

E: So, how did you decide to cosplay Amy Pond, and what made you pick this particular costume?

M: Well, I always really loved Amy. She's Scottish. I'm Scottish. She has red hair. I have red hair. She loves wearing nail polish, I love wearing nail polish.....she's a huge flirt, I'M a huge flirt! And she gets Rory.....and let's face it. Rory's like the coolest guy ever. Who WOULDN'T want him for a hubbie?! The only problem I was faced with was that as much as I loved her, Amy's outfits weren't exactly my style....ESPECIALLY those skirts! Whoo! Way too short for me, thanks! That's why I was SO EXCITED when I watched 'Dinosaurs on a Spaceship' because FINALLY there was a costume that I wanted to do that was fun, and modest. That's why, when I found that amazing sweater in Forever 21, I went: YES! AMY! I can do Amy! And kinda went from there with getting the wig and the nail polish and stuff.

E: Where did you get the pieces for your costume? Any place you'd recommend for hard to find items?

M: As mentioned above, I found the sweater at Forever 21. The jeans were just normal skinny jeans you'd get anywhere.......my wig I got at arda-wigs.com It was the 'Ferrari' wig in the 'dark copper red' colour. It was about 35 dollars....and then the nail polish I got at target. Same with the shoes.


E: What sort of reactions did you get at the con? Any funny stories?

M: Hahahaha.........everyone loved my Amy! I was the only Amy from that episode, so that was pretty great. I went with a group. There was me, my friend Andy went as The Doctor (11, of course!) and my friend Jenna went as Idris/Sexy. She got a BUNCH of reactions from fans!

E: How 'in character' are you?

M: Ha, I wish I could be more Amy-ish...but my Scottish accent is horrible!

E: Have you cosplayed before? Tell us about that.

M: Yes. I have cosplayed before...for midnight showings of movies and at Detour last year. It's so much fun. I love dressing up. I think that's the theatre major in me! I love doing unique characters/costumes that not many people see. For instance, last year at Con I was The Painted Lady/Katara from Season 3 of 'Avatar: The Last Airbender' and I was the ONLY one......I felt super awesome and special and got a LOT of picture requests. It was awesome!

E: What is your next cosplay adventure going to be?

M: My next? Oooh.......well, I'm planning on trying to do a Ms. Marvel costume based off your re-design drawing for CONvergence in July. I'm also planning on repeating Amy (and Wendy from Gravity Falls!) and I hopefully might be doing (a more modest version!) Irene Adler from Sherlock.....or possibly Merlin......I've got a few ideas!

Thanks for sharing, Megs! I'm really looking forwards to seeing that Ms. Marvel cosplay... let me know if you need any help!

Stay tuned for more awesome cosplay as I report live from C2E2 in Chicago this weekend!

Storm's Make-Over for X-Men: Days of Future Past

While I have my reservations about this film (plotwise), I have to say I am liking the redesign they're giving Halle Berry's Storm. It's closer to her comic costume, while still remaining believably functional on screen. Below is our first look at it, as tweeted by director Bryan Singer today.

For contrast, this is the costume Storm has sported in the comics for the past several years.

Things Beginners Want to Know: Part 1 (or SPG Rabbit Vest Questions)

Hello Anonymous! I don't know if you are still following this blog, but I've held off on answering your questions because I felt they deserved a proper post.

on SPG Rabbit Vest - Part 2, by Anonymous on 3/31/13 i'm still very new to the sewing business. did you make two copies of everything? like, a layer for the inside and the outside? how did you piece them together?
oh, and another question i had was how did you connect the red trimming without showing seams? thank you!

Yes, Anon, the inner layer is called the 'lining' and covers the raw edges of the outer layer and gives the whole garment a more finished look and stability. I also used a third layer of a stiff white material called interfacing to add further stability (always an issue when doing buttons).

The red trimming is called "bias binding" and was sewn right sides together on the outside, then folded over and stitched in place with invisible stitches on the inside.

Since my blog is more for advanced sewing, I linked each of the terms to a website/blog that has a good informative post/entry on the subject that I think will help you. I also recommend taking a look at This Book as a inclusive way to learn everything you need to know to begin sewing.

The Postage Part of being a Seamstress

So a couple of weeks ago my boyfriend surprised me with a postage scale, so that I could print out postage at home without having to go to the post office every week! I've had so many 'rush' orders to catch up with the delay caused by the migraines that I've had to take the last few packages to the post office to make sure they'd arrive on time. So today was the first day I had something non-urgent to ship and the time to figure out how to make this 'printing postage at home' thing work.

At first I was kind of confused, because I just wanted to send a manila envelope first class... and the USPS website would only let me send a priority mail package! Annoying! And their website said that if I wanted to print less than this, I'd have to get a Stamps.com subscription... $16 a month? No thank you!

But then I turned to my friend "Google" and found out that if you have a paypal account you can print first class postage there at no extra charge! And of course I am an avid paypal user with all these costume commissions...

So now we find out if I did everything properly. The only concern I have is if the postage gets wet and the ink runs... I'm not sure how stable it is. Does it work better if you print directly onto a label? Guess I'll have to get some of those, then...

What's Happening in the Sewing Room?

Wow. You would not believe how much sewing has been happening here in the last week. With the help of my assistant and my sister we got Belle Blue #4 done and shipped, and the Padme Wedding Gown veil and underdress shipped (see my facebook for sneak peeks of both!). The overdress is still under construction, which is okay because the underdress is the alteration-possible piece.

I think my longest day clocked in at 10 hours, and most of that was handsewing beads and battenburg lace. Wow. I literally had trouble holding my pointer finger straight after that. Understandable, then, that I didn't sew yesterday and instead caught up on all of my knitting and crochet projects. (I knit, crochet and quilt for fun.)

Upcoming? Finishing Captain America (he kindly allowed me an extended deadline so I could get the wedding dress done), creating a Homestuck Cosplay (it's going to be nifty!) and making Red's cloak from OUAT. Then there are some more OUAT and Star Wars pieces to do...

...not to mention my very own costume to make for C2E2! Lorna Dane's latest X-Factor uniform! (Complete with green wig!)

Anyhow, next week is the Daffodil Dash at JoAnn Fabrics, so you can trust I'll be taking advantage of that!

Preview of a Wedding Veil and Something About Beads?

See these beads? These are why I have not posted recently. I've been spending every working moment stitching them onto this replica of Padme Amidala's wedding veil...

Full Photo Diary coming next week!